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.