We have all done that one
No we haven’t!
Never crashed (or even scratched) a truck and don’t intend to.
I have though had the very occasional trailer touch in tight yards and twice in 17 yrs i’ve pulled a set of lines off. (both in the last 5 years). Boss said, “It’s your age”!
Bet it happens to you tomorrow 
If all youv’e ever done is pulled two sets of lines in 17 years 
You have’nt been in the job long enough.
Sounds like all the top transport companies will be beating a path to your door mate afer your post not
Nobody likes a Mr/Mrs. Perfect
Because they always come unstuck but even then cannot admit they are just like everyone else who makes a mistake whilst making a living out on the road
Stay safe my friend you sound a bit too complacent about the real world out there.
But what do I know with only been in the game 38 years? 
Think that gives me a little bit more experience and the right to make a comment about your post, “seen em come, seen em go and seen em make big fools of theresevles”
Regards
Dave Penn;
Thank you Dave, its very pleasant having someone wish me bad luck. Not!
and totally uncalled for.
I dont know if Semtex was working for the same firm as me at the time, but this is my best one (well not exactly mine, but I was 2nd driver on the coach at the time.)
We was in Italy, to be precise, Rome. We had just dropped our passengers, apart from 3 (a dear old lady of about 80, and a retired husband and wife,) at the colluseum. I dived out and over to the opposite side of the road to save a parking space, well I waited for a good 15 minutes, had a ■■■, and there was still no sign of my coach. I had just put my ■■■ out when an italian coach pulled up asking if “I was the mate of the orange coach?” I replied yes, only for the driver to tell me that it had been involved in an accident 500yds up the road. So off I run, as fast as my long legs would carry me, to find our coach straddling a set of tram lines… with the tram planted squarely in the centre of it.
I ran up, got stopped by one of the italian police officers to which I told him in no uncertain terms that he would have to shoot me to stop me getting onboard… . The old dear was sitting on the floor between two rows of seats, the retired couple were up the back end of the coach. My mate was in the stairwell, and he wasn’t a small bloke (was he semtex?) having bent the gear stick on the way past. The driver of the tram was being questioned by the police, apparently he had run a red light off the hill, seen our coach crossing the tramlines and had dived towards the back of his tram.
We drove our coach back to the hotel, about 2 hours south of rome, in the mountains shedding glass on the motorway, while our bosses left Bedford to head down to do a coach swap with us in Modena 24hrs later.
Driveroneuk,
Don’t think there was anywhere that ‘I wished you bad luck’ I was just trying to enlighten and warn you to the fact that you might becoming complacent because of your assumed heightened abilities and skills in comparison to other drivers who had posted on this thread
Complacency and misplaced self belief in ones’ own abilities and obvious importance always seems to bring about a big fall. I think the clinical term for this condition is “Delusions of Grandeur” Have you had a Mental Heath Assessment recently? It might be the time for you contact your local Mental Health Team and get one arranged? Winter weather is now upon us and for once you might have to experience road conditions you really aren’t equipped for ability wise and mentally wise. Are you on the right medication? or are you even taking It as prescribed?
BTW I’m sure I could find evidence backed research that will show that this in fact is a known trait for most driver’s of all vehicles.
I’m sure this is what I said "Bet it happens to you tomorrow "
Now if there are any words in there that I have said that where “wishing you bad luck” than we are reading different posts but maybe that is the case. Mr/Mrs Perfects like you have openly declared yourself as are usually, in my limited experience, unable to understand much beyond any discussion that appears to be out of their own ‘terms of reference’ 
Is that a phrase you understand or am I going to have to prepare another post to explain?
PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:56 pm Post subject:
Quote:
We have all done that one
"No we haven’t!
Never crashed (or even scratched) a truck and don’t intend to.
I have though had the very occasional trailer touch in tight yards and twice in 17 yrs i’ve pulled a set of lines off. (both in the last 5 years). Boss said, “It’s your age”!
Your words not mine sounds like we all need to come and have the benefit of your experience, maybe VOSA should be seeking you out to become their national trainer for all drivers of vehicles of any sort or maybe you could be become the trainer for HATO the list is endless
Driveroneuk, for some of us who have been around in transport for what seems a little bit longer than you I just refer you back to my previous quote “seen em come, seen em go and seen em make big fools of theresevles”
Stay safe out on them roads mate because there happens to be other people out there who will never be as perfect as you 
Well I really hope you seek and get the help you appear to need from your Mental Health Team but if not keep taking the meds; OK that should help keep us all safe
Regards
Dave Penn;
davepenn54:
Nobody likes a Mr/Mrs. Perfect
Because they always come unstuck but even then cannot admit they are just like everyone else who makes a mistake whilst making a living out on the road
Agreed. I’ve only been involved in 2 major incidents/accidents, one of which was my fault entirely and the other wasn’t.
As some of the local members to me already know , I demolished a bus shelter in Armley in Leeds 
within 2 minutes of leaving the yard on my very first trip out in a left-■■■■■■ (which was a challenge enough on its own) but also with a 4 axle King low-loader hooked up behind me that needed a turning circle the size of Kent (only the rear 2 axles steered, unlike all the modern ones where they all steer and “follow” you).
I was turning left out of the side road near the yard and needed the whole road to stand any chance of getting the trailer round. Unfortunately I was too busy watching the trailer in the mirror to remember that I was sat on the left hand side of the cab and not the right . I “forgot” I needed to allow 8ft of road space to my right which resulted in my mounting the kerb into the bus shelter and altering it from an upright position into one of 45 degrees to the ground 
. Luckily no-one was about but it broke the mirror arms and gouged a chunk out of the top of the front o/s corner air kit which can be seen nice and fresh in this pic taken next day when I was delivering a 40 tonne digger to a site in Rotherham
Ironically the company was called Demolition Services so you can imagine the jibes I got from the other guys about it .
The other time that wasn’t my fault was when I was driving for Haulfast. Had to slam on when a car pulled out in front of me on the M62. Unfortunately the driver of the Mill Transport Topliner behind me was way too close and didn’t stand a chance. Result - one written off Topliner but hardly a scratch on the back of my box trailer. 
Other than those, touch wood, nothing else of significance if you don’t count the occasional smashed n/s mirror on overhanging trees/lamp posts/traffic lights etc.
By the way, talking of accidents, I believe Alex aka Jessicas Dad has a nice tale to us all that he’s been keeping secret for many years now. 
Here you go davepenn54, found this for you … I hope it helps 
This happened a few weeks ago to one of our drivers
when a local car driver from Poland came around a bend on the Wrexham Ind Est on the wrong side of the road.
Spent 2 weeks in Dafs at the cost of near 10k
And this one was the handy work of the shunter at Guinness Runcorn last week
a 16ft trailer will go under a 16ft 5in gantry as long as its not lifted the best part of 2ft by the shunt wagon
bet hes glad he`d tipped 120,000 empty cans before he did it
Hi Tachograph,
Could you explain please?
I’m unsure what it is you are trying to say without any text to illustrate the point.
I surely do understand what a strong emotion jealously can be, but for the life of me cannot unerstand why yourself or Driveroneuk would want to be jealous of me !!!
Or could it be you think I just might be the jealous of all the Mr/Mrs. Perfects out on the roads:?
I’m sure this thread was about accidents/incidents/little collisions that we all at some time in our driving career might have been involved in. My original response was to highlight the fact that however 'brilliant & experienced you think you are you have to contend with all the other road users who might not have the ability to come up to your own exacting standards so accidents and collisions do happen.
just remember other road user’s can always spoil your day or end your life however brilliant you might think you are
Thought i’d better post something about some of my ‘little incidents’ out on the roads Sory no pic’s though.
Was it my fault? maybe but I certainly didn’t admit to anything just told the truth and made sure I had the witness details.
Was it the other guys fault? Well he was driving an old Commer PB van full of his building kit, tin bath an all, and when he saw a foreign registered lorry trying to turn right he might have thought "I can get a new van out of this 
"
Gotta say he was surprised when he twigged I was English and had a witness, never heard anything else about it guess he lost his van for good.
Got a few more incidents to post but haven’t got time at the moment
Regards
Dave Penn;
extrucker:
Cheers Euromat.I think Saratoga got his wires crossed
uh How? I was merely pointing out what bus it was…
the newspaper clip says it all
I did this about 100km south of St Petersburg on my way to Moscow.
If you’ve never driven sideways at 56mph, you’ve never lived!
Not so much a funny accident, but a funny outcome. When I worked for Norman Lewis I was cut up outside the hospital near Brugge heading to the port. I braked to miss this black Saab and the trailer came round and hit the fuel tank.
Luckily I had a good witness and I also had the registration number, unluckily I had no fuel, a blocked road and an empty ADR tanker. While the police went off in search of the miscreant, an ambulance arrived for me despite my protests.
The next thing I remember was being carted off to the hospital, x rayed and prodded, poked and questioned in varying languages. I was quite enjoying the attention although the waiting areas was very cold as I was left in there naked for about 30 minutes.
Eventually a doctor came in with a policeman, the policeman informed me that they had found the driver of the Saab and he had admitted his stupidity, he also admitted he was also a doctor who worked in the hospital. The doctor who was treating me then told me I had a badly damaged hip joint and i needed an emergency operation.
When i explained that my badly damaged hip had been causing me problems for almost 25 years then, he said that they could repair it tomorrow. I doubted that but took his recommendations away with me to show my doctors in the UK. I explained to this doctor that I was born with my disease that attacks bone
Apparently my witness to the accident had seen me climb from the cab and limping around my truck surveying the damage. He had called the ambulance for me, the doctors agreed that my injury was probably already there. I had worn a support caliper from the age of 3 until leaving school.
My accident made the Belgian news that evening, my truck was recovered by Stefan and Frans from TTZ Garage and I was able to continue work the next day, (with a limp)
We had a new polish guy start on rigids and on his first week out with someone with him he did fine, he even spent a day out in the 26t 6 wheeler with no problems.
His first day out on his own, he flat packed one of our 18t trucks, claiming he had hit a low branch…however as many of our drivers had been up that road many times we doubted it and are still concerned that he his a bridge and nobody knows about it.
My mate Waut de Bijl …
He done the lottery that week !!!
He hit a badly parked crane on the hard shoulder @ 78kph…
BTW he was driving in holland on the A6 near Lelystad… In febuary 2006
Still his fault ! But one lucky man !!!
Btw He doesnt drive any more !
Just the one proper accident so far.
6pm Friday evening about 2 years ago i was heading for home down the M5, just past the slip where the M42 joins and i was catching up to a Micra pretty quickly. Traffic was mental but a gap opened up in lane 2 so i took it. This was at the top of the crest before the long downhill. All my concentration was on the road in front as the 26 ton on the back took me up to 60. Halfway down the hill i thought i must be past him by now going at the rate i caught him, glanced in the mirror and yup there’s a pair of headlights behind me so i indicate and pull in. Trouble is they weren’t his headlights. The muppet had put his foot down and sat by my N/S front wheel the whole way and i hadn’t noticed. Middle aged couple in the car. The marks on his door looked like a circular saw in motion. He was calm about it even after i’d let him know that sitting where he did was not the wisest course. His wife however was sat frozen in terror in the passenger seat. My fault i guess, should’ve known he was there.
Maybe so Dai, but as i’ve mentioned before (& was taken to task over the comment) but i stand by my long time observation, when a MICRA is about, be extra, extra careful.
Driveroneuk:
Maybe so Dai, but as i’ve mentioned before (& was taken to task over the comment) but i stand by my long time observation, when a MICRA is about, be extra, extra careful.
Oh i have been since, don’t you worry matey.