Hi all I found it didn’t pay to try and analyse the job too much or you would never go anywhere, just try and learn a bit from each incident. I read somewhere that some firms said that their drivers should not drive at night but I don’t think you would ever get anywhere (too many excuses to hit the Effes).
That particular road north of Damascus used to be a single carriageway wandering across the plateau then the Syrians decided to up grade it and made a new single carriageway that crossed back and forth over the old one (it looked like a piece of rope) I think the idea was to make it into a dual carriageway with you sometimes driving on the new road sometimes on the old, however the locals seemed to have different ideas, perhaps it was because the new road was smoother or they didn’t understand dual carriageways but you could be driving along on what you thought should be the correct carriageway only to meet someone coming towards you probably overtaking another one with no lights on! Or if a truck broke down they would light some tyres around it, great you could see it for miles, but they only did it the first night the next night they worked on the principle that you would have seen it the night before and remembered it 
(Arabic Logic)
As for the head light flashing that Gavin GS mentioned that was a good idea that didn’t work. They would dip their lights some ways before an approaching vehicle and then use main beam for a few second to illuminate the road in front of them, then you would do the same alternately, it worked until someone got out of sequence or often a truck that had been driving along with no lights on decided to join in, and you would end up with a head light flashing contest 
A lot of people died on that bit of road even after they put armco across the joined sections to separate the carriageways the roadtrains just used to plough through it.I think it was the most dangerous bit of road between the UK and where-ever
RIP those who didn’t make it
Gavin
Syria was always a bit of a naughty place, If anyone is still in touch with Geoff Frost ask him about the early 80’s and the time he got his D9 in Babel Hawa and set off mid afternoon towards Darra to be in the queue for the next morning. Just after he past through Hama an old Mercedes car pulled along the side of him and opened the back door and threw a body out, Geoff hit the hard shoulder and missed it, the general idea was to make it look like the body had been hit by a truck
Reddesertfox:
Syria was always a bit of a naughty place, If anyone is still in touch with Geoff Frost ask him about the early 80’s and the time he got his D9 in Babel Hawa and set off mid afternoon towards Darra to be in the queue for the next morning. Just after he past through Hama an old Mercedes car pulled along the side of him and opened the back door and threw a body out, Geoff hit the hard shoulder and missed it, the general idea was to make it look like the body had been hit by a truck
Reddesertfox:- I’m in touch with GF ref my book. i’ll ask him when we speak next. I have sent you a PM.
Hi all, there was a Uganda Asian that every one knew as Packy Ralph who subbed for Astran in his final years. On his first trip through Syria he was totaly confused with the way that people were driving,some going up what appeared to be the wrong way on dual carriage ways and then crossing over the wide central reservation and going what appeared to be the correct way. On seeing a policeman he pulled over and went to ask him what side of the road he should drive on in Syria, as the policeman could not speak english, a young girl translated for him, she told him that the policeman says what ever way is most comfortable. So Ralph carried on none the wiser.When he got to Damascus he was even more surprised to find the little three wheel trucks converted from Vespa type scooters driving under his trailer behind his unit. He unfortunately died after being involved in an accident in Saudi a few years later, on his way to Doha.
Regards Jamie.
A Scot lost in the Valley’s.
hi there
is any one still doing m/e ■■ and can you do it in a right hand drive truck??
yea theres still a few of us still doing it but the saudi’s are playing up giving visa’s out one of my drivers is on route to
qatar and hes been sitting around waiting for visa’s . as regards right hand drive the saudi’s
wont let u in
cheers
graham 
Hi Gavin McArdle, thanks for the P.M. it was really interesting I will get back to you about that one very soon 
.
Hello Gavin S. talking about ringing some bells how about sounding some of those old cheap air horns that you could get fitted at the Mocamp. They never did have a clear pitch to them, in fact they sounded more like a cow with a sore throat. I once took over from Old Jock Macdonald a column change M.A.N. 280 which he had already fitted a red light over the bunk in the back of the cab. Although I had to buy my own Turkish belly dancer hanging carpet for the back wall of the cab from the carpet sellers at The Harem car park in Istanbul. I bet that you had the carpet with the camels crossing the desert at night didn’t you Gavin.
Now that Gavin McArdle has brought up the subject of night driving I suppose that we all remember a night driving incident, well here is one of mine.
When I first started doing the job I was advised by a couple of old fellers not to drive at night once I had passed West Germany or Austria but like most drivers I didn’t always listen to words of wisdom. So one January night in Rumania at about seven o’clock in the evening I found myself heading towards The Calafat Ferry to cross The Danube into Bulgaria.
It was the first time that I had ever used this road and the drivers on here who did use it will remember that there were not many towns on this route. There were some villages that didn’t appear to have electricity and the ones that did have power only had the one or two streets lights in the centre of the village.
This time of the year meant that the roads were often covered in mud ( was it sugar beet season or something ? ) I had left the snow behind the day before.
Phil Collins and Genesis were playing on the cassette player and there it was trotting towards me in the middle of the road a horse and cart with no lights on.
The next few seconds appeared to last for a few minutes but it was probably all over in the blink of an eye. I can’t remember seeing anybody sat on the seat of the cart and it was definitely a black horse pulling a four wheeled trailer. The horse stopped in the middle of the road, I had already started pumping the brakes but the only thing that I could do now was to stand on the brake peddle.
To avoid a head on clash I decided to steer to the right and to take my chances in the field. My speed was only about jogging pace by now but I had to do some thing so I swerved to the right.
Once again, the Lorry Gods were with me as next to the side of the road was a small clearing for a bus stop and as the wheels of the unit gripped the dirt underneath them I felt like I had regained control of the vehicle. As I swerved there was a loud bang that really put the chits up me as the passenger side mirror smacked back hard against the passenger door window. In my headlights I could see that the cart was overloaded with straw but the overhang was over a yard wide. At the end of the bus stop I could see a tree in front of me but I managed to turn to the left after I had passed the cart and I was able to get the unit back onto the road and then there was another bang as the trailer seemed to hold me back as I came to a stop.
Shaking slightly, I grabbed my torch and the crow bar that I always kept behind the drivers seat. I switched the engine off but kept the lights on as I got down to asses the damage and fearing for the worst I was expecting to find somebody injured if not a dead horse. As I passed the left side of the trailer I was surprised to see that there was straw stuffed tightly behind the lace of the tilt at the front and where the lace joined the two sheets in the middle. Also along the length of the tilt cord it looked as though somebody had pushed handfuls of straw behind the cord.
It was pitch black outside and very quite apart from the sound of horses hooves running quickly away in the distance. I walked back a few hundred yards shining the torch on the road and at the side of the field in case somebody had jumped off the cart before the impact. I even called out Hello but nobody returned my call it was so quite with just the sound of the horse disappearing in the distance and the wind blowing over the fields.
I walked back to the truck and felt really sick, the back of the trailer looked a right mess as I had hit the tree and pulled it over, I was gutted.
I shone the torch up at the back of the tilt, the top rail had come out and was hanging down, the tilt was ripped, the back side gate had sprung open and worst of all the tilt cord was broken. The impact had pulled the tree slightly out of the ground but as far as I could see nobody had been killed.
After a few minutes of pulling straw out of the offside of the tilt and from most of the eyelets I climbed into the cab and started up the engine. The ignition warning light would not go off so I switched the engine off and crawled underneath the cab, it was as I had expected the fan belt had snapped, ( has anybody any ideas why it snapped at that particular moment ?).
I had passed a small town a couple of kilometres back so I decided to try and turn the truck around and go back to it. There was a small dirt road a bit further on where I managed to turn around and with me keeping a very close eye on the temperature gauge I drove slowly back towards the town. From where the bus stop lay-by was and where all the straw lay on the road I looked out for the horse and cart all the way back to the town but I couldn’t see it.
I couldn’t sleep that night thinking about what had happened and what might of happened and the next morning after replacing the fanbelt I carried on with my journey to Greece. I stopped at the bus lay-by to take these two photos and it left me wondering who had chit themselves the most, me, the horse or the tree, as it looked as if the tree was already dead.
At the Calafat Ferry the Rumanian customs men wanted to open me up which was fine by me as I was able to replace the upright back into position and refasten the side gate. I had to end the Carnet T.I.R. and bond the load through Bulgaria and after tipping in Volos three days later I found somebody in the docks who for fifty Deutsch Marks ( about £12 .50p ) repaired the rip in the tilt and fixed the tilt cord.
It was the most expensive accident that I ever had in my driving career but I must admit that I also collected a few cracked mirror glasses from the ferries and jockeying for a position at Kapic but that wasn’t always my fault.
Like everybody else there were times that I did the odd through the night hits but I sometimes wondered the following day if I had ever gained all that much 
.
Accidents do happen.
It might not be the tree of knowledge but I learnt something that night 
.
Regards Steve.
thanks graham for your reply.
ill have to get a left ■■■■■■ then! you taking on any subbies?? im pullin for the same crowd that chris hooper gets his return loads from, he wont give me his number though. im just doin italy and greece at the moment.
just give astrans a call and
speak to kevin not sure if thay need anybody else at the moment.
cheers graham
thanks for that graham.
A highlight of Truckfest at Shepton Mallet this weekend was an Astran Volvo FH and tilt pulling into the show on Saturday, the driver parked up and opened the trailer box for a sit down.
mechanic77:
A highlight of Truckfest at Shepton Mallet this weekend was an Astran Volvo FH and tilt pulling into the show on Saturday, the driver parked up and opened the trailer box for a sit down.
If that was the “Highlight of the show” i dread to think what the crowd would have done for a “spreadeagle” 
Suedehead:
mechanic77:
A highlight of Truckfest at Shepton Mallet this weekend was an Astran Volvo FH and tilt pulling into the show on Saturday, the driver parked up and opened the trailer box for a sit down.If that was the “Highlight of the show” i dread to think what the crowd would have done for a “spreadeagle”
I meant it was a good contrast to the polished up customised trucks on show.
graham ball:
yea there’s still a few of us still doing it but the saudi’s are playing up giving visa’s out one of my drivers is on route to
qatar and hes been sitting around waiting for visa’s . as regards right hand drive the saudi’s
wont let u in
cheers
graham
Your driver slipped up there Graham didn’t he, whats happened to his other passport ■■
Or have they tightened up and restricted you to just one passport nowadays ■■
Must admit though have sat at the Telex motel a few times myself waiting for my second passport to catch up, only to find that you still end up getting a ride down into the DHL office in Ankara to collect it yourself because DHL dint deliver door to door !!
Found it easier to use 3 passports in the end, then however slow the embassy’s were you never needed to loose any time waiting for visas.
Have a Nice day
dave
no the driver has plenty of passports the problem is astran are waiting for letters of saudi goverment which is going in to 3
weeks now barry barns is leavin is truck in my yard and flying back to jordon to bring my truck though saudi hes the only
one on astrans at the mo with a visa
cheers
graham
graham ball:
no the driver has plenty of passports the problem is astran are waiting for letters of saudi goverment which is going in to 3
weeks now barry barns is leavin is truck in my yard and flying back to jordon to bring my truck though saudi hes the only
one on astrans at the mo with a visa
cheers
graham
Might know B.B would be there somewhere if there’s a few quid to be made, hope he is keeping well.
Must have been about 15 years the last time i seen him, he was on the tap line on the way down with a seller at the time. The only thing he had in the cab was a small camping gas stove and a tin of peaches !! but still smiling or was that because i had some tea and grub.
Tell him Dave Reynolds sends his best when you next see him.
TFN
hi ashbarns, yes they are still issueing more than one passport at least they were a year ago. Had to go down to to london passport office for an interview, could’nt believe there was’nt one english person working in there apart from the security guys, it was a mixture of indians/pakistanis or moslems with the office manager an irish lady. What is this country coming to when the people that issue you with your document that proves you are an englishman and ask you for your passport when you arrive back in uk either by road or air are for the most part persons who were’nt even born in the uk. so much for having a national identity.
chazzer
I take it barry barnes is a bit of a ducker and diver
I take it barry barnes is a bit of a ducker and diver
I have just noticed that somebody joined Trucknet last Sunday with the username of Bill Hyde, welcome to the site Bill.
Wasn’t there somebody running down to the Middle East in the 80’s from Yorkshire with the same name 
.