truckyboy:
Pete…why is it that you are having to doTforms when both germany and italy are in the e.u…i thought you only needed ator a carnet for outside the e.u.
so put me out of my misery…
Fast forward 15 years and your doing T forms again
brit pete:
The story starts with me meeting the lorry which I was to takeover in the motorway services on the german autobahn 45 at
sauerland, My mate had taken the truck and tank to load up with
a product which I was to take all the way from the meeting point
to the customer in Italy. Due to a delay in the loading , he came a little
later as expected, now my mate had picked up the load and papers
that dealt with the load, so being a trusting person all that I checked
was the roadworthness of the complete unit and of course the
bag of money he gave to me, SO off I drove along the following
roads on my way to sunny Italy, the 45,3,9 usw until I come to
the truckstop at Kiefersfelden where I took my 9hrs off,after doing
my allotted driveing time, When my rest was finished I drove to
the border and started to do customs, when I got to the window
I pushed the papers over to the custom officer, he took one look
and shoved them back, so I put them back in and this time he
told me in a wonderful Bayern accent, that it would be nice if I
was to give him the correct T2 papers, I should now add that I
had not looked at the papers at all until he utterred those words
YES my mate was given the wrong copies of the T2 forms so
off I went to find a phone, when I was speaking to the nice person
on the other end of the phone , he politely told me to find a solution
and get new T2 papers at the border and bring the false ones
back to the firm, After getting my mistake fixed I then went back
done the customs and delivered the load.
THE moral of the story for me was never trust that every thing is
correct until you have personely checked everything your self.
A,B,C.
Assume nothing.
Believe no-one.
Check everything.
It’s served me well so far.
Wheel Nut:
Seeing as this post seems to be a Customs sort of postIm nicking it!!!
When we were multi lingual in our choice of number plates, we had an abundance of Austrian permits for the dutch plates but struggled to get enough UK permits as we had passed our quota.
We were not alone though, and other hauliers were struggling to get permits at the time of year, Because of this we were awarded a massive contract from Vienna and Linz which gave us an extra 12 or 15 loads a week
The difference between a Dutch permit and the UK was that the Dutch were issued with annual permits rather than single trippers like ours!
This contract had run very successfully for months using our system, until a sharp eyed ■■■■ Apprentice discovered our scam of passing the permits over the central reservation
They locked me up in Suben for 2 days till DHL or someone could deliver a proper permit direct to my truck, impounded in the car park.
The Austrians came with coffee in a morning and even free beer in the evening along with the biggest cheese sandwich I had seen
This might be a good way to let some steam off, as in all the years I’ve been roaming the European roads, I’ve never had a smooth and sweet border crossing into Switserland…
I don’t know what it is, but for some reason I always end up with the shortest straw when it comes to entering Switserland, doesn’t matter which border I cross, I always end up with someone who doesn’t necessarily like foreigners entering their country…
Yesterday was yet a prime example of that, I loaded some equipment that was going to a construction site in a village south of Zürich, where it’s going to be used for a week or so and after that it’s going back to the place where I’ve loaded it.
Now, I had specific instructions to go to Gerlach at St. Margrethen, however upon arriving there they told me I was at the wrong place and that I should go to their office in Wolfurt. Not that far away, but still, it meant turning around again, explain the situation to the custom officers, luckily they understood the situation and let me out of the compound without any hassle.
Arrived at Wolfurt during the lunch break, and as soon as they re-opened shop, I was the first one in, the friendly lady knew from which firm I was as she had be informed by her colleagues and said that I had to come back after 10 minutes. Surely after 10 minutes the paperwork was ready and I could go to the Austrian customs. I didn’t came far though, as I wasn’t wearing the “correct” mask… so walked back to the lorry, changed masks and tried again. This time there was a friendly lady behind the counter, so after giving her the documents, it was done in a blink of an eye, walked to the other side to the Swiss customs, gave my stack of papers, matey glanced through it, gave it to a colleague and said “bitte warten”… now this normally is the sign where things go wrong, and as usual it did… Der Chef came out and said that he couldn’t accept it as there were many faults on the paper that Gerlach filled in, so I needed to back to them and they should change it. So off I went, back to the friendly ladies of Gerlach and explained what was wrong. The frowned upon this, but got to work straight away, so after 10 minutes I was back at my Swiss mates to try it again… just a minute matey says again… and again Der Chef comes out, this time angry and he says he won’t accept this shambles and he doesn’t want to see me before it’s done properly…
So off I went back to Gerlach… explained it again and told them who it was that disapproved it, ooh that sad f… they replied, apparently Der Chef had bit of a reputation… This time the lady phoned him up to ask what exactly seemed to be the problem, so after another 10 minutes, I was given the paperwork again and they told me it should be alright now… with crossed fingers I went back to matey, who was already smiling upon my glorieus return… bitte warten he said… and surely Der Chef came out again saying everything was in order now and he wished me a pleasant trip… big sigh of relief from my part and I walked back to the ladies to tell them everything was ok now, upon which they cheered.
When I finally arrived at the offloading place, I apologised for my late arrival and explained I was held up at the border, something that didn’t surprised them at all, it’s like Russian roulette really, they said, sometimes it goes really quick, sometimes it takes hours to clear customs…
Now, this is just one example, but I’ve had so many of these sort of encounters with the Swiss custom agents… last time I said to one of them, that they should bring back that old rule of 28t max. that way they didn’t had to deal with all these foreigners coming in to their country.
Honestly, crossing borders into former Eastern European countries was less of a ball ache…
Rant over 
pv83:
.Rant over
The only trouble I had with the Swiss may or may not have been their fault. Coming from Como to Chiasso we suddenly came to a halt in the middle of the tunnel above the customs. It was murder, in the days long before night heaters, everybody was sitting there idling just to keep warm. Fran and I realised that there was not much point in being warm if we were dead from the fumes, so decided to trek to the border to see what was going on.
When we got there it was the Dutch who had blockaded the border. Something had happened with one of their number and they’d decided enough was enough. Finally it was sorted, and we had survived. 
The story starts with me meeting the lorry which I was to take
over in the motorway services on the german autobahn 45 at
sauerland, My mate had taken the truck and tank to load up with
a product which I was to take all the way from the meeting point
to the customer in Italy. Due to a delay in the loading , he came a little
later as expected, now my mate had picked up the load and papers
that dealt with the load, so being a trusting person all that I checked
was the roadworthness of the complete unit and of course the
bag of money he gave to me, SO off I drove along the following
roads on my way to sunny Italy, the 45,3,9 usw until I come to
the truckstop at Kiefersfelden where I took my 9hrs off,after doing
my allotted driveing time, When my rest was finished I drove to
the border and started to do customs, when I got to the window
I pushed the papers over to the custom officer, he took one look
and shoved them back, so I put them back in and this time he
told me in a wonderful Bayern accent, that it would be nice if I
was to give him the correct T2 papers, I should now add that I
had not looked at the papers at all until he utterred those words
YES my mate was given the wrong copies of the T2 forms so
off I went to find a phone, when I was speaking to the nice person
on the other end of the phone , he politely told me to find a solution
and get new T2 papers at the border and bring the false ones
back to the firm, After getting my mistake fixed I then went back
done the customs and delivered the load.
THE moral of the story for me was never trust that every thing is
correct until you have personely checked everything your self.
brit pete:
THE moral of the story for me was never trust that every thing iscorrect until you have personely checked everything your self.
Great story and tip brit pete .
Pete…why is it that you are having to do T forms when both germany and italy are in the e.u…i thought you only needed a t or a carnet for outside the e.u.
so put me out of my misery…
THE reason that we had to do this paper work was that it was before
Austria became on of the members of the EU: and I was tranisting
this country which meant that I had to do T-forms at this time.
Iam sorry but okay I did not say which year ,as I assummened that
people would have regonised that Austria has not been that long in
the EU: SORRY I will try to remember the next time to put a few dates
next time in any story that I put in the forum
Its still happening a bit though Bob, we have been doing a job from Angers to Northampton and Livingstone,
We have to ship through Portsmouth and clear Customs, although in reality, it is a cursory glance before we hand the T1 papers into the agent. and then drive off with a compliment slip stapled to the CMR
i once swapped a trailor with a mate in rouen routiers , it was p#ss#ng it down so we were both running round trying not to get wet , i ran to his truck as he was winding his legs up and he had left the papers on his seat so i grabbed them and just threw mr papers on his seat , i went inside for a beer while he was finishing off , when he came in all soaked i said , did you get the papers , " ye ta i left them on the seat " , so another night of beer and good food started --------- next day i am just going over irun when my phone rung , it was the boss , " hi there , is everything ok ? "i says , " well have you looked at your paperwork today " he replies , o hsh#t thinks i , quick stop to reveal i have the paper work for the load going north , , so a stop in our freindly agents in irun to collect new paperwork and a hand g head moment , it seems we had both swapped the paperwork the night before and that fool hadnt check he had the right papers
so now i always check again before leaving anywhere 
Just to avoid confusing Trucky the following happened before anyone did away with full customs clearances in Europe 
I had loaded ladies tights in some country village in Northern Italy and was attempting to cross into Austria at Brenner for transit to Kiefersfelden.
In those days in addition to all the usual paperwork you needed to pay a transit tax for Austria at the rate of weight X kms X current tax rate. Now I knew that this calculation referred to gross weight but we always got away with only declaring the net weight. Much less to pay, ladies don’t like heavy tights!
Unfortunately this day the man had cottoned on to our little game and refused to accept my figure. I decided to brazen it out but he was having none of it and eventually slipped into ‘the way Brits talk to foreigners mode’ , ie., yelling.
Only this bloke could yell for Europe, never mind Austria. As his voice rose to a scream and I began to see him transformed before me with a little moustache, a dark uniform and an outstretched arm, I decided that maybe this was the time to ‘admit my honest mistake’ .
But now it was too late. He didn’t believe my admission of 32tonnes gross and demanded my registration book, or leaflet as the Brits have it. Duly produced it made no difference. The room cleared to find ear protectors as I eventually realised, because of his thumping his fist from side to side on the table, that it didn’t have enough stamps on it and he didn’t believe it was genuine.
Several hours later I was on my way, but only after parting with my precious running money and several faxes followed by an instruction to Kiefersfelden not to let me cross into Germany until the agent there had paid a hefty fine.
While at Kiefersfelden I changed some money at the border and, on noticing that I didn’t seem to have the right amount, went back into the (German) bank to query. After my Brenner experience I was very nervous, but needn’t have worried, it was about to be demonstrated to me the extreme politeness and correctness of the Germans. They graciously asked me to wait a while, closed the bank, and did a full cash up of the day’s business so far. 15 minutes later the doors re-opened and, amid profuse apologies, my missing fiver was handed over.
The moral of these 2 stories. Try it on with officialdom by all means, but when it obviously isn’t working, cut your losses and hold your hands up.
And.
Always check your papers before leaving. The theme of this thread I think.
Salut, David.
Seeing as this post seems to be a Customs sort of post Im nicking it!!!
When we were multi lingual in our choice of number plates, we had an abundance of Austrian permits for the dutch plates but struggled to get enough UK permits as we had passed our quota.
We were not alone though, and other hauliers were struggling to get permits at the time of year, Because of this we were awarded a massive contract from Vienna and Linz which gave us an extra 12 or 15 loads a week 
The difference between a Dutch permit and the UK was that the Dutch were issued with annual permits rather than single trippers like ours!
This contract had run very successfully for months using our system, until a sharp eyed ■■■■ Apprentice discovered our scam of passing the permits over the central reservation
They locked me up in Suben for 2 days till DHL or someone could deliver a proper permit direct to my truck, impounded in the car park.
The Austrians came with coffee in a morning and even free beer in the evening along with the biggest cheese sandwich I had seen