that interpretates as,make sure your wearing your hard hat,gloves,goggles,and hi viz ear defenders when your doing in 6 bags of crisps and a cpl of mars bars when your flat out at 52 on cruise control for the next 4 hours.
as shown on dumb and dumber,then it breaks the monotony sometimes running while sitting or half sitting in the seat with your legs going flat out…certainly breaks the monotony for the other drivers looking at you and thinking your talking a epileptic fit.
i always find it amusing when everyone goes on about deep vein thrombosis and stuff when your on the plane for a cl hours to spain,but its ok to do the same thing for 10 hours a day every day in a truck.
Well DDI…although i feel; for you mate, and hope and pray that all will be alright in the end, sadly, not many people will take any notice…until it happens, we all have our tales to tell, our heartaches and crosses to bear, but do we listen…no we dont…You see, for most its all about the money, when you got a mortgage, credit cards up to the limit, 2 kids, and all the other bills to pay, the majority will soldier on, now i am not in that position, but then again i am not that fit either, we go to work, grumpy as hell, get used and abused, forced to work 15 hour days with minimum rest, all this takes its toll, but it goes back to money, again people are thinking about, what if i had to live on benefits, what about my wife having to work extra to pay the mortgage, and look after the two kids, let alone pay all the bills and credit cards…so the majority just carry on and heres my own story. Back in 2002 i was up in Kings Lynn…just tipped, and was making my way back to the A12…felt an ache down my left side, a bit nauseas, so pulled overon a garage forecourt, bought some aspirin, took them, and went to lie down…an hour passed…my boss phoned…hello, i want you down in wales tonight…sorry mate, i dont feel so good…so he started swearing about the missed load etc…then i shouted…i might be having a heart attack !! well can you bring the truck back to the yard and park up, ill put another driver on it..so i did, then went home, went to bed, but the pains were getting worse, but didnt want to bother anyone, so left it to the morning..i phoned the doctor..he said dial 999 your having a heart attack..so here i was, in hospital the doctors needed to give me a block beater, and they said IF they dont give it within the next 15 minutes you could die. of course i signed the papers, they gave it with a caution that i could still die..but there was a clot there, that needed to be shifted..anyway..i got over that, went home after a week or so, and started claiming the benefits..lo and behold, they said they couldnt pay because i never had enough stamps..anyway..to cut a long story short, my employer hadnt paid any of the drivers tax or national insurance, although he deducted them from our wages, and i kept my proof..and did eventually get on benefits, as i remembered the weighbridges i had been on, and contacted the companies concerned who gave me the proof i needed, that i was employed and not self employed as my boss had lied..eventually he got fined a great deal of money..and a good job too..but going back to those times, we lived on burgervan food, grabbed a bite wherever we could, and it wasnt healthy..but it made me give up smoking..another hazard,, but sadly only for a short while, we all know its wrong, but still do it..and drink also..not so much i might add..but nontheless..Its a fear we face that we could lose our licence to earn a living in the only industry we know..luckily, i am under the DVLA, i am checked annually by my doctor, and have to take a treadmill test every 2 years, in fact its due now, once dvla arrange it..so you see, we are all different, im not so fit, but feel and look healthy enough, possibly due to the 5 tablets a day i have to take…what i do worry about though, are the drivers i see, who are obviously overweight, struggle to get in to their cabs, cough a lot, yet probably kid the doctors when its time to renew their licence…these are a worry, and in all honesty, i believe a driver should have an ECG over a certain age, along with blood tests, urine tests etc…in other words a thorough medical.
Conor:
Unless you’re a twist lock monkey its actually surprising how much of a work out you do get on this job. I got a Gear Fit 2 watch free with my phone last year. It can count the number of steps you do, monitor your heartrate, once you’ve set your weight in the phone app it’ll work out roughly how many calories you use etc.I do night trunking so strap down load, drive to point B, swap trailers, strap down return load, get back to yard, fuel up, wash truck etc. All the time I’m spending coupling up, strapping down the load, shutting curtains etc the level of work apparently is enough that the watch thinks I’m doing a workout. Every day I’m working I’ll do well over 7,000 steps and burn off over 2700 calories. The days I’m not at work even though I think I’m being active I do fewer steps and burn off fewer calories. You can look at the last 2 weeks history it stores and be pretty accurate in working out what days I was working.
So why are many of us overweight? Quite simply long hours meaning poor sleep, not having regular sleep patterns and boredom munching as you drive down the road.
I also found that if you take it off and put it on the centre console, it thinks your running! I did a marathon every night last week. 
Feel for you DDi and hope things improve for you soon mate.
I do the gym whenever i can, take dumb bells with me in the truck and workout every eve wherever i am and occasionally still do a 5km run with a 20kg back pack when at home.
Eating healthy with a good combination of carbs and protein and under 5% fat is easy to do if preparing food yourself, cholesterol is under 4mmol.
AndrewG:
Feel for you DDi and hope things improve for you soon mate.
I do the gym whenever i can, take dumb bells with me in the truck and workout every eve wherever i am and occasionally still do a 5km run with a 20kg back pack when at home.
Eating healthy with a good combination of carbs and protein and under 5% fat is easy to do if preparing food yourself, cholesterol is under 4mmol.
And presumably you enjoy the benefits of Mediterranean diet Andrew?
Captain Caveman 76:
I also found that if you take it off and put it on the centre console, it thinks your running! I did a marathon every night last week.
Mine thinks I’ve been doing 14,000+ steps each day, trouble is I’m only walking from the pool to the bar and back
Late 98, I was feeling like death warmed up, worked away as you do thinking that " I’ll be alright, I’ll shake whatever it is off". Fast forward to the first week in 99 and I left Felixstowe on the Saturday morning after a 30 hr delay, between starting off and parking up at the BP truckstop I had drunk 10 litres of coke and stopped at either every layby or the hard shoulder to pee, after I parked up, I sank 10 pints in that bar and didn’t even feel the effects of them, turned out I was type 1 diabetic and lost my ticket for 13 and 2 months 
Onwards now to Jan 2013 and I stopped smoking. thought I was doing great, 60 a day down to nothing, then April reared it’s ugly head, had had a few problems with my back end and ended up in hospital twice only to be sent home each time with “food poisoning” third time I was admitted and ended up being told “you have colitis and if we dont operate soon you won’t survive”.
On both of these occasions I KNEW there was something wrong with me ( in fact on the second occasion I died twice in the hospital) but I had the attitude of " ach I’ll be alright" and worked on, only to find out I wasn’t alright, so after me putting my head in the sand not once but twice I would encourage anyone if they are feeling ill to get checked out.
DDi I hope everything works out for you and if you need to vent, feel free pm me.
Juddian:
There’s a generational thing at work here too.
Some of us were sole breadwinners whilst our wives (usually but not always) raised any children.Its never been easy running a comfortable solvent home on one working persons wages, so the sole breadwinner often took it upon themselves to earn the money of two well paid people, hence where 70/100 hour weeks became the norm for many working class breadwinners who worked in the real world, not just lorry drivers lots of working people have worked themselves into early graves over the years, many of us here come from the last years of that era, and the work was in most cases a hell of a lot harder than today and working two or more jobs common.
That generational thing also included being net earners, taking a (foolish? well to some it might appear so) pride in not asking the state for any help.We all carry the scars aches and long term issues, that our work has tolled on our bodies and minds.
Unfortunately lorry driving has now gone backwards, the huge strides in the 80’s in particular, where drivers could earn very decent money without having to work all hours God sent have taken a gradual dive back to previous days, the move away from own account to contact haulage bears a lot of responsibility for this, hire and reward is always going to be pared to the bone extracting as much work as possible from your tools (vehicles and bums on seats) as possible for as little cost as possible.
The actual work isn’t usually as physically hard any more except for one or two sides of the industry (usually at the better paid end but not always), but the hours in reality have gone up, remember pre about 1979 we had a 12.5 hour working day, then we got safereuropean parity and went for a 15 hour day.
I’ve been there lads, worked all hours, near enough become part of the bloody machine, if the present Lady J a woman far too good for me hadn’t stopped me and thanks to her intervention getting me away from the car transporters (not a game for old men) i’m not sure i’d be in the reasonably if a bit overweight rude state of health i find myself now in, touch wood, not being melodramatic here i hadn’t seen where i was going cos all i did was work and sleep the sleep of the dead but she had seen it
Thats why i often pipe up when i hear of ■■■■ poor pay schemes and obvious shark infested waters where you can see young and new drivers heading or being led by the dishonest down those same endless roads and not even being paid decently for it, cos i’ve been there as have many others and have the bloody T shirts the scars the aches and the damaged lives, and have at long last found something better, hence why i try to encourage others to seek the same.
All the best DDi, a worthy thread indeed, worth thinking about deeply.
Wise words
Sent from my SM-G928V using Tapatalk
Some good replies there, hopefully someone will take note before it’s too late. I’ve just copped another night all inclusive courtesy of the NHS. Be careful out there.
Radar19:
Juddian:
There’s a generational thing at work here too.
Some of us were sole breadwinners whilst our wives (usually but not always) raised any children.Its never been easy running a comfortable solvent home on one working persons wages, so the sole breadwinner often took it upon themselves to earn the money of two well paid people, hence where 70/100 hour weeks became the norm for many working class breadwinners who worked in the real world, not just lorry drivers lots of working people have worked themselves into early graves over the years, many of us here come from the last years of that era, and the work was in most cases a hell of a lot harder than today and working two or more jobs common.
That generational thing also included being net earners, taking a (foolish? well to some it might appear so) pride in not asking the state for any help.We all carry the scars aches and long term issues, that our work has tolled on our bodies and minds.
Unfortunately lorry driving has now gone backwards, the huge strides in the 80’s in particular, where drivers could earn very decent money without having to work all hours God sent have taken a gradual dive back to previous days, the move away from own account to contact haulage bears a lot of responsibility for this, hire and reward is always going to be pared to the bone extracting as much work as possible from your tools (vehicles and bums on seats) as possible for as little cost as possible.
The actual work isn’t usually as physically hard any more except for one or two sides of the industry (usually at the better paid end but not always), but the hours in reality have gone up, remember pre about 1979 we had a 12.5 hour working day, then we got saferI’ve been there lads, worked all hours, near enough become part of the bloody machine, if the present Lady J a woman far too good for me hadn’t stopped me and thanks to her intervention getting me away from the car transporters (not a game for old men) i’m not sure i’d be in the reasonably if a bit overweight rude state of health i find myself now in, touch wood, not being melodramatic here i hadn’t seen where i was going cos all i did was work and sleep the sleep of the dead but she had seen it
Thats why i often pipe up when i hear of ■■■■ poor pay schemes and obvious shark infested waters where you can see young and new drivers heading or being led by the dishonest down those same endless roads and not even being paid decently for it, cos i’ve been there as have many others and have the bloody T shirts the scars the aches and the damaged lives, and have at long last found something better, hence why i try to encourage others to seek the same.
All the best DDi, a worthy thread indeed, worth thinking about deeply.
Kinda makes me feel guilty for working those 15 hour days, 70+ hour weeks.
It’s your health Radar, only you and yours will care about it.
We wrote a series of health related articles on our blog this time last year. I can’t share the links (forum rules) but we discussed
- Driver posture
- Loneliness on the road
- Making your money go further
It’s all about having a balanced lifestyle. Everything in moderation…
freightlink:
We wrote a series of health related articles on our blog this time last year. I can’t share the links (forum rules) but we discussed
- Driver posture
- Loneliness on the road
- Making your money go further
It’s all about having a balanced lifestyle. Everything in moderation…
Especially hours…
Sorry but had to bring this up again. Recent hospital appointment has left me with no car driving for 12 months and no lorry driving for 10 years Please have a check up before it gets to my stage, I could have prevented most of it if I had known.
As a result of all this unexpected and unknown illness my marriage is ■■■■■■. My life is in tatters and I feel I have no more purpose.
To read some of the posts on here regarding trivial matters…I really wish I could be involved Be careful what you wish for!!!
DDI. I am thinking of you whilst i write this, and you have all of my sympathy…it seems as if you dont want to discuss your illness/symptoms and i understand that to a point, but it may help, others if you say what is wrong that has banned you from driving a car for 12 months, and a truck for 10 years…thats some lengthy ban…Its a sad state of affairs too when your marriage is in a mess because of it…through thick or thin they say in the vows…but each to their own…but…maybe its a financial struggle for her as well…its a big loss of wages and knocks ya for six mate when you end up with a fraction of what you once earned…( in my case, she had to find a job pdq ) as my then employer denied i ever worked for him, let alone know him, as he wasnt paying our taxes and insurance, and therefore i was denied any benefits, until it all got sorted, and a lot of detective work on my part…But this is another aspect of drivers suddenly becoming ill…i have always listened to drivers on sites like this who say: I cant wait to retire but have they checked what they will have to live on…its the same as becoming ill, the money drops dramatically especially if your on the minimum state pension…thank god i am well sorted, mortgage paid, no debts…and a reasonable life…not everyone can say that…But dont despair DDI there is help, financially and otherwise…and i wish you well… both in your life and your health…keep us informed…and we all welcome you having a chat. all the best mate !!
I’m thin but I had a brother who was thin / eat well / fisherman and died in his 40,s mnd ( 10x times fitter than me , me , Mrs recently lost a very dear friend from Breast cancer , slim , looked after hear self but still took her , dad died late 40,s from lukemia , again thin/ fit , Mrs mum early 50,s , picture of health , Big Bang one morning , massive heart attack , hit radiator , gone .
it’s a difficult one , I’m a great believer in when it’s your time it’s your time , I try to eat right but the massive bags under my eyes tell me what I already know I don’t get anywhere near enough sleep , looking at pic of me on hol 3 yrs ago was a shocker , I looked well , 3 yrs on and I look like I’ve aged 10 yrs , I look old and not well , no colour in my face ,
hope you get sorted d/d life can be really cruel at times
truckyboy:
it seems as if you dont want to discuss your illness/symptoms and i understand that to a point, but it may help, others if you say what is wrong that has banned you from driving a car for 12 months, and a truck for 10 years…
I’ll tell you. I was on holiday in Crete September 2016 and waiting to get served at the bar, it was a very hot day and as I have COPD anyway I put my ill feelings down to that. I collapsed at the bar (before I got served 
) and was taken to hospital. Insurance covered everything and I was advised to see a cardiologist on my return, I saw my GP and was referred etc.
A long story short;
I am diagnosed with heart failure, Angina, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. Since then I had an angina attack and collapsed again, this time when I fell, I fractured my skull and got bleeding on the brain As it is right now I need a walking stick to help keep me upright because I get dizzy if I move my head quick. The fracture has also caused further ailments and I now suffer epilepsy bouts which I’ve never had before.
My life has had it and I want it to end. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not suicidal at all I’ve just had enough. I did martial arts for 15 years and was quite fit and healthy. Now, it is hard work to put my shoes on.
Be careful out there
Not that I want to go back to it; but in my particular job, when I started it 12 years ago, every day was a workout. On the bulk blowers you frequently had 5 pipe runs to the feed bin, or carried said pipes up a ladder or stairs into a loft and tied them up in order to blow the feed in, and of course took them down and stowed them away afterwards. Predictably the farmer would be busy ploughing a field somewhere, in fairness some would help if they happened to be around but by and large you were expected to do it all yourself.
When I moved over to bagged feeds, probably about 40% of the deliveries were still handball; on a full six-wheeler that means shifting up to 6 tonnes in 25 or 20 kilo bags, never up steps but often over a ten or even twenty yard distance, and it was a decent steady workout. I only once had a full load where I unloaded ■■■■ nearly every single bag myself, unfortunate combination of a Saturday because the lorry had been broken down,meaning there was little help on the farms and none at all in the pet shops; and choice of customers who didn’t have a front-loader or FLT. It’s one time when I literally did walk straight in the house, sit down and fall asleep.
Fast forward to today; we’re no longer allowed to climb ladders or go into lofts on bulk deliveries (the farmer either holds the pipe himself or gets his feed elsewhere) bins are often sited more conveniently because they’ve been replaced with bigger ones as farms themselves have got bigger and more thought has gone into it; on bag deliveries it’s almost exclusively unloaded either by Moffett or customer’s FLT. We discourage farmers from using their own tele-handlers unless we know they’re competent, it’s quicker, cleaner and safer to use ours!
And of course the vehicles; my current Renault Lander is a ■■■■ sight easier and less tiring to drive than the old manual FM9 I used to have. Our company is also very strict on WTD so I get midweek rest days in high season when the working days are longer.
Thing is, all this stuff, or at least a lot of it, was done in order to make our jobs easier and safer, as well as to speed the job up, and it’s been successful in that respect. It’s a bit ironic that one of the unforeseen consequences is that I’m actually less fit as a result of that. It’s no wonder I’ve put a bit of weight on! 
Thanks for posting all of your systems diddlydriver…it certainly seems as if you copped a great deal…now if your ok financially…you have 12 months to sort things out and its possible that a lot of your problems will have healed, been treated and diagnosed, and maybe an operation or two…the heart problems certainly can be treated with medication…i dont know about the bleed on the brain.maybe it can heal itself over time. Dont feel so hard done by mate, 12 months will fly…and when you get your licence back…it will cover you for 7.5 tons…so you can still drive …a small builders truck or something on those lines…dont despair…onwards and upwards mate…we`re all rooting for ya to get well and do well.
Bloody hell Diddly.
I thought I had it bad with 3 knackered discs in my lower back but I’ll take that any day over what life has dealt you. From my bad periods I know how utterly depressing it can be being sat at home not able to do nowt so I sympathise with your plight and can only hope that you improve sufficiently over the coming months to be able to go out and do stuff. I met a driver with COPD a couple of weeks ago and couldn’t believe how knackered he was, quite how he still had his license I don’t know. What was more unbelievable though is how many ■■■■ he smoked when we did the trailer swap. Personally if it had been me with COPD a cig would be the last thing I’d ever touch.
Please do make sure you’re getting all the benefits that you’re rightly entitled to, they’ll make life a lot easier. Join the Moneysavingexpert.com forums and post on there in the Benefits and Tax Credits board as well as posting a statement of affairs in the Debt Free Wannabe board as there are very knowledgeable people in both who will help you make sure you’re getting everything you should, how to fill in the forms to ensure you do (PiP is extremely dependent on this) as well as help you re-jig your finances so your outgoings are lower.
Thanks for replies. I haven’t a clue about benefits as I’ve never been out of work, I do claim pip as my sister told me about that. I have a disabled bus pass and a blue badge…(I didn’t sign recent request!!!) This came to me all at once, I was expecting 2 weeks in Crete then back to the whinging about traffic and parking up etc etc. This didn’t happen. I’ve been off work for 16 months now and it is beyond my control I have to laugh at some of the threads on here 
So petty as far as I’m concerned…I used to moan about the times I finished on Friday but now…I would LOVE TO BE STUCK somewhere.
You don’t know what you have got until it’s gone!!!
I am right now thinking about a little walk, not far just a gentle stroll round the block. It’s cold’ish so I need a coat. Then I have to remember; inhalers, GTN, notices on my body, (no MRI, Epileptic, Heart failure…minor to you but vital to a paramedic).
All I wanted was 2 weeks holiday in Crete and then this happened. Obviously it has been building up but I was fit and healthy as far as I was concerned. Stopped training/teaching martial arts some years ago but still thought I was ok.
No more cliches from me but just have a check up before it gets too late 