Exhausted delivery drivers could pose a road safety risk over the next few weeks as thousands of staff are urged to work up to 20 days in a row to cope with the rush of online orders around Black Friday.

Government safety inspectors have been called on to investigate the possible danger from delivery drivers who work six days a week and have been asked if they are also willing to work Sundays.

Labour MP Frank Field, the chair of the work and pensions select committee, asked the Health and Safety Executive to investigate after Hermes, which delivers parcels for retailers including John Lewis and Next, made the request to about 5,000 couriers. If they agree, some could work 20 days without a break starting from Monday. Black Friday is on 25 November.

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Field asked the HSE “to ensure the company’s actions do not put the safety of its couriers as well as road users at risk” and warned of “a risk of tiredness ... towards the end of the 20-day stretch”. The HSE said it was considering his request.

Hermes said Sunday work is “completely optional”, but some couriers said they felt under pressure to agree and warned that exhaustion could cause them to fall asleep at the wheel or drive dangerously.

Delivery drivers are being pushed more than ever to get parcels out to homes as the UK shapes up for the discount shopping day, which is set to have the most online sales of any Black Friday to date.



Britons are expected to spend £2.9bn over the four days from Friday 25 November, 38% more than on Black Friday weekend last year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the majority of additional transactions will be made online.

Online retail association IMRG is predicting a 12% increase in the volume of parcels going through the online system compared with 2015, with the vast majority of those delivered to homes rather than bought in stores.

Meanwhile, the number of visitors to Britain’s high streets is expected to fall by nearly 5% and shopping centres are set for a 3.7% drop, according to analysts at Springboard. Only retail parks will see additional visitors, it said, with numbers predicted to be up by 1.7% over the weekend as shoppers pick up items they have bought online.

One courier in the north-west said he almost fell asleep at his steering wheel when he worked non-stop for three weeks during last year’s Black Friday rush.

“It is dangerous,” he said. “One Friday, after I’d worked two Sundays, I pretty much fell asleep and had to pull over. I have said to my field manager that I don’t want to [do it again] because it is dangerous and the reply I got was ‘you need to find cover or you might end up losing a round’. I can’t afford to lose a round ... We end up in a position where we almost aren’t given the option to say no.”

Hermes is expecting to deliver 750,000 parcels on the Sunday after Black Friday. It is offering a £40 bonus for couriers who work Sunday 27 November and Sunday 4 December to help cope with “unprecedented volumes”.

One Hermes courier in the east Midlands, who already works six days a week, said: “They are requiring us, if we can’t get cover, to do the Sundays because they threaten to take our rounds off us. I am very concerned about safety.

“Some of us work at night before we do our jobs for Hermes and a lot of us are shattered. We are making mistakes and we aren’t putting our seatbelts on because we are jumping in and out of the car all the time, or we forget to put the handbrake on.”

In a statement, Hermes said: “The average courier round takes up to six hours. As a result, we do not believe that if couriers choose to work on those Sundays there will be any safety risks.

“Any threats made to couriers by field managers suggesting work may be removed if they do not work or find cover are completely unacceptable, and not in line with our policies and company code of conduct. If any field manager is found to have made threats of this nature, we will act swiftly and accordingly.”

Mark Cartwright, the head of vans at the Freight Transport Association, said: “The delivery industries must ensure their drivers and vehicles are safe and roadworthy.

“The pressure to perform increases greatly at this time of the year with Black Friday and the Christmas peak, but that can never be an excuse to cut corners on standards by unrealistically increasing the number of parcels a driver is expected to deliver, or by the use of unregulated seasonal and casual staff.”

DPD, another delivery company that uses self-employed drivers and delivery personnel on Sundays, said some drivers worked six days a week for the peak six-week period leading up to Christmas, but they could choose which hours they worked. Up to two-thirds of drivers worked on a Sunday over the period, but their hours were within the legal limit and would be very light on other days, such as Fridays, when fewer parcels were delivered, the company said.

Courier company Yodel said: “Some Sunday delivery has been planned as contingency. If this is required, it is on a completely voluntary basis.”