Classic one, I’m sure you’ve all heard it before. I’m driving an 11 or 12m curtainsider on pallet multidrop in the middle of bloody nowhere.
I stop a mile out from a customer, GPS is showing his address on a lane advised as “light cars only”. So a phone call to him, who says “oh yes TNT come down here etc”, so I proceed with care. Get to a point where I’m not comfortable with a turn I’m about to make (very narrow back lane), so stop. Decide I can do it if I realign, so I go to reverse but the tyres on both sides are in the mud and I just slide forward. Another attempt, same thing, nearside door mirror crunches into the hedge.
Decided I’m not going to ■■■■ about trying to fix it myself so on the phone to the office who tell me just to do my best. Eventually managed to get it backwards with quite a lot of wheelspin, but then the back of the box catches on a tree stump sticking out, and is bent out of place.
The guy I was delivering to comes out with a chainsaw, cuts the stump off and I’m free, but now missing a door mirror, tail light, big tear in the curtain and the rear pillar is dented which has affected the roof.
I stop at a nearby business park and a mechanic comes out to sort my mirror and light out so I’m legal to haul it back to the depot. Not a word was said at the depot, other than “fill form out please”. My job agency were quite affirmative that I was OK when I asked ‘do I need to look for another job’. Agency obviously has an invested interest in me, and I’m sure that far worse has been done, but my newbie paranoia is saying “you’ll never work again”. Oh, and I was on a paper tacho, had it on the wrong mode (POA instead of driving), and probably went over - was told to write an explanation on the back. Am I likely to get any comeback from that also?
Any realistic comments?
I’m sure experienced drivers have done far worse and I could have done worse than dent a pillar. Managed to get 2 pallets offloeaded where I parked the truck (with customer permission), so only had 2 return pallets.
Put ot down to experience. Next time a customer says ‘we’ve had bigger than that down here driver’ you can put your old sweat wry smile on and say ‘yeah, heard that before’.
Next time you’ll chicken out quicker, and rightly so. Seems like the company you’re with are taking a realistic attitude so don’t worry to much.
Remember the incident and learn from it, but don’t stress yourself.
As said , put it down to experience. Everyone has a bad day somewhere , sometime for whatever reason. Don’t dwell on it , Crack on , I bet you do it better next time!
You now know to get out and walk to said address and access for yourself, I’ve been there and done that, best was I was delivering to a house, to big stone pillars at the bottom off the lane, tried before I phoned the customer, he comes down and says I’ve had bigger up here, I said I tried but not going to make it, Ill watch ya back he says, ok, tried and bang goes the stone pillar before he could say stop, the look on his face, priceless, I’d informed the boss before reversing so cleared myself
Superhampton1980:
You now know to get out and walk to said address and access for yourself, I’ve been there and done that, best was I was delivering to a house, to big stone pillars at the bottom off the lane, tried before I phoned the customer, he comes down and says I’ve had bigger up here, I said I tried but not going to make it, Ill watch ya back he says, ok, tried and bang goes the stone pillar before he could say stop, the look on his face, priceless, I’d informed the boss before reversing so cleared myself
^^^ This ^^^
Don’t commit yourself unless you’re sure, and cover your arse delegating crap/responsibility upwards!
Other than that it’s a Newbie error from the OP, learn and move on…
Superhampton1980:
You now know to get out and walk to said address and access for yourself, I’ve been there and done that, best was I was delivering to a house, to big stone pillars at the bottom off the lane, tried before I phoned the customer, he comes down and says I’ve had bigger up here, I said I tried but not going to make it, Ill watch ya back he says, ok, tried and bang goes the stone pillar before he could say stop, the look on his face, priceless, I’d informed the boss before reversing so cleared myself
^^^ This ^^^
Don’t commit yourself unless you’re sure, and cover your arse delegating crap/responsibility upwards!
Other than that it’s a Newbie error from the OP, learn and move on…
Better to waste half hour walking, than a few hours stuck in a ditch
I did consider walking (I’d done it on a few drops before, and learned from DPD days that it saves time/effort in the long run), but it would have been over a mile there and back, and I would have been blocking a road while I did so. Also, I checked the drop on a map and decided to take the lane from that side as there was a stream which would probably involve a too-narrow bridge. After freeing the truck, I sailed over it with no nearside mirror. I think the fact they sent me out in the oldest truck suggested they didn’t think it would come back in the same state it went out in lol.
I did phone ahead as advised, he said ‘TNT deliver down here in trucks’, so I guess I’ll never trust that phrase again.
Annoyingly, it was an impossible delivery. Had I taken a few more minutes to plan the drop - I would have noticed it was one of those big 2/3t bags of gravel (whatever it is they weigh), going to a house - don’t know many homeowners that have forklift trucks so I should have rejected the delivery back at the bloody depot.
If you swipe back away from the stream, you can see there’s a few corners which are tighter than that one which I got through fine, so you might be able to see why I thought I’d be OK with the final corner.
Edit: The damage done when the tail swing caught the tree stump:
But yeh - lesson learned. Even though I thought I’d been careful enough, you can never plan too much. God knows how truckers used to manage in the days before mobiles/google streetview.
If a tree was in the way we used our axes to fell it, then we gained a supply of fuel for the boiler too.
Huh, youth of today? Never believe a word we say.
Didn’t see the tree was in the way as I reversed into it having lost my mirror in the hedge. Got free with the help of a helpful local who cut it off with a chainsaw. Big 20 or 30kg stump lands in the back of the truck, so I guess it’s the same except nobody would have use for that back at the depot
With todays technology (namely smart phones) the modern day adage should be…
“If in doubt, get google maps out!”
If I’d have taken a look at the google images of that lane prior to getting off route (in other words not too far out from your last to your next delivery) I wouldn’t have cared if the customer had said “we get the QE II down 'ere” it would have gone back to the depot, end of.
Not criticising you, it’s just you have to be a bit more determined in your decision making, at the end of the day what’s going to ■■■■ the boss off more, a failed delivery that will have to be reattempted by van or the picture you posted?
Yeah I went up to the agency today to have a chat, and to fill out some accident forms. They said I asked the right questions, and did more-or-less the right things. The only criticism they had was that I didn’t phone Parsons, I only phoned the customer. I then went up to Parsons to speak to the bosses, they said pretty much the same thing, and weren’t unhappy with me.
Apparently they’ve never had damaged done by a tail swinging into a hidden tree stump, but they’ve had quite a few bodies go from overhanging branches from drivers who assume that the lane is the same condition it was on yesterday’s drop.
I also told them that I usually get out and walk, as I had done a few times that day, but was not practical there as there was nowhere nearby to park and would have been blocking a road for 30+ minutes which probably would have been illegal (and they said it’d give the firm a bad name). I also mentioned that it was an impossible drop, and I COULD have spotted that at the depot, but as I was working slowly due to inexperience, I headed out once the truck & load were checked and was given a green light.
