Back in the 90’s I worked a lot for Blake’s at Alcester. They had a depot in Scotland and there were two or three trailers up and back, six nights a week, swapping at Penrith.
One morning I went in and I could see the boss having a heated exchange with a couple of planners. It turned out that one of their own drivers had been sat at Penrith, waiting for a scotch trailer to arrive, when a driver, with a strong scottish accent turns up.
Driver one, who had been there over an hour, fast asleep, assumed that he was the guy from Scotland and they duly swapped trailers. He set off back to Alcester with the load that should have gone North, and the second driver stops for a break. A while later the first Scotch driver turns up and they realise what had happened. Fortunately driver one had a phone, but he was well South of Manchester before they got him turned around.
As far as paperwork was concerned, and I think that this is pretty normal, it was all in a plastic wallet - they just hand it over and off they go. Some I have done swaps with left the paperwork in the trailer with the load.
The Ladfs at Tsco had a funny Way to fit Seats.
Watch,i said,i can open the Trailer without breaking the Seal.
No you cant
I show you,i said
No,you dont,or you can go Home.
Well,i needed the Cash so up to london and empty back.
Shunter said o last Bay here so they can load Cardboard. Next Day was the Shunter on the Road again.
When they opened the Bay there was a Trailer with Seal. Warehouse radioed a few Time to Shunter who didnt respond as he put the loaded Trailer off Bay and i put a empty on Bay.
At the End a Company Driver phoned from Harlow whats the Joke to sent him out with a sealed empty Trailer.
Accidents happens
Colin_scottish:
I would say stobarts.They send drivers from bellshill down to carnforth everyday.And normally a balls up and its always agency that do that simply run.
Yeah when I was agency I went down to Carnforth, drive in and there is loads of Stobarts motors sitting about. Once I went down with the clear instruction of swap units and trailers with the other driver, he wasn’t told this, and couldn’t understand me trying to tell him. Had to call the office and get someone from his end to call and explain to him
If anything like this really happens its entirely the fault of the suits and admin at the company, no one else.
If someone drove into your yard in a car on square wheels that backfired and all the doors fell off, then when he fell out he was wearing a pair of huge multi coloured shoes, a multi coloured floppy suit with huge wooly buttons and a bright red nose attached with a massive upside down smile painted on his mug, would you honestly hand him the keys to your £100,000+ vehicle complete with its load worth up to three or four times that?, no you wouldn’t and no one with an ounce of common sense would either.
If you decided to use a person who’s English is non existant, or they are just pain thick, and didn’t provide them with written instructions for the day that someone whom you trust who could converse with them and ensure understanding, you would be entirely responsible for whatever hash ups happened that day.
If things like the op happen, and yes they do, they always happen at companies where unmanagers spend other peoples money.
Until these unmanagers take the responsibility, that should (but usually doesn’t) go with the kudos and big bucks and perks they trouser every month, things like this will happen.
Similarly if you offer terms and conditions that are third rate for those whom you expect good work from don’t be surprised if the most switched on competent staff arn’t beating your door down to work for you.
this one does the rounds at heathrow. two non english agency drivers turn up and are told to each take truck and trailer to east mids do a trailer swap and come back. that is exactly what they do, bring each others trailer back. dont know if this actually happened.
this one did tho, non english agency driver turns up and is given truck and trailer and told to do a delivery across the airport. insists on having the post code although he is given directions, its about 3 miles and three roads. couple of hours later the irate residents of the nearby village phone up and ask if the company would kindly come and remove their truck from their very narrow street as the driver got it in but cannot get it out,
this also. planners at the desk decide they need truck back empty from stansted as plane is delayed so one volunteers to call the driver and asks who it and is given a first name, calls him on his mobile and although the driver protests insists he come back to yard straight away, driver returns to his yard and is given a rather hard time as he has brought a delivery back from luton for no reason. turns out the planners have called a driver who is working for someone else that day.
I expect a similar story entitled “British muppet” does the rounds in another part of Europe.
My current job puts me in contact with a great many drivers from all over Europe and I can say the home grown “agency muppets” out number the EE drivers by a ratio of approximately 5 to 1
What would happen if some of these alleged drivers went to a country with a different language and who drive on the right, my brain struggles to comprehend with the outcome.
This mistake seems far too common and all for the sake of a phone call. If you send a trailer for a changeover, someone else is doing the same thing so phone them and exchange trailer numbers then pass this on to drivers. Rocket science, this is not
I have heard that contrary to our usual methods which involves taking a loaded trailer to a ferry port and bring an empty one back. A flip flop took an empty one and brought a loaded one back
True similar story from the 70s.
We used to run rigids on change over a Trowel overnight, and occasionally on Sundays.
Sunday lorry all ready and parked inside the warehouse, right at the front, but someone had put the wrong reg number on the manifest. That number was the lorry which had come down overnight on Friday, but had not been unloaded. Sunday driver proceeds to move three lorries out of the warehouse to get the correct numbered lorry out, without phoning anyone first, and trollies off on his c/o.
Fortunately for us, but sad for him, he had a heart attack only thirty miles into the trip, and we got called out to recover the lorry!
By the time we’d gone back to the depot for the right lorry, it was an awfully late c/o that day.
Fortunately, the driver recovered.
A company in Belgium had daily departures and daily inbound trailers to and from Germany, France, UK and Denmark.
One morning the forklift driver asked the British driver why he still was in Belgium. When asked why, he answered that the stuff he was unloading from the british trailer was the material he had loaded 2 days earlier.
UK driver had taken the trailer that had just come in straight back to Belgium.
British driver by the way
One from the 90 ies
2 Belgian drivers from a wel known belgian company left Brussels, one loaded for Arlanda airport Stockholm, one for Gardemoen - Oslo.
They were talking on the cb all the way up north via Puttgarden - Rodby and Helsingor - Helsingborg ferries. It was only at customs at Svinesund when the second drivers penny dropped that he had followed the bloke destined for Oslo and he had missed the junction for Stockholm at Helsingborg…
The-Snowman:
Place I used to do trunks from Glasgow to Liverpool used agency for them. I came in one night and the TM told me that the night before he had said to the (British) agency driver, “theres your keys, your bringing this trailer back up”. So the guy took off. Three hours later the TM left to go home and noticed an empty trailer still sitting in the bay. He called the agency guy and asked him what trailer he had taken as it must have been a loaded one. Turns out it wasn’t as he hadn’t taken a trailer! He was about 120 miles and way down past the border bobtail! Because he had been given a trailer to bring back up but not one to take down he just took off without one!
That’s crazy, even I understand enough English to know, that if the TM tell’s you: “you are bringing this trailer back”, you have to take it out first, in order to bring it back later. How the hell will you take it back if you don’t take it with you at first.
“Something must be wrong with British English, its not the drivers fault”.
Do like the Americans, wright everything, step by step, this way even idiot will know what to do.
Thick is thick in any language mate!
It’s pathetic that foreign drivers are tarred with the brush that they are lesser mortals than British drivers, as us Brits have more than our fair share of dullards… But the second a foreign driver makes a mistake, the racists & bigots are on it like a flash tarring all foreigners as so called retards! Yes there are ■■■■■■ foreigners, just like there are ■■■■■■ Brits, but how many Brits can speak a foreign language fluently, and have the nads to go and work in a foreign country? Yes there are foreigners working over here that probably shouldn’t be, as they don’t have the language skills to perform their jobs competently, but there are probably a lot more that can perform their jobs more than competently…
Remember John Miller trailers back in blue/white days! Trailer numbers about 1m high front and rear. Coded for trailer type as well if I remember rightly.
The-Snowman:
Place I used to do trunks from Glasgow to Liverpool used agency for them. I came in one night and the TM told me that the night before he had said to the (British) agency driver, “theres your keys, your bringing this trailer back up”. So the guy took off. Three hours later the TM left to go home and noticed an empty trailer still sitting in the bay. He called the agency guy and asked him what trailer he had taken as it must have been a loaded one. Turns out it wasn’t as he hadn’t taken a trailer! He was about 120 miles and way down past the border bobtail! Because he had been given a trailer to bring back up but not one to take down he just took off without one!
That’s crazy, even I understand enough English to know, that if the TM tell’s you: “you are bringing this trailer back”, you have to take it out first, in order to bring it back later. How the hell will you take it back if you don’t take it with you at first.
“Something must be wrong with British English, its not the drivers fault”.
Do like the Americans, wright everything, step by step, this way even idiot will know what to do.
Thick is thick in any language mate!
It’s pathetic that foreign drivers are tarred with the brush that they are lesser mortals than British drivers, as us Brits have more than our fair share of dullards… But the second a foreign driver makes a mistake, the racists & bigots are on it like a flash tarring all foreigners as so called retards! Yes there are ■■■■■■ foreigners, just like there are ■■■■■■ Brits, but how many Brits can speak a foreign language fluently, and have the nads to go and work in a foreign country? Yes there are foreigners working over here that probably shouldn’t be, as they don’t have the language skills to perform their jobs competently, but there are probably a lot more that can perform their jobs more than competently…
Rant over!
some of my best and most helpful/asked for drivers are eu nationals.
2 in particular are pretty much offered full time roles anywhere I send them.
Next Day was the Shunter on the Road again.
