It was late on Thursday 21st April when a short notice job to UK came up. It was supposed to be over the weekend and so ‘volunteers’ would be non-existent. I tried to get it changed by a few days but it wasn’t possible; it was going to have to be out Saturday and back Sunday and fair enough, who in their right mind would want to loose the best two days of the week??
Anyway, I tried my best to hide the inevitable feeling I was getting before I even asked the question. I might have had a captive audience in the restroom (I was covering the door so there was no escape) but it was a crap question for a crap job for crap days.
“Anyone fancy a quick trip to UK…” one or two half interested looks… “ It’s this weekend, up to the midlands?” No more interested looks. “Come on, it’s a real quickie and it’s in the little van, no hanging about or getting messed about!" Still no joy.
Right then, perks of management (apart from no such thing as overtime) means it looks like i’ll be doing it. I was going to be in so much trouble at home as it was 'er indoors birthday on the Saturday (23rd, St. Georges Day!!) and the babysitter was already arranged for us to be able to go out.
Friday morning had two bits of good news; firstly I managed to arrange the trip to be out Sunday and back Monday or Tuesday and secondly, I had a volunteer as co-driver as his girlfriend lives in the area (Leicestershire) where the pick-up was to be! So, I got the paperwork sorted and phoned 'er with the good news (it just meant I wouldn’t be drinking when we went out and we didn’t need the expensive taxi’s!!).
There was an ‘unrelated’ delay to setting off from Paderborn (and wasn’t me who slept in or anything) so it was 1.30pm when we hit the A33 autobahn, followed by the A44 and straight on through the middle of Dortmund and out on the A40 towards the Dutch border and Venlo. We were making good time but that was all to change in Belgium.
At 5.15pm, as I was driving along the A10 (Ghent to Oostkamp) at KM 68, in the area of Aalter, a Mondeo in front of me appeared to drive over or hit a large piece of debris which then bounced of the concrete central reservation and came flying up towards us. I guess the whole thing took about ‘point-nowt’ of a second but it seemed longer, as the debris looked like it might come through the windscreen (in that split second I was really wishing I was sat a few feet higher in one of the trucks!). Luckily, it hit the bumper with a loud bang followed by the inevitable double-thud as the van bounced over it. Meanwhile, I was holding on big-style in case we were about to be flipped over or something. I knew from my mirror checks that there was no chance of swerving (too much traffic in lane 2) and I knew from previous training that a swerve was as dodgy, if not more so, than hitting the debris.
In actual fact, the impact was loud but not so bad; the vehicle only momentarily felt very slightly out of control and within 500 metres I had manoeuvred to the hard shoulder so that we could assess the damage.
As I looked around the front of the van I was pleasantly surprised how ‘little’ damage there appeared to be, well, at first sight anyway!! The front bumper was damaged and there were large wooden splinters through the front grille and the radiator was leaking.
Here’s some of the wood. The rest was still in lane 3 at this point!
OK, not a problem. Think; safety of us, safety of others, report it, recovery, simple!!
We put on the hi-viz vests we have to carry over here, I got the other lad finding the recovery phone numbers (all of ours are contract hire vehicles - easy!!) while I set up the warning triangle and started walking back along the hard shoulder towards an emergency phone that was behind us a bit. Although we had mobile phones, I needed to use the emergency phone to be able to pinpoint exactly our location to be able to accurately report the debris (and tell the recovery exactly where we were!). Anyway, the ‘phone’ was answered in two rings by a bloke who was speaking perfect English (no call centre in India here!!) and as I explained our situation, he informed me that the police were already on their way. Some one else must’ve been quick on their mobile phone!!
I returned to our van, remembered about the disposable cameras I had put in all our vehicles and proceeded to take some ‘happy snaps’ by way of easier explanation for the insurance company. Hardly a few minutes later and we could see the Belgian Police clearing a big piece of debris from lane 3, after setting up a go-slow rolling road block. The police then came to speak and informed us that it was a piece of wood, similar to half a fence panel, with a metal edging strip. I was glad it didn’t quite make it through the windscreen!! As no-one had seen where the debris came from i.e. fell off a vehicle (?), the police couldn’t really ‘do anything’ about it. No problem for us but i’m glad it wasn’t my own vehicle.
So now we were waiting for the recovery, which in a nutshell took over 3 hours. It was during this time that I saw some very worrying sights, mostly from truck drivers!
We all know about it being dodgy sat on the hard shoulder and the risks of being hit by another vehicle. Sat there for over 3 hours was a practical demonstration of just how dodgy it really is!! During the time it took for recovery to arrive I saw over 20 examples of vehicles crossing the solid white line that separates lane 1 from the hard shoulder; 3 of these were what I would genuinely call dangerously close! We were in an awkward position; there was no ‘grass bank’ for us to take refuge on however there was a very dirty and deep drainage ditch that was our ‘emergency exit’ should it have all gone ‘horrible’.
Why were these trucks driving in such a dangerous manner?? The 3 worse examples were all using the CB (or a fist mike at least) but we also saw drivers steering with their elbows/forearms as they ‘slumped’ over the wheel, one driver was blatantly reading and only taking quick glimpses at the road ahead and the majority were staring at our vehicle, probably hoping for a bit of ‘shock effect’ to brighten their dreary day!! What I can say is that I learned a valuable lesson (from dirt biking) ages ago that could be applied here; if you see a rut, don’t stare at it as the idea of ‘looking at it to make sure I don’t ride in it’ simply doesn’t work. The correct approach is to see the hazard (in this case the rut) and then look at the safe route past it and focus on that. I’d say there too many truck drivers focusing on us and, without even realising, were getting scarily close!! Lesson for us all (in case we don’t do it already) is concentrate on where you do want to go, not where you don’t!!
Anyway, 3 hours later and we were on our way to some Opel garage that turned out to be in a small village called ‘Hansbeke (Nevele)’ which was only 2 km north of junction J12 of the E40. A few more phone calls and it transpired that due to some legality issue in Belgium we couldn’t have a hire vehicle (to replace ours) and so one was going to be brought out to us from Germany; actually it was to come from Mönchengladbach, 260 km away and another 3 hours! Seemed like a good time to see if we could eat anywhere although I was a bit concerned the village would be too small to have a food outlet. How wrong was I?!!
Map here for Hansbeke, Belgium.
As it transpired, Hansbeke, despite being so small actually had 5 bars, most of which served good food and also a ‘fast food take away’. We opted for the take away which turned out to be a ‘sit-in’ as well as a take away and served an excellent selection of fast foods. All the staff spoke perfect English and the food was excellent value for money. A large portion of chips, a couple of frikadela’s and a couple of coke’s later all for just over €5 and we were refuelled in preparation for the rest of the journey. All we had to do now was pass the remaining 2 hours+ until our replacement vehicle was delivered which we did by sitting at the bar in the nicest looking of the 5 bars (well, nicest looking barmaid!) although we must’ve looked a bit out of place, two blokes sat drinking coke at 11.00pm.
We managed to have about an hour of ‘snooze’ in the seats of our van and, as arranged, our replacement vehicle arrived at 01.00am. After completing the hire forms and moving our kit across, we were on our way by 01.30am and arrived at the tunnel terminal with over an hour to wait for the next train about 05.00am. The rest of the trip up to the midlands was uneventful as the roads were fairly quiet and with us changing the driver at regular intervals, I felt quite ok considering it was over 27 hours since I’d last had a sleep in a bed.
Just as I was getting settled in the hotel I got a call and was asked if I could go to a meeting ‘up North’! Normally I would’ve said no but seems as it was within easy reach of York, my hometown, I agreed and had a shower then repacked all that I had just unpacked. Just over a couple of hours later I was in a meeting that only served to remind me I was quite knackered after all. I dare say I wasn’t a great advert but there wasn’t too much riding on the outcome of this meeting; it was more a formality than anything else. I managed not to fall asleep and as soon as I got outside, I was wide awake again and made my way to York.
Still not finished those road works at Colton, A64■■
I had a good couple of nights catching up with some friends and family and left early on the Wednesday morning, calling in to the midlands to get the other guy and headed for the tunnel.
We made good time in getting to Folkestone and were looking like we’d be straight onto a train (I can’t remember the time now) until we hit the queues on the terminal approach road. There weren’t so many cars about, it was all freight but the whole of the road (all lanes) had standing traffic. One of the reasons became quite clear as once again some one was determined to get to trucks and their drivers a bad name.
The sign is quite clear!! It was looking like Mr TNT was going to have us miss the next train.
The TNT truck eventually moved over (thanks for letting him in, whoever you were!) and lo & behold the ‘other traffic’ lane was clear right up to the barriers!! Too late for us though; we’d missed the train and so had to wait about for the next one.
Whilst in that queue we saw the Dutch bonneted Scania tanker below with what seemed like a good idea. A ‘reversing’ camera had been fitted to the drivers ‘blind side’; useful for that front end swing when reversing no doubt! Except looking at the marks to the paintwork, I guess it didn’t work!!
The lower paintwork is damaged. Maybe the camera is just for looking inside car windows??!!
As we got off the train I got a call saying the van had been repaired and could we collect it on our way past. Not a problem I thought; seems like quick service in Belgium! It looked like we’d be about right for some more good food so I was happy to go a couple of km out of our way. It was too good to be true; the vehicle wasn’t ready, nor anywhere near! No problem to us and off we went to get our planned scoff.
In the next picture, the green building to the right is the fast food place. The 5 bars are barely 2 minutes walk away!! As I was looking at the area in the daylight, I was thinking it could be a good place to overnight in the truck. As I looked a bit closer I saw 3 or 4 trucks parked up further down the road so I obviously wasn’t the first to think like that!!
Only 2 km from J12 of the E40, I can see me visiting here again!
The approach to J12 had seen us sat in queuing traffic for about 9 km and had seemed to take ages to get anywhere so we were glad when we eventually legged it up the last 100 metres on the hard shoulder to the junction!
We’d been sat in that for over an hour!
We’d hoped that the time it had taken us to visit the garage and have our frikadella’s etc that the hold-up might have cleared. No such luck and i’m sure some of the same vehicles had only just got passed the bridge!!
And it was looking like we’d be in it for another hour at least!!
As it turned out we were clear of the hold up in just under an hour which seemed to be caused by the resurfacing of a 100 metre length of lane 1!?!
An uneventful but tiring drive saw us back in Paderborn just before midnight and thankfully back in the comfort of my own bed!! So much for a ‘quick trip’!!
Supa read and pics.
