The Perfect truck!

So guys, what makes your perfect truck? I know that everyone will have their own opinion of what is the best truck to drive, each of us has different ideas of what constitutes the perfect truck, but there are a few things that I’m sure we will all agree on. Every truck has its good and bad points, so wouldn’t it be good if a manufacturer could combine the “best of the best” I’ve put together a few suggestions for my ultimate driving machine, let’s see if you agree.

Let’s start outside, and first a few points about trailers. Can you all agree on a standard position for the parking brake! When we had ratchet brakes it was easy, they were all in the same place. Now they can be on either side, at the back, front, middle of the trailer, in a nice little box, or tucked up under the chassis where you need to be a contortionist to reach, and if you insist on putting it on the front of the trailer, please make it reachable from the ground! I am 6’ tall, and still struggle to reach the buttons to check the brake before I go near it with my unit. Same applies to the number plate holder; can you please make it reachable? Especially when there is an under slung tail lift!

Moving forward, can you all agree on what is the best form of connection? We have sliding couplings, static couplings, couplings on arms that swing out; personally I am quite happy with the static type so long as there is room on the catwalk for me.  When are trailer and tractor makers going to get together and decide on a layout for the connections? Trailers should be males on the left, females on the right with ABS in the middle, units the opposite, simples. Also, can unit manufacturers please put proper stowage points for the Suzies when running solo? Some new trailers have special docking arms that allow drivers to couple or uncouple without climbing onto the catwalk, a great idea. Unfortunately the units still have suzies fixed in the centre which means you still need to climb on the catwalk to access them!

I’m not into bling, got nothing against it, just not my scene, but I do like a nice set of functioning lights, and internally adjustable mirrors, and can you please dump the surplus 60’s Cortina type horns you fit, and put proper horns on that say get out my way, I’m coming through!

Now let’s get inside. There are 4 things that a driver considers essential, a good heater, a good radio, a comfortable seat, and a nice bunk. I’ve done my fair share of driving up the A1 with a blanket over my knees and three pairs of socks, but that was in the bad old days, by now we should have good cab heaters.

Do you all buy bulk loads of cheap radios? When FM came in, we still had AM radios, when cassettes came out, we got FM, we finally got cassettes just as CD’s were becoming popular, and now we are getting CD’s when the average car has MP3 and IPod sockets. 6 or 8 speaker systems are all well and good, but please put in decent speakers, ones that don’t vibrate after 6 months.

Seating is getting better, a nice heated seat is great on a cold and frosty night, but sometimes there are too many adjustments. Can I also say, it’s no good designing a LHD cab, and expect to just plonk the steering wheel and seat on the other side for us UK boys, it doesn’t work.

I had the pleasure of driving a brand new truck just before Christmas. Very nice top spec motor for me to take a trip to Glasgow in, just in time for the snow to block the roads. Having negotiated blizzards on M74 and M8, I managed to get back to Lockerbie truck stop for the night. I found a nice quiet spot away from the railway lines and the fridge motors, and settled down to a nice relaxing sleep. On the dash was some kind of communications terminal, for phone calls and emails although I had no idea how to use it. I had hardly noticed it during the day, but when I switched the lights off to go to sleep, this thing shone like a beacon, I tried every button on the thing to switch it off, had the ignition off, and it still shone out brighter than old Trafford on a European cup night. In the end I had to throw my shirt over it to get to sleep. I’m a big boy now, I can sleep with the lights off, I only need a small light to show the location of the night heater controls in case I need to adjust them during the night. While on the subject of interior lighting, can we have one switch to turn all the interior cab lights on? 

Can we also have somewhere to put our paperwork? Somewhere within reach and where it will not slide away into the passenger foot well at the first roundabout. I know some of you tried putting dog clips on the dash, but making them from cheap plastic, and expecting them to last more than 5 minutes with some Neanderthal truck driver was being a bit ambitious!

Every RDC we go to insist on taking our keys away from us. Some insist we lock our cabs and sit in some poxy little prison shed, while we wait hours for our paperwork, others still allow us to wait in our cab. Now, when we turn off the ignition and hand our keys in, we find out just how much electrics rely on the key. Sun roof, windows, some radios, heater fan and sun blinds, surely it’s not too difficult to wire all electrical system apart from those required for driving, independent from the ignition.

 Now I carry a lot of technology with me. Sat nav, IPod, DAB radio, mobile phone. Each one will at sometime require charging, or directly running from a power socket. So what good is it putting one or even two power sockets in a modern truck? What about the tramper boys? They carry microwaves, fridges, TV’s, DVD players etc, they need more 24 volt and 12 volt sockets, and could you please agree on a standard socket, is it going to be cigar lighter type or Hellas type?

I know, a lot of these are minor gripes, trucks today are far and above anything we had when i started driving, in fact you were lucky if you had power steering, and sleeper cabs were a day cab with a plank across the seats. I just sometimes wonder if you ever actually ask drivers what they want. I also think that some manufacturers do things just to be different, well please don’t, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I Hate Christmas!

Not, you understand the mistletoe and wine, the blockbuster films, mince pies, turkey and stuffing, nor do I hate the carols, candles, cards, presents, tree or the Christmas pudd.  To me there is nothing better than watching the wide eyed excitement of a child, or I my case now, a grandchild, catching the first sight of a pile of Christmas presents, and realising that “Santa has been!!”

No, I love that part of Christmas, what I hate is that, as a truck driver, for us Christmas starts about the middle of June! It starts as a trickle, the odd container from the docks, full of fairy lights, false trees, tinsel and other cheap plastic decorations, made in one of those fine Christian countries such as China, Vietnam, Cambodia or Malaysia. Follow this with the first tins of roses, Quality Street and various biscuit assortments as the momentum slowly builds up. After august bank holiday, the serious stuff really starts. A typical day in September or October goes something like this:-

Arrive at the RDC 15 minutes early, get told to come back in half an hour as goods in is full. Return 30 minutes later to be told by a different security guard that you are late. Join the queue for goods in, you are currently 10^th in line. Walk to the goods in office; be ignored for 10 minutes while a young Polish girl is chatted up by a fat, balding warehouse supervisor. Hand in paperwork and return to your cab, noticing that of the 6 goods in curtainsider bays, 4 are full of empty roll cages, damaged goods, broken equipment and various dustbins and skips. Of the other 2, only on is being used for tipping. Out of the other one, a forklift driver spends all day driving around with the same stack of blue pallets looking busy. Eventually, after 3 hours of waiting and slowly creeping forward, you get on a bay; sods law says it’s got to be tea break. You finally get tipped, and are told to park up and wait for your paperwork. In the goods in office, you get a sugarless coffee from the machine, pick up a 3 day old copy of the Sun and find the only plastic seat available is between on one side, the fat slob with chin resting on his chest, eyes closed, saliva dribbling down his chin and occasionally a loud snore emanating from his mouth, and on the other side, the tramper who has been away from home all week, and has failed to find a shower or anywhere to wash. After what appears to be an eternity, but is in fact only 2 more hours, you finally get out of the RDC, safe in the knowledge that it will all be repeated tomorrow.

Now come October and November it’s the booze runs. Not trips to Calais in a transit to top up with beer, but delivering 20 odd pallets of beer, wines and spirits into the same RDC’s which by now are bursting at the seams. Many will have “outside storage” some Farmers barn on a totally unsuitable site for artics, and after queuing for hours at the main depot, you will be sent down there with some hand drawn map to queue up once again.

As we get into December, we start to tug around trailers full of frozen turkeys, sprouts and black forest gateaux, vast quantities of chocolates, nuts, crisps and snacks of all types. Everywhere you go now, there is a long queue. You can’t even get away from it when your off duty, as by now every other commercial is for Christmas items, with those annoyingly mundane songs that you can’t get out of your head, On the 1^st of December it really starts to get to you when the BBC start playing all the old Christmas favourite tunes on the radio. Slade, wizard, john Lennon, and the pogues. By the second week of December, you are just about ready to tear the radio out of the truck and deposit it in lane 3 of the motorway if you hear “oh I wish it could be Christmas everyday” one more time. On your rest day, you take the wife shopping to find millions of £’s of Christmas goods blocking the aisles, while a horde fat, lard arsed women fight each other for the last box of after eights.  Mind you, you can’t find any sugar, or bread, or eggs, but who needs them when you can buy a musical illuminated Santa clause that drops his trousers to the tune of jingle bells!

Now we get to the final week, everything is now time critical, you MUST get there on time, otherwise the whole load of fresh sprouts, gammon hams, fresh cream and joints of pork and beef, will be refused because you are 20 minutes late.

At one time you could look forward to at least 3 days, and often 4 days off in order to recover, these were times when milk lasted for a day or 2, same for bread etc., and yet we managed not to starve when the shops were closed, now, with even the most perishable of goods having a weeks’ shelf life, can anyone tell me why shops need to open on boxing day?

After your one day off, your back to restocking the supermarkets with booze, or the non-food shops with sales items, the week between Christmas and new year used to be a quiet time for us, a time to catch our breaths, but not anymore, we have to cram the stores full, I’m surprised they don’t issue us with giant shoe horns so that we can squeeze a little bit more into the warehouses. If you’re lucky you might just have enough of a break at New Year to have one drink, but chances are you will be working New Year’s day restocking the shops with, yes you’ve guessed it, EASTER EGGS!

The Greek solution

To: The CEO Mastervisacard Bank Services.

Dear Sir,

As a long standing and well known customer of yours, I am writing to see if it possible for me to arrange a credit easing on by credit card. As you will see from my statements, I have recently had difficulty in repaying my bills, even though you only charge a meagre, and in my opinion reasonable 1001% interest rate.

As you will see from my current account, I am a long and loyal customer, who by way of maintaining a healthy overdraught, have contributed heavily to the profits, and may I say, the much deserved bonuses that you and your fellow directors have been paying yourselves during times of austerity.

As way of explanation, we need to go back several months. My wife decided one weekend that she wanted a barbeque. We invited various friends and neighbours, organised the booze, got the old barbeque out of the garage and scraped the rust off. The day before I went to our Local Asda and purchased various items of meat, rolls, and salad etc. When we got it home, I inadvertently placed the meat into the freezer instead of the fridge. When my wife discovered this, she was obviously a little disappointed in me and quite rightly voiced her opinion of me as a husband, a man, and it was decided that I was, on the whole, a useless pillock We removed the pork chops and spare ribs from the freezer, and left them on the draining board covered with tin foil to defrost overnight.

Do you have any pets? We do, we have a ginger female cat, who, like all cats, has to check out anything that is new or different including a packet of tin foil on the draining board in the middle of the night. Cats have claws, these are useful for hunting things like for example, mice, or pork chops and spare ribs, so when we awoke on the following morning, we found a very contented and fat cat, cleaning her paws and licking her lips, while lying on the sofa, and a kitchen floor full of tin foil scraps and pork bones.

Now anyone who knows a thing or two about cats, will know that cats and pork don’t mix very well. As a result of her midnight feast, the cat developed a seriously bad case of worms. We took her along to the vets, who prescribed a course of pills, together with a special diet. Have you seen the price that vets charge nowadays? There is no such thing as the NHS for cats; so as a result, we were forced to settle the bill, and purchase tablets and food using our flexible friend that you very kindly gave me when all was rosy in the financial garden.

Have you tried to get a cat to take medicine? It’s not easy let me tell you. We tried crushing the pills up in her food, but she’s not stupid, she would take one sniff and walk away. Our cat is a little shy, she doesn’t like being picked up, especially at dinner time, and especially when someone is trying to shove a pill the size of a horse tablet down her throat. She managed to rip my shirt, arms and chest to shreds, before wriggling out of my arms, and attaching herself, claws extended, to the kitchen curtains.

At this stage I have to take partial blame for what happened next. I had been meaning to fix the curtain rails for some time, just never really got around to it. As the cat clung onto the curtains, the rail gave way under the weight and fell with a crash onto the nearby cooker. This in its self wouldn’t have been so bad, but unfortunately a large piece of wall came down with it, and smashed onto the ceramic hob. Fearing that I was going to get a large amount of breeze blocks on my nut, I leaped back and tripped over the now grounded cat, who was trying to extricate herself from the curtains, while making a dash for the back door. I reached out for anything to stop me from falling, and managed to grab the washing machine door, that the wife insists stays open when not in use. It was quite an old washing machine and its door was never intended to take the strain of a slightly overweight, if not fat, balding man swinging on it, and consequently it broke from the hinges.

Meanwhile, the wife came rushing in from the garden to see what all the commotion was about. As she was rushing in, the cat was rushing out. there was a coming together of wifes ankles with cats backside, the cat was further propelled out of the patio doors, and the wife was further propelled towards the dining table that had been laid out with the best crockery, on account that her boss and his wife were coming for dinner that evening. The wife managed to break her fall by grabbing hold of the table cloth, which despite being loaded to the gunnels with food, drink and candles, was unable to take the added weight. The bottle of French red hit the wall and smashed, the various dips and sauces that had been laid out for our guest to nibble on covered the floor, and the finest crystal glasses shattered over everything including the wifes hair do. The lighted candles fortunately, were extinguished by the cushions on the sofa, but not before they had managed to set it on fire.

As you can imagine, the cost of replacing everything that was damaged that day, was huge, redecoration, new sofa, crockery, cooker and washing machine and all. Now I hear you say, “don’t worry, your insured” well unfortunately, the month before my pay check arrived in my account one day after the premium for my home insurance was due to be paid out, and because it would have put me 49p over my overdraught limit, you quite rightly decided not to pay it. As a result, my insurance company declined to pay out on my claim. It was at this time that I became eternally grateful to you for all those letters you wrote to me, every time I spent something on my credit card, offering to increase my limit. So we were able to replace and repair everything using our plastic.

Now I read recently that you and your fellow European banks had kindly decided to ease the Greek nation’s financial problems, by writing off 50% of their debts, and was wondering if you could possibly do the same for us?

 I discussed the options with the wife, and following the Greek parliaments idea, held a referendum. It was unanimous, although I’m not sure what the cat was voting for, but when I asked her, she purred and put her tail up, after all, it’s in her interest for us to get our financial situation ironed out, she can eat Whiskas instead of Asda smart price cat food. I cannot claim to live in Greece, nor am I of Greek extraction. I did once take a package holiday with Dan-Air to Crete if that counts, I once had a Feta salad followed by moussaka at the local Greek restaurant. If it means that we have to sit and listen to Demis Roussos greatest hits CD and learn to play the Bouzouki, we will.

I await your reply with anticipation.

Yours sincerely,

A customer

cc. Herman Van Rumpuy. President of the European union.

cc. Angela Merkel President Of Germany

cc. Nicholas Sarkosy President of France

cc. Jean-Claude Trichet. President European central bank.

The Great Escape

The hut door swung open with a loud bang. Into the room came a strong, cold draught of damp air, a few icy snowflakes, and a tall, thin man dressed in heavy jacket, gloves, hat and a scarf.

A group of men were huddled in a corner next to the heater. It wasn’t much of a heater, but in the current weather conditions, it was like a roaring open fire. A sign on the wall said “welcome to Colditz RDC”.

 The men stopped their whispering, and looked up to see who had entered.

“I say chaps, it’s a bit nippy out there tonight,” said Ginger, who had just entered the room.

“Shut that bloody door” replied lofty “it’s taken us 3 hours to get this heater working.”

“Any goons about?” asked Nobby.

“Nah” replied Ginger “they are all in the canteen stuffing their faces”

“Righty ho!” said Roger “let’s get this over with before they come back. Now is everyone here?”

“All except Smithy, he’s doing a stretch in the cooler, apparently he offered to go and unload his own truck” answered Lofty.

“Right then” said Roger “let’s start, as chairman of the escape committee, I call the meeting to order. Now chaps, anyone got any news on chalky?”

“Yes” said Nobby. “I got a postcard from Spain in the last mail shot”

“Oh I say! Spiffing good news what, cracking wheeze of Chalky to steal one of the goons uniforms, and smuggle himself out driving on of their trucks” Said Roger.

The windows rattled in the wind, and an icy blast spread itself around the room reminding them that they were still stuck in the winter of northern Europe, and they each imagined chalky sitting on a beach in Spain, surrounded by young nubile maidens.

The hut was littered with old coffee cups, some newspapers and magazines that had that well-read look were scattered around the tables, and there were a few cheap chairs in various states of disrepair and an overflowing bin in one corner.

“Now lofty how is Annie coming on?” asked Roger. Annie was the code name for the tunnel that had been started from the toilet block.

“Problems I’m afraid Rog, we are still about 30 yards from the fence, and Charlie miscalculated the direction as we were digging underneath the guardhouse. We’ve had to start off at an angle to avoid the underground fuel tanks” Replied Lofty.

Ginger helped himself to a coffee, and wrapped both hands around the cup. The coffee machine gurgled loudly. Ginger took a mouthful of the lukewarm liquid and grimaced, it was called coffee, but it certainly didn’t taste like it.

“Listen Roger, I’ve an idea” said ginger. “It’s along the lines of chalkys escape method only we don’t need to steal uniforms”

“Tell us more” Said Roger.

“Well, I reckon if we could get hold of some ink, we could use it to dye our uniforms the same shade as the goons. Now I was talking to Alfie a while ago, he was telling me how he used to be a tailor and he reckons he could knock up a few badges that would fool the goons into thinking we were one of them from a distance. And Billy used to be in the printing trade, he thinks, if we can get hold of one of the goons I.D. badges, he could whip up a few passable copies.”

“OK” said Roger.” And how do you plan to get out?”

“Well, we wait until the shift change, the security guards don’t know all the goons by sight, and I’ve never seen them being counted, so maybe a few of us could infiltrate  them. If we do it when the old shift goes off, they are always in such a hurry to get down the bar, I’m sure no one would notice” Said ginger.

“Not sure I like the idea, what do the rest of you think? “Asked Roger.

“Well it’s worth a try, maybe just a couple of guys” said Nobby. “I would like to try the roof top route again”

“Hmm, that didn’t go too well last time we tried” said Roger. “Remember how old biffo got his braces caught on the barb wire”

“yes” replied Nobby, “but this time I want to try something different. If we can get the lads to bring in pieces of those old pallets stacked outside, we could build a glider and fly over the fence.

Just then, the door crashed open and a familiar face entered the room.

“Chalky!” They all exclaimed. “What the flip you doing back here?” asked nobby.

“Well it was like this; I made it as far as Almeria, with a couple of drops in Barcelona on the way, and was headed back when I got caught just outside of Paris. Collect a load of golden delicious for Tasburysons in colditz, just my bleedin luck!”

Just then a hatch in the wall slid open, and a bored sounding female voice was heard.

“Driver on bay 14, here’s your keys and paperwork” Shouted the female.

For a moment no one reacted. It was such an unusual event for someone to be released. Ginger suddenly brightened up, it was his bay number, he was free, finally he was able to leave the supermarket RDC and get on his way!

Wet behind the ears!

Yes we’ve all done it, engaged our brains too late and made a fool of ourselves. I can remember last summer, I stopped to buy a drink on the A303 near Andover, I was on my way back to Oxford. It was a warm summers day, and I had an old DAF with no aircon, so had the driver’s window open. When I went to close it, by pressing the button on the driver’s door, nothing happened. I pressed it for up, and for down, I turned the ignition on and off, but nothing would make my window go up. OK, it’s warm and dry so no problem, I’ll defect it when I get back to Oxford.

Just turn onto the northbound A34, and the sky goes very black, the heavens open, and I try desperately to get the window up, No chance. By the time I get to Oxford, my right side is soaking wet, and the cab floor is flooded, only then, as I get out the cab to shake myself off, do I notice the winding handle on the door! Yep, it was a manual window, stupid thing was, I must have opened it at some stage! All the time I was pressing the button, I never noticed the passenger window going up and down like a whores knickers!

On another occasion, I was taking a driver out on a driving assessment. As he was a full time driver, we did a store delivery. Again, it was a lovely hot summer’s day, so I left my coat in the car, and just wore my polo shirt etc. We were delivering to Asda Havant, and as we came out of the store, there was an almighty storm, rain like stair rods, thunder and lightning, hail etc. we were heading towards the A3M at waterlooville when we came across a tree blocking the road. We had no choice but to reverse about a mile, back to the roundabout, as we couldn’t turn around. It was very dark and the roads were becoming flooded, we called the police but traffic was still coming up behind us, so I put on my Hi Viz vest, which at that time was a new innovation, And walked back through the rain to the roundabout to stop traffic from coming up the road, while the driver reversed back in the pitch dark, with rain battering against his mirrors. I got soaked, like a drowned rat! It took about 20 minutes to get the truck back and turned around, only then did the police finally arrive.

I climbed into the cab, but couldn’t sit on the passenger seat as I was so wet, It was then I noticed, on the bunk, my  drivers hi Viz waterproof coat, that I thought I had left in my car!

On another occasion, I was in an RDC, which shall remain nameless to protect the guilty! I was told to go onto bay 6, but there was a trailer already on it. The shunter came around and coupled up to it, but was having difficulty pulling it off the bay. He sat there revving the engine to build up air pressure, still no movement; he checked the red line and the parking brake. While I waited, another shunter came around, and now both of them were trying to find out what was going on. I went back to goods in to explain what was happening, and was told to use bay 7, by this time the depot mechanic is now there with his 4x4 truck, orange lights flashing, and his torch and hammer in his hand, all 3 are standing baffled, scratching heads etc. As I walk past, I casually point out to the first shunter, that it is a container on a skelly, and perhaps he should try connecting the red airline to the correct coupling! 3 faces turned extremely red, and a muttered thank you drive was heard coming from the embarrassed shunter. Fair play to him, he did buy me a coffee afterwards!