Archive for December, 2009
The white van man – the game
Posted by sarah in Courier Blog, Courier Shop Admin, Driving, Fleet Information on December 16, 2009
New game from Y8, they have come up with a game playing the stereotypical white van man driver.
The object of this simple game is to ram the other cars off of the road and complete the course… of course 
What do you think? Will it catch on?
Nothing new under the sun part two: White van advertising
Posted by sarah in Courier Blog, Driving, Get More Customers on December 8, 2009
I was surprised to see this, this morning.
LONDON – “White Van Man” is set to become the latest ad medium with the launch of a media service offering to display posters on the backs of white vans across the UK- Source: Campaign Live
It was only last week a business was proclaiming their tech would tame white van man, tech that has been available and used for quite some time 
. Indeed nothing new under the sun.
Upon closer examination this looks like a cracking idea, extra revenue for the owners of white vans (and as I own several, I know they are not cheap to run or maintain) as well as extra visibility for the advertiser. The downside are despite looking around the site of Posters in Transit, I can’t see what the policy on advertisers who are your direct competition. For example do couriers wish to advertise rival companies? Can you select who you promote?
What happens as a courier when you collect a job from a customer for them to see you are branded with their competitors products…
As many of us undertake ‘ad hoc’ work, we may not be able to specify our routes and journeys enough to qualify for decent paying advertisers. We will lose a days work as you can bet your life the van wrapping team only work 9-5pm Monday to Friday. Also additional work in the respect that we would have to notify our insurers that we are now carrying advertising on the vehicles.
Whilst van advertising is nothing new, this campaign does seem more prominent. It also seems suited to companies that use their own delivery vans rather than couriers. Couriers do far more miles but there are things like client confidentiality agreements, secure deliveries and high value deliveries that all require us to blend into the background – something that the advertising won’t allow us to do.
Sarah
Sarah Arrow can be contacted via sales@thecouriershop.co.uk
White van man allegedly tamed…
Posted by sarah in Courier Blog, Courier Shop Admin, Courier World, Driving, Fleet Information, Legal/Accident Advice on December 2, 2009
Well it seems like there really is nothing new under the sun, as vehicle satellite tracking has been rebranded as the tool to tame white van man. The ‘new’ product is called “Driver DNA” and tracks the driving of a vehicle and shows harsh braking patterns and agressive driving patterns, again all things that are shown in real time with satellite tracking. A system we use goes as far as ‘geo-fencing’ postcodes and emailing alerts when vehicles reach a certain area or postcode or breaks the speed limit. It can tell you when the vehicle is turned on, whether it’s idling – just about anything you could want to know and quite a few things you wouldn’t want to know as well.
Couriers have long used Tom Tom fleet systems and products such as Journeeze to manage their fuel consumption and where their vehicles are. Fuel is the biggest expenditure where white van man are concerned and monitoring closely is something they do. As any good fleet manager would tell you, monitoring fuel consumption is an early highlighter of vehicle faults and all vehicles are checked on a daily or weekly basis as per transport regulations, with records that prove the action has taken place.
Driver DNA hardly seems original, any good tracking system will do the same as it does and has several years heritage as well. It’s disappointing that once again white van man is blamed for co2 emissions and bad driving. Obviously the makers have never seen or drove near school run mum, who drives erratically without thought for anyone else on the road just delivering her kids to the school, reversing without using her mirrors, signaling one way then going the other. Now you know why most accidents happen close to schools. Instead of inventing the double seatbelt to combat School Run Mum, the creators of Driver DNA have just decided to reinvent the wheel with no thought to what products already do the job, that already solving the problem they proclaim exists.
2/10 for effort, must try harder is this white van womans report, you are three years behind the times.
Sarah
Would you add an 83ft lorry to your fleet?
Posted by sarah in Courier Blog, Courier World, Driving on December 1, 2009
What if the lorry would replace three other lorries and reduce carbon emissions? Denby Transport have been working on the lorry for some years now and have managed to make the centre wheels steerable.
A “superlorry” that is nearly 30ft (nearly 9m) longer than normal could be coming to Britain’s roads.
The longer, heavier vehicle is 25.25m (83ft) long. In comparison, a normal articulated lorry is 16.5m (54ft) long and a “bendy-bus” is 18m (59ft).
The owner, Denby Transport, wants to bring it to Britain’s roads because it says that for lightweight goods such as cereals and aluminium cans, conventional lorries run out of space before they run out of weight.
This new lorry would be able to take more of these goods, even though it would still have to respect the UK weight limit of 44 tonnes.
Denby says two of these new lorries could replace three existing trucks.
It argues that fewer lorries on the roads would mean fewer accidents and less CO2 emissions Source: BBC News
It appears that Denby have invested considerable time and money in producing a rig that can steer and haul two trailers instead of one. The Uk Government are saying it’s illegal, and their concerns centre around the vehicle breaking down and towing two trailers, but surely each trailer could be towed individually?
This would make a superb trunking vehicle for a lot of parcel carriers and I would have thought that they would be throwing their weight behind Denby Transport.
Good luck Dick Denby and team, the prototype looks good and that’s been improved since you filmed the clip 3 years ago, just stick to the motorways…
What do you think? Would you buy one for your fleet?
Sarah
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