I think there seem to be too many reports from many different sources all reporting similar after effects for it to be a complete myth. I previously worked for a blue chip co. who’s trucks sometimes went to Europe and the cabs were fitted (by the co. not the driver) with gas alarms.
BUT what the heck are they using that it doesn’t seem ever once to have killed anyone?
Driveroneuk:
I think there seem to be too many reports from many different sources all reporting similar after effects for it to be a complete myth. I previously worked for a blue chip co. who’s trucks sometimes went to Europe and the cabs were fitted (by the co. not the driver) with gas alarms.BUT what the heck are they using that it doesn’t seem ever once to have killed anyone?
Nah. In the case where the driver isn’t just BSing or attempting to pull a fast one, it’s just yer ordinary average spot of autosuggestion. Driver wakes up (possibly with a bit of a hangover or maybe just a bit under the weather that morning) to find he’s been done over and can’t figure out how it happened. His mind goes into overdrive and with little evidence as to what actually happened, it starts grabbing at straws. The human mind is extraordinarily good at seeing patterns and filling in blanks with imagined explanations for something there is no immediate, logical explanation for. A gas attack ranks right up there with UFOs, astrology and religion (IMHO). People will believe the oddest things with little or no justification.
Come on then, read this. I’m saying nothing.
Ex Haulier:
Come on then, read this. I’m saying nothing.
Ho ho ho. You’re ‘quoting’ the Daily Mail as your credible source? Good one.
Ex Haulier:
Come on then, read this. I’m saying nothing.
The family were gassed through the letter box, but when one of the sons woke up to find masked men in his room they injected him with something to knock him out.
It just gets better and better!
Alex, read what i said again “i’m saying nothing”. There’s a clue there somewhere !.
Well I personally have woken up a few times over the years feeling like I’ve been drugged or gassed during the night. On these occasions I’ve parked up, there’s been NO alcohol involved, and when I’ve woken I’ve NOT been robbed, the doors are still locked and nothing has been disturbed. However I’ve still had the thick head and puffy eyes. So what’s caused it? In my opinion it’s been the night heater, the night has been very still weatherwise and I reckon the exhaust gases from the night heater have just kind of lingered around the cab and maybe got in through the windows/roof hatch causing a mild poisoning.
IIRC a Fergusons driver was discovered dead in his cab after a night out at Portishead 20 odd years ago, the subsequent inquest reckoned he’d died as a result of poisoning by a faulty night heater.
I wonder how many of these “gassings” are a result of the same thing?
I wonder how many of these you need to fill a house and how you hide them as you are stood at the letterbox venting them. Do they not realise how bad Nitrous Oxide is for global warming, it attacks the ozone layer.
Bad people drive around with guns, knives, knuckle dusters etc. How many get caught with respirators, magic syringes and gas cylinders 
I don’t believe in fairies, hobgoblins or dragons. the perfect gas attack by untrained footpads on a sleeping driver comes close to these three as unbelievable
I parked up in Huntingdon one night, a good few years ago, and didn’t bother to put my container lock on as I’d backed up to a bank which I thought would stop anyone opening the back doors. I woke up late in the morning, with a stinking headache and a chemical smell in the cab which lingered for several days. The container had been broken into, although nothing was taken as it was all thread bobbins for a mill, and therefore relatively useless to a thief. Several other drivers were done at the same time, including a Stobart’s driver immediately to my left. I don’t know if anyone else reported the incident, but we didn’t since nothing had been taken.
This was in the hot summer of 2003, so no night heater running, and was just after a Police warning had gone out about a spate of load theft along the A14 corridor. I remember that because our office hadn’t passed it on, so I didn’t hear about it until after the event, at which point I went more than slightly ape.
I was driving a series 4 Scania P-cab at the time, for a firm based in Hull. I cooked in the cab (as I do now) and still had an old-type screw can camping stove which I used to store outside on the catwalk overnight in case it leaked. It was still in place when I checked. Whilst I did drink then (teetotal now), I never drank during the week, only at home at weekends.
Make of that what you will.
Trinny and Susannah were put out by chloroform pads. That could have been a blessing in disguise.
On a mildly-related subject, I noticed a piece in the new “Camping in France” magazine (scrounged (naturally!) at the NEC) called “Sleeping gas or hot air?” This mentioned in passing that, while staying at a friend’s villa near Cannes, Trinny and Susannah (of “What Not to Wear” TV-programme fame) had belongings stolen when burglars introduced a gas (thought to be chloroform) into the house. I know it’s unkind, but I immediately thought what poetic justice it would be if the thieves had pinched all their posh clothes! (Blokes, if this means nothing to you, ask your wife to explain. Ladies, if this means nothing to you, congratulations on your good taste in TV viewing.)
These two quotes were taken from a motor home forum on the web!
I would suggest that faulty shut-off valves, loosened pipework joints, or the appliances themselves will be the main culprits for any gas leakage in the living-area. And small ‘safety holes’ in the motorhome floor to aid LPG escape won’t be much use if it’s the hob that’s spewing out gas. That’s why it’s important the integrity of motorhome gas systems be tested regularly. I’m certain you’re right though that accidental LPG leakage is far more of a potential risk to motorcaravanners than deliberate insertion of narcotic gases into the vehicle.
Me too, especially since gas is heavier than air, hence the reason people get gassed inside road tankers and in sumps & drains
Wheel Nut:
Me too, especially since gas is heavier than air,
Putting on my Pedantry hat, this statement is a non-sequitur since air is a gas, or more accurately a mixture of gases, and there are of course gases which are lighter than air.
Nitrous Oxide, chloroform and ether are however all heavier than air, and I was left wondering how this gas had managed to climb the stairs in the Daily Wail story.
Presumably these robbers ransacked the house wearing gas masks, having brought along a house-full of gas in cylinder form as well as the hypodermic syringes. Call me obtuse, but wouldn’t it have been simpler just to have waited until they went out?
i love it when this old chesnut reappears every now and again - still no proof I see though 
jj72:
i love it when this old chesnut reappears every now and again - still no proof I see though
Yes, surely after twenty years the Belgian Police would have found at least one empty can of Easy-Start. 
“We believe that after we went to bed, burglars gassed us through the letterbox but there wasn’t enough to do the whole house and Robbie woke up.
‘The police didn’t really react, they just took a statement and they wouldn’t confirm we had been gassed.’
French police suspect the involvement of Russian mafia and Romanian gangs who target English-speaking tourists and expats, believing them to be rich and owning expensive cars and yachts.
Mrs Smythe said: 'I got a private investigator involved, but he told me not to pursue it, saying it was most likely Russian mafia and if I did anything to get them imprisoned I’d be risking my life.
'He said the other gangs are French burglars from Nice, or Italian Mafia and even Romanian gangs who send in small children through the windows to open up the house.”I bet they wouldn’t confirm it — they simply didn’t believe it. I wonder what the insurance company did?
Even the PI didn’t want to know
Small children through windows is much more likely — Read Oliver Twist
Caravans and campervans have to have air holes in the floor to allow any (heavy) gas to escape. People who get gassed have probably blocked the vents.
never had this happen to me but being as though i suffer from asthma was always very wary of it happening…
company i worked for at the time bought us all a gas alarm that used to look like a smoke detector an was pluged in at night
How many people who claim to be gassed are running around with a fridge (not coolbox) in the cab■■?
Genuine question.
Ben9:
How many people who claim to be gassed are running around with a fridge (not coolbox) in the cab■■?
Genuine question.
And another genuine question, how many of these gassees use a mosquito burner or a tin of Autan spray?
red hot cab, sunroof air vents and windows closed, chemical device spraying DEET around and a glass of wine.
What were the symptoms, headaches, sore throats, slept late, tired, hmm!
Wheel Nut:
Ben9:
How many people who claim to be gassed are running around with a fridge (not coolbox) in the cab■■?
Genuine question.And another genuine question, how many of these gassees use a mosquito burner or a tin of Autan spray?
red hot cab, sunroof air vents and windows closed, chemical device spraying DEET around and a glass of wine.
What were the symptoms, headaches, sore throats, slept late, tired, hmm!
That is sort of my way of thinking.
If you look at caravans and motorhomes they have an exterior vent fitted for the fridge, so assuming that manufacturers don’t put it on for aesthetic reasons could this be the cause?
How many trucks have a vent fitted for the fridge■■?
Ben9:
If you look at caravans and motorhomes they have an exterior vent fitted for the fridge, so assuming that manufacturers don’t put it on for aesthetic reasons could this be the cause?How many trucks have a vent fitted for the fridge■■?
Caravan fridges have a vent because they often run on gas, so they have a flame in the back and need a chimney to let the fumes from the flame out. You don’t need a vent for a fridge which is running on electricity.
wilbur:
Ben9:
If you look at caravans and motorhomes they have an exterior vent fitted for the fridge, so assuming that manufacturers don’t put it on for aesthetic reasons could this be the cause?How many trucks have a vent fitted for the fridge■■?
Caravan fridges have a vent because they often run on gas, so they have a flame in the back and need a chimney to let the fumes from the flame out. You don’t need a vent for a fridge which is running on electricity.
Just what I was thinking wilbur. Its a sealed system.
I think a more appropriate question would be:
How many gassees have gas cooking equipment in the cab?
On a side note, are you allowed in the chunnel with that?