Roads always seem to ‘act up’ this time of year…
back when I was a bus driver, we noticed Thursdays were worse than Fridays.
Theory was, people would be taking the Friday off to have a long weekend and / or to do Christmas shopping, hence a type of rush hour compounded on a Thursday…
Its about time the M6, M62, M1, were opened up to 5 lanes, this faffing about with hard shoulders is neither use nor ornament, do it now and save money , whats it going to cost in 5 or 10 years ?
Conor:
nick2008:
We’ll it use to be called that now it seems it’s everyday or is there any particular day it tends to affect you.Full moon which happened to be 27th/28th. Every single night its a full moon I usually get a breakdown or other problem and you get the halfwits driving on the road.
27th my run got changed three times before I got to work. When I got to work, 45 minutes to find my trailer as the wrong number had been put into the system for loading. One unannounced road closure on route and a muppet in a double decker doing 40MPH up the M1 and an extra local trailer move added all which added 2.5hrs onto what was supposed to be an early finish.
Last night I got to work, hooked up my trailer to be greeted with that sound that can only be a leaking brake chamber. Thankfully it happened in the yard so there’s a fully equipped garage but it still added an hour onto my day.
I got up to Lockerbie and one of the guys from an earlier trunk is there and the trailer he took over has real dim lights and the suzie is getting red hot. He called out a fitter and it turned out that the earth wire in the trailer had melted, took out the junction box and had started to melt the suzie fitting as well. Four hours after leaving him I got back to the yard and saw another driver who said he’d just set off back so he had a real bad night.
Hopefully the full moon effect has worn off cos I’ve got a Portbury tonight.
Weird about the full moon comment. I got chased TWICE by a herd of cows on full moon evening in a very large farmers field. They started to saunter over then sort of galloped over to me. Christ, talk about a ‘brown trouser moment’!! 
especially as I had nowhere to go really. I half climbed up a tree while 8 of them stared at me, the ways cows do. They buggered off to the other side of the big field after a few choice words from me. Tried to sneak past them later but they were blocking the gate out and it was starting to get dark Stood around thinking, christ I am going to have to walk all around the field and get out another way, then they saw me and sauntered over, then ran to me again ( no spare brown trousers). I got behind a small tree trunk with quite a bit of a drop into a stream, mildy cr*pping myself and it getting darker and darker. More choice words, and a few choice snorts and bellows from them, they buggered off again back to the gate and blocking my exit. Waited for shaky legs to calm down then decided to walk the long way round the field again, stumbling along. Turned round in exasperation to see where cows were ( not following me, phew) then I saw huge full,pinky orange moon rising. Beautiful I thought but I need to get out of this field asap!! Made it just in time - phew again.
Maybe the mad cows were waiting for the moon to come out so they could jump over it!
cp91:
Found the last couple of weeks to be extremely bad in Glasgow. Traffic has been shocking to say the least! Also as said above the standard of some driving is frightening. So many people seem to be incapable of doing the most basic of things when driving!
Noooooo,
I’ve got 2 loads to get out of near enough Glasgow and the 2 nd one is to get me hme sat 
, jst wat I didn’t want to hear ,
And used up 3 x15 hrs , and 2 x 10 hr driv, but I’m coming hme whatever 
Friday is ’ rinse the Beaver ’ day at our place. All the Mon-Fri trampers have dragged the arse out of the job on the Thursday, and then ’ unfortunately ’ not been able to park overnight at the Fri morning tip location due to ’ unforeseen circumstances’. Obviously they have ’ unfortunately ’ used all three 15 hour shifts, and with ’ having ’ to set off early Fri morning to ’ beat the traffic ', they just happen to be guaranteed finishing no later than 5 pm ish.
Whilst the doomed day man picks up the pieces of their downright sneaky behaviour lol.
Goldilox:
Weird about the full moon comment. I got chased TWICE by a herd of cows on full moon evening in a very large farmers field. They started to saunter over then sort of galloped over to me. Christ, talk about a ‘brown trouser moment’!!
Maybe the mad cows were waiting for the moon to come out so they could jump over it!
Now we know eh…
Welshmen go after sheep and people from York go after cows eh 
chrisv:
Its about time the M6, M62, M1, were opened up to 5 lanes, this faffing about with hard shoulders is neither use nor ornament, do it now and save money , whats it going to cost in 5 or 10 years ?
I would like to think it would solve the problem lol but they could probably have 8 lanes and still be knackerd!! , the driving standard needs to be raised massively IMO some people just don’t have a care in the world once behind the wheel
scaniason:
I’d like to see private cars banned from the road between 0700-1900, Monday - Friday, apart from even numbered cars on even days, and odd-numbered cars on odd dates. Encourage people to either use public transport or car share, and the congestion would be greatly reduced.
Ok, I start between 0800 and 0900…
I’d need to get up a hell of a lot earlier to get to work for those times…
First bus into town is about 0700, 30 mins on the bus to the bus station and then a 5 walk to the railway station…
Upto an hour to wait for a train (Newbury has a crap service to Reading), and then depending on its calling pattern either 20 mins or 30 minutes trip on the train…
30 minutes wait at Reading for a train to Swindon…
An hour on the train from Reading to Swindon, then a bus from the town centre to the Sainsburys at Stratton and then a 10 minute to the yard from there…
Never mind trying to get back at 22:00-00:00…
So will you be paying for my travel then?
Decker up to eurocentral, fair enough normal run then, however “then pick up a tri and run to pick up 20 pallets of trees from a place out in the sticks the other side of Embra” was added to my run, directions were a little vague. Decker safely hooked off after negotiating the Raith interchange which has had the lanes reduced from 2 to 1 heading for the A8. Then had to fight to get an empty tri from Eurocentral before braving the M8 the A720 and A1. Found the place with the trees enjoyed a bit of off-roading, got loaded and away. Had a falling out with satnag on the way home but managed to leave the street furniture, scenery and rig untouched.
The number of ■■■■■■■■ on any and all roads seemed a bit high today 
On the plus side had a couple of nice bacon and links sausage rolls in the layby at Gladsmuir 
eagerbeaver:
Friday is ’ rinse the Beaver ’ day at our place. All the Mon-Fri trampers have dragged the arse out of the job on the Thursday, and then ’ unfortunately ’ not been able to park overnight at the Fri morning tip location due to ’ unforeseen circumstances’. Obviously they have ’ unfortunately ’ used all three 15 hour shifts, and with ’ having ’ to set off early Fri morning to ’ beat the traffic ', they just happen to be guaranteed finishing no later than 5 pm ish.Whilst the doomed day man picks up the pieces of their downright sneaky behaviour lol.
The doomed day man did the same thing thursday afternoon though, and now has to take Friday off outright. 
read this thread last night chuckling away then had the day from
Left early to go to York dropped car at 8am day going well pulled in to copart to collect next car loaded by eight thirty whilst strapping down car sprinter pulls up young guys jumps out keys in hand truck still ticking over he comes back 5 minutes later just as truck splutters and dies so I asks problem with truck he says no don’t want them to know I can run on red diesel great I think no wonder rates are low then leaving A19 towards A69 on the sunderland highway polish truck starts to pull out from layby and drops his trailer on its nose whilst locked up I see it slipping on its nose towards lane two managed to stop just@@ give the three patinter polish drivers took them twenty minutes
for three of them to get the legs down repin and reverse it in to the layby before plod arrived after checking my load got going having
only lost underwear cleanliness and half an hour So I NOW agree F@@ up Friday wont laugh again
No ■■■■ up Friday for me 
Woke up at 6 30 kettle on eat breakfast open curtains put digi card in then 30min drive to first drop 15min wait to unload then 40min drive to next drop unloaded straight away 15min drive to burger van and a 1ft long bacon and egg stick + cuppa finish break phone office nothing doing have your lunch (already had but kept quiet 
) and phone us back
did that 30 min drive to pick a load of cable up got back to depot at 3pm unloaded reloaded fuelled up strapped up on way home by 4:10pm perfect Friday
Winseer:
Dunno about f—up friday. More “Stitch-up” darn south.(1) Friday will be the day you break down rather than crash due to your own fault.
(2) Friday will be the day your money doesn’t get paid into your account on time.
(3) Friday will be the day you get stuck in a traffic jam
(4) Friday will be the day you don’t want to finish late, but end up doing 15 hours or worse still - end up nighting out.
(5) Friday will be the day you get called into the office… 30 minutes before home time over a contentious issue with huge ramifications if you just submit straight away.
(6) Friday will be the day you get called in on your day off - because the other guy has gone sick
(7) Friday is the day you can’t get anything done in officialdom - because no one answers the phone after 2pm…
(8) Friday is the day all your bills go out - compounded by (2)
(9) Friday is the day YOU want to go out on the town - but can’t - because 1-8 have happened already.
Thought you lived the utopian dream. You know the one. You get a thousand pound a shift because you are fantastic.
My Friday went as follows.
Planned 0545-1500
Actual 0545-1415
I’ll take that!
I couldn’t see by 2000
chrisv:
Its about time the M6, M62, M1, were opened up to 5 lanes, this faffing about with hard shoulders is neither use nor ornament, do it now and save money , whats it going to cost in 5 or 10 years ?
Bloody hell!! Aren’t the roadworks already enough… If you want it widening to 5 lanes it would be great but we’d be looking at another few years of misery. Also aren’t the m6 ones finished soon…can’t wait [emoji1]
dozy:
cp91:
Found the last couple of weeks to be extremely bad in Glasgow. Traffic has been shocking to say the least! Also as said above the standard of some driving is frightening. So many people seem to be incapable of doing the most basic of things when driving!Noooooo,
I’ve got 2 loads to get out of near enough Glasgow and the 2 nd one is to get me hme sat
And used up 3 x15 hrs , and 2 x 10 hr driv, but I’m coming hme whatever
Other day 10 vehicle accident on the m8. M74 north now ■■■■■■ every weekday morning due to roadworks. Used to enjoy going up there as it was generally a clear run. Although to be fair to the Scots you drive through the speed limit area and there is actually work going on!!
KarlM:
dozy:
cp91:
Found the last couple of weeks to be extremely bad in Glasgow. Traffic has been shocking to say the least! Also as said above the standard of some driving is frightening. So many people seem to be incapable of doing the most basic of things when driving!Noooooo,
I’ve got 2 loads to get out of near enough Glasgow and the 2 nd one is to get me hme sat
And used up 3 x15 hrs , and 2 x 10 hr driv, but I’m coming hme whateverOther day 10 vehicle accident on the m8. M74 north now [zb] every weekday morning due to roadworks. Used to enjoy going up there as it was generally a clear run. Although to be fair to the Scots you drive through the speed limit area and there is actually work going on!!
The m8 is a magnet for accidents, especially at the junction that 10 car pile up happened!
I spend a lot of time in Glasgows west end at work and it is just traffic jam central, every time you turn a corner it’s just a line of traffic! But hey we get paid while sitting in it so can’t really complain.