Romanian Florin Chireata was meant to be showing a trainee haulier how to do the job but kept taking his eyes off the road
A TRUCKER was filmed by an apprentice driving at up to 50mph while using two mobile phones and making a 30-minute Skype call to his mum.
Romanian Florin Chireata was meant to be showing a trainee haulier how to do the job.
Instead he repeatedly took his eyes off busy roads as he drove his 18-tonne lorry from West London to Essex. He scoffed sandwiches and chocolate bars behind the wheel too.
The Sun was shown the terrifying footage after the apprentice felt fobbed off by bosses when he complained.
Last night haulage giants Kuehne & Nagel launched an urgent probe.
The whistleblower, said: “He didn’t even notice what I was doing. He was so engrossed he failed to see the chap sitting next to him was actually filming him.”
The video emerged just months after Polish driver Tomasz Kroker killed a mum and three kids in a smash as he used his phone on the A34 in Newbury, Berks.
The 32-year-old apprentice, who also works as an emergency medical technician for a private firm, said he had spoken to paramedics who rushed to the horror scene.
He added: “To be honest, if I had attended that I just don’t think I could carry on. Driving around not paying attention can cause devastation.”
Chireata, in his early 30s, set off from Greenford at 5am on January 25.
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The trainee, who asked not to be named, said: “We’re given five shifts with experienced drivers so they show us how things are done.
“But almost as soon as we left his mobile phones out, texting, making calls. “I asked him to stop twice, but he looked at me and shrugged as though he couldn’t understand me, although I’d heard him using relatively good English earlier.
“So I took some videos and photos. It was overcast and drizzling and the road conditions weren’t particularly brilliant.
"I was frightened. I was nervous to the point of being a hair’s breadth away from getting out and walking away.
“He was driving an 18-tonne truck loaded with pub supplies — machinery, food, drinks — and they don’t stop on a sixpence.”
One clip shows the trucker using two phones at the wheel. In another he has a sandwich in one hand and a phone in the other.
After returning to the depot shortly after 2pm, the trainee reported the driver to a supervisor. The apprentice claimed:
“He took a statement and copies of my evidence, but didn’t seem impressed.
“I was later told the driver was suspended, but I went to the depot on Friday and saw him signing on for a shift.”
Yesterday pals at Chireata’s Wembley home pals claimed he was on holiday in Romania and there was no way of contacting him.
But his wife insisted: “He has been a driver in Europe for five years and never had an accident.”
Current laws mean a trucker can be fined up to £2,500 and given three points for using a phone. In March that will be six points.
But Gary Rae, of road safety charity Brake, said: “It The new law doesn’t go far enough. It’s time to crackdown on this selfish, illegal and dangerous behaviour.”
DAD Mark Goldsmith, who saw his 11-year-old daughter killed by an HGV driver last year, said of Chireata: “If he’d do that again, I’d kill him.”
Mark’s car was hit by Tomasz Kroker who was playing with his phone in Newbury, Berks.
It shunted a Corsa containing Mark’s daughter and three other family members, killing them all.
