Busy, busy, busy....

Well, it's been a while since I wrote about roadkill, and I just seem to have been snowed under with driving work.

I don't suppose having to drive down to the home counties to visit my terminally ill mother makes things easier, but at least I haven't forgotten to write something on the blog!

I've actually had some great work recently. I much prefer the more technical driving of country deliveries, to the somewhat boring motorway to and fro, so as the spring has started in earnest, I've been delivering building insulation to some very out of the way businesses, and delivering frozen food to various freezer depots that are NOT on main motorways.

What has really rattled my cage is the serious lack of thought by traffic planners when it comes to road construction and hazard sign posting.

One of the trips I had to do was down to Croydon, and the builders merchant I needed to deliver to was in a yard, surrounded by low bridges. My trailer was 14'11", or about 4.6 meters. Now I was aware the bridges were low, and I had to drive through some very small residential streets to get to where I needed to go, but my sat nav was next to useless. That's what I mean by liking the "technical" element of truck driving, where you have to use your brain, or incur serious damage to your truck, your trailer, your ego and your income.





But another of my little trips was to a village in Hertfordshire called, Little Wymondly. There is one road through the village and it's narrow. at each end of this road is a dual carriageway.

If you try to enter the village from one direction there is a sign telling you that the bridge across the road is 14'3" high. No problem, I thought; "I'll just go round the other way..."

Problem is; when you try to enter the village from the other side, the sign tells you there's a low bridge blocking your way.

To most people who don't live in the village, it appears there are two low bridges, with the village in between the two. In a truck it's very difficult to drive up to a low bridge and then decide you have to turn round!

Why, oh why can't the traffic planners attach a sign saying the low bridge they're warning me about, is in x number of meters? Instead of putting signs up that indicate you can't drive any further?

Anger is never far away when you're driving a truck, and despite it being short lived, and anger being replaced with a sense of pride once you've solved the problem, it does remain one of those things that sticks in your mind as being the act of someone who hasn't really thought very far beyond the end of their nose. And they're probably earning a big fat pay packet and on a gold plated pension as well!

Muntjac Alley, or Roadkill City...

If you're driving to Norwich from anywhere south of Cambridge, you'll almost certainly travel up the A11.

Now surprisingly enough, in the year 2010, in one of the foremost economies of the world, there is still a section of two lane road connecting one of this countries major cities, (Norwich) with the rest of the country.

It is simply quite absurd and is a damning indictment of the total waste of time the last 12 years of Labour government has actually been.

Apart from the economic cost for the East Anglian area, this section of road between Barton Mills and Thetford, is a health hazard for everyone who travels on it.

As if the large quantities of heavy truck traffic, mixed with a liberal smattering of under experienced drivers, using under powered, light weight cars to pull over sized caravans, and a level of road user frustration verging on manic, were not bad enough, the most serious danger is the amount of wildlife wandering across this road. And especially so at night.


I have been traveling the A11 during the early hours of the morning for the past ten or so days, and most nights I see deer on the side of the road either contemplating when to cross, or simply grazing beside the road.

The consequences of quite a large mammal coming into contact with a 40-44 tonne truck traveling at 40 mph, are horrible to contemplate. Yet it seems there is little in the way of preventative measures to reduce the risk.


Imagine a truck meeting one of these deer in the road. The resulting impact not only destroys the steering, but also the balance of the truck and it veers into the path of a fully loaded coach with 50 passengers. Imagine the headlines in the paper the next day?

Here, as the time honoured expression explains, is a disaster waiting to happen. The image on the left here is one of a moose that has been hit by a car in Canada. You can clearly see what has happened to the moose. Not quite as clear is what happened to the car driver and any passengers!


Touch wood, I have never had any sort of contact with wildlife whilst driving a truck, despite seeing some quite horrendous accidents in Australia.

The image of the moose that has traveled "through" the car that hit it is one that I've seen quite a lot with kangaroos. And remember, a fully grown red kangaroo buck will stand nearly seven feet tall and weigh in the region of 240Kgs, or put another way, a quarter of a ton of scared, hurt muscle and bone, trying to get out of your car, as you're struggling to bring it to a halt, after a collision at 50 mph.... assuming you're still alive to try and do that.

I pray it never happens to me, but it just might on the A11 heading north to Norwich. Tell me who I should sue?

Found a pic of my first truck!

On the Hume Highway between Melbourne & Sydney!

In those days there was only a little dual carriageway at each end of the highway, i.e at Tullamarine at the Melbourne end, and from about Campbelltown at the Sydney end. In between was basically two lane road, with dirt edges. Now of course, they've built the M31 Hume Freeway all the way up to the Victorian border at Wodonga and a little way into NSW.

Oh, and at Gundagai there was a bridge built of wood, (see left & below) which had great big bolts that would pop up now and again and puncture your tyres.
This bridge crossed the Murrumbidgee river, which only flooded once in a blue moon. I can't ever remember seeing water under the bridge at Gundagai.

What I can remember was a fantastic Milk Bar in the main street at Gundagai. When you asked for burger with "the lot" it came about six inches high and two hands were not enough!

Then there was the famous Australian folk songs; "Along the road to Gundagai", and "Where the dog sits on the tucker box." There's a famous statue (see left) at Snake Gully, about five miles from Gundagai.

And "Little Harbor" (see the non wooden bridge below) just up the road from Gundagai. You can well see why it's called "Little Harbor" and I can recall approaching it from a couple of miles on the southern side, while I was heading for Sydney, and the IPEC MAN's were rocketing south from Sydney. You certainly didn't want to meet one of these on the Little Harbor bridge as they were doing between 60 and 70mph.

But those were the good old days!

New overtaking ban on the M11.

There has been some comment on what appears to be a new truck overtaking ban on the southbound M11 from Junction 9, and northbound from about 7 miles north of Junction 8.

For the record, being caught overtaking in a vehicle exceeding 7.5 tonnes, between 7:00am and 7:00pm is a fine and three points. In exceptional cases the police have the option to charge the offender with Dangerous Driving.

Now I like to get from A to B as quickly as possible, but my attitude is that I should do it within the law, even if I think the law is an ass!

So I'm very surprised to see trucks basically ignoring this law, (and on the longer no overtaking section on the A14 as well.)

As I wrote on the TruckNet Forum, I can't afford the three points on my licence and my professional pride at being caught driving illegally, would take a serious battering. But then, that's just me.

The litter pickers....

Another day humming along the A14 to Birmingham today, and at least it was absolutely stunning weather. Warm and sunny, and for some reason, very little traffic.

But, further to yesterday's post, I saw the litter pickers today!!!

Don't rubbish our roads!

One of the things that I can never quite get my head around is the amount of rubbish I see along the sides of our roads. It's obscene. Why do people feel they have to throw their rubbish out of their car (and truck) windows?

The problem seems worse during the winter when the leaves don't hide the almost grotesque number of plastic bags, bottles, cans and fag packets that seem to infest every roadside.

I was driving along the A14 again today and noticed a sign on the side of the road near the Kettering turn off. It said; "Litter picking in progress." This came as a surprise as that particular stretch has always been particularly blighted by litter, and my natural cynicism with regard to local councils, makes me thing that litter is generally pretty low on the list of priorities. So I took the time to actually look out for the "litter pickers."

Safe to say there wasn't a soul in sight for more than five miles. But what I did see were clean verges! It was blatantly obvious they had recently passed that way because the verges looked like verges rather than the usual rubbish tip decoration.

So this post is dedicated, with undying thanks, to Northamptonshire County Council for their sterling work in making at least a short stretch of the A14 a little more civilised, if only until the barbarians who prefer to rubbish our roads find out about it.

Of course, it's not only in the UK that litter bugs are prevalent, and maybe it's an Anglo Saxon thing, because the same things happens in Australia. I can remember when I was living over there, there was a Oz Government ad campaign that used the phrase; "Don't rubbish Australia." (That's where the post title came from.)

Now I see the Aussies have a new campaign, (see below) and this poster looks pretty good at pointing out the problem of using your country as a rubbish tip.



Now why can't our government do something similar? Maybe because all our highly paid MPs don't venture too far outside London, and certainly not by road, so it's a case of "out of sight, out of mind."

Shame on them. And shame on the pigs who think it's OK to rubbish the country I unfortunately have to share with them!

Slip road insanity.

Wherever I drive, and it doesn't matter if it's a dual carriageway or a motorway, I can guarantee that pretty much every day I will have to take evasive action to avoid an accident with a car using the slip road joining the road I'm on.

I know when it's going to happen because generally, the vehicle joining my road is either traveling at a slower speed, or at the same speed as the faster traffic - which in my case is around 50mph. I know it's going to happen because it's so bleedin' obvious that whoever's behind the wheel hasn't a clue about 44 tonne traffic coming up on their right hand side.

It's almost as if they expect to simply drive out into the traffic and be protected by some sort of all powerful traffic angel.

Traveling down the A47 south of Norwich recently, I had a guy who expected me to brake and let him in, instead of him accelerating and filtering in where there was space ahead or behind me.

Unfortunately I didn't have the luxury of moving over as there were vehicles already overtaking me. (Bear in mind I'm traveling at 50mph with 26 tonnes of freight, so a fully laden truck on a dual carriageway is not something you'd instantly want to argue with!)

So this guy simply continues to trundle along the ever diminishing slip road as I come alongside his driver's door. It takes a couple of seconds before he realises there's a truck next to him and he slams on the brakes. (Naturally with no thought for those behind him...)

When he does eventually drive out onto the A47 he's totally mad that I didn't just slam on my brakes and let him in, and intent on blaming me for his bad driving. He pulls alongside my truck and starts to move over in an attempt to cut me off! Talk about having a death wish!

Once again, when I didn't brake, and as it was his wife in the passenger seat who's face was getting closer to my spinning wheel nuts, he worked out that he was at a slight disadvantage. Eventually he drove off, never to be seen again.

But this isn't a rare occurrence. If I drive five days, I'd lay money on it happening on at least four of those days, and I can't quite work out why it's happening so often. It's not only women drivers and not just BMW's. It's not only new or old cars, and in fact it could be a van as often as a car.

Why do people have no idea how to join a faster road or motorway? Why are people so careless with not only their lives, but mine as well?

I was driving along the A14 today and in the space of ooh, 30 miles it happened at three consecutive slip roads!

Section 259 of the Highway Code deals specifically with joining a motorway. In fact here's what it says:

Joining the motorway. When you join the motorway you will normally approach it from a road on the left (a slip road) or from an adjoining motorway. You should

* give priority to traffic already on the motorway.
* check the traffic on the motorway and match your speed to fit safely into the traffic flow in the left-hand lane.
* not cross solid white lines that separate lanes or use the hard shoulder.
* stay on the slip road if it continues as an extra lane on the motorway.
* remain in the left-hand lane long enough to adjust to the speed of traffic before considering overtaking.

Seems pretty clear to me. Of course the alternative (see below) is something I dread happening, but unfortunately I expect it will sometime.

Burton Latimer on a Monday.

Today, Easter Monday saw me deliver 26 pallets of fruit juice to Morrisons DC at Burton Latimer on the A14.

I was surprised at how little traffic there was on the roads, and the trip was uneventful, and as a consequence pretty stress-free.

The only downside of the trip was that I had an 04 plate Iveco Stralis to drive.

Now I don't really consider myself "picky" but I do like a neat, well designed, ergonomically well thought out truck. After all, it's what I do for a living and I spend a great deal of my life behind a steering wheel.

Well forgive me, but this has to rank as one of the worst trucks I've ever driven.

True, it was a little underpowered. It was also not very well cared for. (A hire truck to fill in whilst work is booming!)

I have never seen such a confusing dash board, built with the cheapest plastics Iveco could find with the result that they were just hard and tacky. And despite what you might think, not very hard wearing either.


Here's a picture of a Stralis dash. And look at how "thrown together" it looks. There's hardly a smooth surface to be seen. And this is a clean one! It looks in pristine condition compared to the shitbox I had to drive today.

The seat was too close to the steering wheel and the tilt adjustment on it was broken, so it felt as if I was going to slide off it and onto my knees all the time. The lift axle switch had been pushed through by some over eager previous driver, who couldn't get the lift axle to actually lift. It wouldn't perform for me either.

There was simply no rhyme or reason for where the switches were located and the central "electrics" screen had so many flashing lights and incomprehensible labels, it looked as if it was trying to compete with Blackpool.

The cloth on the seat and bunk were seriously cheap, and the bunk itself was very narrow. And the hump over the engine didn't encourage moving about the cab....

There was nowhere to actually stow my documents, and the drinks holders, apart from being in the wrong place were too shallow to hold a paper coffee mug. And believe me, it's bad enough when your papers go sliding across the dash, but when a mug of hot coffee does the same thing, a.) it's not a pretty sight and b.) it seriously pisses me off!

Having spoken to a few other drivers (who normally drive the standard fleet issue of Mercs or Scania's, there's no one I can find with a good word to say about the Ivecos, although I understand the Italians love them.

Sorry Iveco, but how about getting the people who design your truck, to have some understanding of how trucks are used. Or better still, send them to ask Scania some questions. No wonder I hear they are virtually giving the damn things away at the moment. They may be cheap, but there certainly are NOT cheerful!

The best I can say is that it did the job. Just.

Would I buy one? Well put it this way; whilst I concede they do have a certain fussy appeal from the outside, if I never saw another Iveco Stralis ever again, it would be too soon!

Early start on Easter Sunday!

Whilst most people are still in bed on Easter Sunday, I will be up with the lark and picking up a truck to take a frozen load to Thurrock, in Essex.



Thurrock is about the last place you come to before you cross the Thames on the M25. It's right on the edge of the river and a pretty big transport and distribution hub. And I've got to go there twice on Sunday.

The image above is of chalk quarries at West Thurrock in the 1920's. There may well be a few truck drivers who recognise those chalk cliffs. They'll know that today, in 2010, those chalk cliffs overlook the massive Tesco distribution centre in Thurrock. The one where you drive under a railway bridge, and basically end up in what used to be the chalk quarry back before the war.

But enough of Tesco distribution centres. (Although most truckers hate them, I don't have any problems there.... apart from the fact it takes too long to tip your load; I normally enjoy a quick cat-nap once I've reversed onto my allotted dock.)

The point of this post was not actually Thurrock, or Tesco, or even Easter Sunday. It was the fact that I really enjoy driving on an early spring Sunday morning. There's very little traffic at that time, the air is crisp, often there's a few rays of sunshine to give everything a warm feel and as the early morning dew starts to burn off the fields, there's a slightly hazy look to the surrounding countryside.

It's one of those all too rare moments when I really love driving trucks.

Of course, it all turns to ratshit later in the day when the weekend drivers find their car keys, but for a brief moment in time, Early Sunday mornings are all mine and simply amazing.

So whenever you read this, think of me trunking along the A11, M11, M25 down to the place on the edge of the Thames where they used to quarry chalk back in the day.

Automatic gearcrunching!

When I started truck driving in Australia, the only automatic gearboxes were in buses. In fact if you even suggested driving an auto box might have a few advantages, not least economy and reduced driver fatigue, you'd be looked at as some sort of low grade, slightly effeminate, unprofessional, third rate excuse for a truck driver.

At that time Mack trucks were what every meat eating Aussie trucker aspired to, and they had TWO gear sticks!

These days, I generally drive automatics and while I know many current drivers prefer manual gearboxes, I actually prefer an auto. (there, I'm out of the closet at last!)

Why? Well to be blunt, I find it so much more relaxing to let the gearbox sort itself out. It means I can concentrate on where I'm going and avoid the more committed kamikaze drivers out there.

That said, I have driven some strange excuses for auto gearboxes. The Renault's I've driven, have I think, a version of Volvo's Opticruise... which works well in a Volvo, but with Renault electrics is a totally different beast. And don't get me started on the automatic gearbox in an Iveco Stralis I drove the other day.

I like the Mercedes Actros box, the Scania is also great, but if given the choice I'd take the big Volvo version any day. Really smooth, and incredible easy to drive.

Maybe I'm getting old! Or lazy. Or indeed both!

Gearcrunching as a profession...

This is the first post on The Great British Trucker blog and it serves several purposes.

The first is to actually see that the blog is working.

The second is to actually get the damn thing off the ground at last.

The third thing is to say welcome to anyone who stumbles over this.

The fourth is to explain what the hell this is all about!

Well, actually that fourth reason will have to wait until I see where I can insert the rationale for this blog.... Stay tuned!