Hi Zodian,
I’ll get your name right this time, bloody predictive text, Jesus Crust!
Overland was quite hairy in the seventies, in Yugoslavia, relatives put flowers and crosses where fatal accidents had happened. There were lots of them!
However, it was nothing compared to Saudi. ‘God’s Will’ was taken literally. I discussed this with a Muslim Indian. He said that it was against the religion to test ‘His’ will by say - overtaking on a blind bend. However it appeared that many Saudis thought that ‘If I die today, that is Gods will!’
When I first got there I was talking to an English driver who had been doing ‘internals’ for some months. He told me that on average he saw a fatal accident every day. ‘The trick is, not to be in one yourself!’ His average was about correct, I saw horrific accidents often. I mean saw them happen, not just the aftermath.
The trick was to drive very defensively! If a Tonka started to overtake when you could see something coming the other way, stand on the brakes and let him in.
The artic Tonkas - Mercedes long nosed with,only about 180 BHP, used to load 60 tons of steel. They took forever to get going and forever to stop, Merc brakes were hopeless. One would travel behind the other and because the second was being dragged in the slipstream of the first, he thought he could overtake.
The straight roads of Saudi, maybe 50 or more miles without a bend, meant that they would try to overtake. Once they were alongside, all advantage was gone. Yet they used to travel side by side, mile after mile!
Somewhere on here, Merlin has described a similar situation, being in a vehicle with Ron, another contributor, where Ron played ‘chicken’ with a couple of these. It puts your heart in your mouth!
If you were coming the other way, unlike Ron, if you were sensible , you pulled off into the desert long before it became a problem. I saw more than one accident where it was left to the last second and the overtaker and the oncoming vehicle pulled into the desert at the same time and crashed head on maybe 20 feet from the highway.
Once I had a heavy load from Dammam to Riyadh. A car transporter- they had 60’ trailers’ - was alongside me on an uphill stretch, when a Toyota Land Cruiser came the other way. I eased off the throttle and hit the brakes. Unfortunately, so did the overtaker. I gave it full juice. So did he. By now the landcruiser was upon us. They both pulled off left at the same time and hit head on. Did I stop? Did I f***! The foreigner always got blamed for any accident.
I actually only had one accident in about six or seven years driving trucks over there. (After that I went into the office, which was where I first met Martin, about 1981.)A Toyota pick up pulled out from a side road and I hit him full on sideways. I thought he was dead, but when I got to him he started to twitch and eventually came round. The police took me to the police station in Riyadh and the chief of police gave me tea. He phoned my Saudi partner, Sheikh Ali Al Ghoson in Dammam, and they sorted it out between them. I was out in a couple of hours. I was lucky. Lots of English lads rotted in jail for months while they waited for decisions on similar accidents.
John.