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.