Driver Advice

Riding shotgun, otherwise known as double-manning, can be a case of the good, the bad and the ugly… T&D investigates the ups and downs of two-up running

- Lucy Radley

Numerous double-manned vehicles are sent to our shores these days by foreign transport companies, and there can’t be many of us who haven’t wondered what it must be like sharing a cab 24/7 with another driver.

We’ve found five brave souls with experience to fill us in on the good, the bad and the ugly.

All shapes and sizes

Tommy Trent has double-manned across Europe in all sorts of vehicles in the past. “It was cramped,” he says. “Life wasn’t too bad in 18-tonne or artic cabs so long as you got on with your co-driver, but when you were double-manning a 7.5-tonner or van it was not good.”

Lack of storage meant any food or excess kit had to go in the trailer or load area, which was fine unless the load was sealed, meaning there was no access to it until the run was complete.

But it was the hours that were the real killer. “Duty time was 22 hours back then with an eight-hour daily rest and very often sleeping while your co-driver was at the wheel wasn’t possible,” Tommy tells us.

“Doing Spanish or Italian runs through summer in a bog-standard vehicle, trying to sleep in the daytime with 42°C heat, did make you wonder why you were doing the job!”

Tiredness meant things weren’t very safe, but drivers did get used to it to some degree.

“I think the main advantage was having someone to talk to, especially driving through the night on empty roads. Two sets of eyes are better than one, and one of us would be navigator, the other pilot – unless you got paired with a clueless newbie!”

No sense of direction

On one memorable van run Tommy’s second man turned up for the trip without any kit. “He knew he was going to Denmark but he didn’t even bring a pillow,” he recalls.