Bad Paint Job

NEW AND WANNABE DRIVERS (INTERACTIVE)
1

:blush:

Made my first gaff as a newbee trucker today. Three tubs of emolsion and a nice deep gloss red to really brighten things up on the floor and curtains of my vehicle!!! Luckily it was a old rust heap 7.5t I was driving today and not the brand new MAN I was driving last week…otherwise I think I would have been marched out of the depot.

The spray effect it left as it ran down between the curtain whilst I travelled down the motorway was really rather fetching!

Though I had strapped everything down I will in future check the amount of plastic wrap holding paint pots or any other liquid in place as there obviously wasn’t enough at the top.

Please make me feel like less of a numpty with similar tales of woe…it really is amazing how much of a mess 20 litres of paint can make!

2

I nearly lost a pack of chipboard off a dropside lorry the other day, I’ve been delivering chipboard for ages now too so I should know better. Thing is, if it had been a flatbed I’d have been more carefull…dropsides are making my lazy.

3

I had a set of cab guards fly off the top of a machine the other day. I had checked that they were secure and they appeared to be locked into the cage. However the lock was seized and although locked it didn’t actually lock the two pieces together.

It wasn’t apparent until I saw them disappering in the mirror. Now I actually have to physically check them.

A week or so back I reversed a dumper on board and hit the headboard as it had no brakes. This is not uncommon.

The joys of moving other peoples stuff. Basically be suspicious of everything and trust no-one elses work.

4

Brownie71:
:blush: Made my first gaff as a newbee trucker today. Three tubs of emolsion and a nice deep gloss red to really brighten things up on the floor and curtains of my vehicle!!!

Please make me feel like less of a numpty with similar tales of woe…

Numptyism comes in many forms, then of course, there are varying standards. I’d say you’re only as much of a numpty as you feel. When I’ve made mistakes, and there have been many, they were on a par with yours I’d say. Things like forgetting to wind down trailer landing legs, or connecting airlines without having first applied the handbrake. All potentially serious, but the kind of thing you might smile about whilst learning the lesson.
Honestly mate, you’ll smile (and maybe laugh) about this in time to come-- trust me and read on… :wink:

Whilst this is very true:

Brownie71:
it really is amazing how much of a mess 20 litres of paint can make!

Here’s some premier league numptyism from the archives:
Back in the '80s, a person of my acquaintance was driving a artic flatbed loaded with 80 x 200 litre drums of lube oil (not ADR) from Shell. There wasn’t a rope, sheet or strap in sight, the drums just stood on the trailer secured by the “gravity” method. It was pouring with rain when he exited the M6 (Penrith IIRC) and he went like the clappers around the roundabout. The inevitable then happened and 20ish drums fell from his trailer in slow motion (his words) as he went around the roundabout. Many of the drums split when they fell, spinning off and lubricating the road as spilt lube oil was sprayed around all over the place. Several cars were hit as the drums went walkabout. What a mess :open_mouth:…Several of ■■■■■■■■■ finest then arrived their with sirens a-blaring. In their haste, two of them collided with each other, due to the “oiled” roundabout. :open_mouth: …Maybe they thought that chemicals were involved. Anyway, the bottom line is that they threw the book at him and rightly so.

Now we get to international champion’s league numptyism. Only the best numptys can play in this competition!! I was driving an artic fridge had to collect at a place called “Twello” in Holland. Check the map, looks easy, Twello is near a big place called Apeldoorn. Being a smart numpty I cut across country rather than staying on the motorway, --bad move!! I scored loads of numpty points when I got stuck under a bridge :laughing: …It looked fine until it was too late :exclamation: I’d approached with caution using 1st gear and head out of window-- slight scraping noise---- no damage. Nowhere to turn around + traffic queue behind me = game over.
I received my European numpty cup “officially” from the Apeldoorn police. (It’s now displayed in my trophy cabinet :sunglasses:)

So Brownie71, whats a few spots of paint on a motorway compared to my champions league cup :question:
Will you concede to me and my mate’s clearly superior numptyism :question:
Think about it, my mate’s got you beat on literage alone :exclamation: :wink:
:open_mouth: Tut tut, your numptyism clearly isn’t up to scratch, because you didn’t win a “prize.” :stuck_out_tongue:

Tell 'em about the day you painted the motorway… :laughing:
Spread the paint evenly on your wagon floor otherwise it’ll take ages to dry and be an absolute eyesore when you open the curtains :laughing:
Tell your boss that a paint job of that quality would have cost him a fortune in the body shop :laughing:

5

I was driving an iveco TD van in perthshire one winters morning, I came round a corner too fast and lost the back end. It did a full 360 and wedged itself between two trees on ither side of the road.

We had to use an industrial FLT to shove it sideways to get it free.

damage: No front end, no rear end, and a large FLT shaped dent in the near side.

as a punishment the boss made me drive it for 3 months

6

OK Dave. After your post I now realise I’m only in the Sunday Pub League of Numptism compared to regular gaffs going on across the country every day. I am new to this though and will probably be in the Scottish Division 3 by the end of the year.

I did wake up next morning feeling much less embarressed, after all, if they packed 40 pots of paint with more than 4 sq ft of plastic wrap then it wouldn’t of happened in the first place!! NUMPTIES!!! :smiley:

7

brownie you aint seen nuthin yet do a few years :laughing: thought you were in usa annyway :question:

8

Could be going out any day Scania. Just waiting to hear if the potential buyers are going to take over my business. If not will be going out to wind it up…in the meantime I’ll be building up experience in my new field…hopefully without any catastrophies!

Got my Class 1 training starting Monday week so with a bit of luck it will be after that.

9

brownie are you alan sugar :question:

10

Brownie71:
OK Dave. After your post I now realise I’m only in the Sunday Pub League of Numptism compared to regular gaffs going on across the country every day. I am new to this though and will probably be in the Scottish Division 3 by the end of the year.

I did wake up next morning feeling much less embarressed, after all, if they packed 40 pots of paint with more than 4 sq ft of plastic wrap then it wouldn’t of happened in the first place!! NUMPTIES!!! :smiley:

That’s the spirit mate, you’re already getting over it. I kinda knew you would :wink:

11

Brownie71:
OK Dave. After your post I now realise I’m only in the Sunday Pub League of Numptism compared to regular gaffs going on across the country every day. I am new to this though and will probably be in the Scottish Division 3 by the end of the year.

I did wake up next morning feeling much less embarressed, after all, if they packed 40 pots of paint with more than 4 sq ft of plastic wrap then it wouldn’t of happened in the first place!! NUMPTIES!!! :smiley:

things WILL happen from time to time. shrug it off and move on mate. it isnt worth worrying about it when its too late. as long as you CYA (cover your arse), its not your problem :wink:

12

Wouldn’t say Alan Sugar. More like Rodney just after him and Del boy lost all the money they’d made.

You plonker Rodney. :smiley:

13

I just remembered the time I did a day on agency for a paper distributer in Norwich. Got in at 6am and only their other driver was there, he handed me the keys to a 26T Iveco box lorry and explained how the “crash gearbox” worked (I wasn’t pedantic enough to tell him it wasn’t one).

So anyway I looked in the back and found loads of bloody great pallets of paper, so I asked him about securing them…

“We never do, it’ll be ok”

“fair enough”

As far I was concerned as long as it wasn’t going to fall off the lorry I was happy.

Off I go to my first drop, two minutes down the road, as it’s still well before 7am they’re shut, so with nobody to contact I go on to the next in Yarmouth, on the way I get a call from the other driver (he hadn’t given me his number)…

“Oh I forgot, so and so will be shut, just leave the stuff outside”

“I’m half way to Yarmouth now”

“Ok do it last then”

So I took these two pallets for a ride round East Norfolk and North Suffolk, working round them all day! Whilst reserving into a yard on an incline in Halesworth one of them went over…paper everywhere!

Did the rest, went back to the yard, office staff weren’t happy and the managers comment was…

“Maybe you’ll learn to secure your load in future”

You can imagine that this comment didn’t best please me, since I’d asked about securing the load and apart from that there was no load securing equipment anyway. Anyway I waited while they restacked it and then I took it round the corner, where I told the customer what had happened to it and he refused it. :laughing: