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!

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!