Seems they’re having a crackdown on illegal parking on the hard shoulder on the Kent motorways,on twitter they reckon to have moved 140 just last night.Question is where do they move to,there is hardly anywhere to park in Kent as it is.
bobbya:
Seems they’re having a crackdown on illegal parking on the hard shoulder on the Kent motorways,on twitter they reckon to have moved 140 just last night.Question is where do they move to,there is hardly anywhere to park in Kent as it is.
Maybe if they planned a bit better they wouldn’t have to park on the hard shoulder. What’s the betting almost all of them parked on the hard shoulder have maxed their driving hours or their 15/13 working hours? I bet 80-90% off them are from over the water so why don’t they just park in the services or Ashford Truckstop and not bother paying seeing as though they never get chased up for parking tickets?
I can understand if there had been unforeseen circumstances such as an incident or serious accident closing the motorway but saying that you get God knows how many traffic reports on the radio and live traffic info on the modern sat navs so you can plan around road closures/incidents most of the time.
In the last couple of weeks the signs have gone up banning over 7.5t parking at weekends and overnight, in Sellindge village on the A 20 and in all the lay-byes in the surrounding area. This will be of interest to those heading for Lympne ind est. If you can get in the Airport cafe nearby has parking, but it is mainly taken over by flip flops most of the time.
At the moment The lay byes at the Hare and Hounds (Sandyhurst Lane jct A20)just west of Ashford and at Tutt Hill (Hothfield A20) are still open but mainly rammed with foreigners from about 3pm. How long it stays that way remains to be seen.
The lack of parking in Kent is down to Ashford borough council who have allowed housing to be built on what would have been the logical extension to Ashford truckstop, even though this is an industrial area.
SteveBarnsleytrucker:
bobbya:
Seems they’re having a crackdown on illegal parking on the hard shoulder on the Kent motorways,on twitter they reckon to have moved 140 just last night.Question is where do they move to,there is hardly anywhere to park in Kent as it is.Maybe if they planned a bit better they wouldn’t have to park on the hard shoulder. What’s the betting almost all of them parked on the hard shoulder have maxed their driving hours or their 15/13 working hours? I bet 80-90% off them are from over the water so why don’t they just park in the services or Ashford Truckstop and not bother paying seeing as though they never get chased up for parking tickets?
I can understand if there had been unforeseen circumstances such as an incident or serious accident closing the motorway but saying that you get God knows how many traffic reports on the radio and live traffic info on the modern sat navs so you can plan around road closures/incidents most of the time.
Maybe the drivers push to make it to Kent or stop with time to run, because they don’t want to park near Calais?
As for paying to park they can’t avoid it on Stop 24 and Ashford as they have tickets and barriers so unless you pay you can’t get out and yet they’re still heavily used by the East European drivers, their companies probably have accounts to park there. And there are times they are so full they turn trucks away, I’ve tried to get into both one Friday night and both were closed because they were full.
Then to have Maidstone services, junction 8 that only has a handful of truck parking spaces hardly enough for motorway running so much freight, after that I think it’ Clacket lane, again not a large parking area.
Basically despite Kent being the main route for truck running to and from Europe it has failed to build enough truck parking to keep up with demand, probably due to the land being more valuable as housing and the nimby locals putting a stop to any development, then complaining when the truck find anywhere to park or operation stack in put in place.
SteveBarnsleytrucker:
Maybe if they planned a bit better they wouldn’t have to park on the hard shoulder. What’s the betting almost all of them parked on the hard shoulder have maxed their driving hours or their 15/13 working hours? I bet 80-90% off them are from over the water so why don’t they just park in the services or Ashford Truckstop and not bother paying seeing as though they never get chased up for parking tickets?
I can understand if there had been unforeseen circumstances such as an incident or serious accident closing the motorway but saying that you get God knows how many traffic reports on the radio and live traffic info on the modern sat navs so you can plan around road closures/incidents most of the time.
Every driver will try to push to get across the english channel to avoid immigrants in the trailer.
Because immigration considers it bad practice to stop within 3 hours before calais, you have no choice but to max your hours or only have half a days work.
Lack of decent parking and knowing where they are is the second problem.
Edit: Muckles was (a lot) quicker 
bald:
SteveBarnsleytrucker:
Maybe if they planned a bit better they wouldn’t have to park on the hard shoulder. What’s the betting almost all of them parked on the hard shoulder have maxed their driving hours or their 15/13 working hours? I bet 80-90% off them are from over the water so why don’t they just park in the services or Ashford Truckstop and not bother paying seeing as though they never get chased up for parking tickets?
I can understand if there had been unforeseen circumstances such as an incident or serious accident closing the motorway but saying that you get God knows how many traffic reports on the radio and live traffic info on the modern sat navs so you can plan around road closures/incidents most of the time.Every driver will try to push to get across the english channel to avoid immigrants in the trailer.
Because immigration considers it bad practice to stop within 3 hours before calais, you have no choice but to max your hours or only have half a days work.
Lack of decent parking and knowing where they are is the second problem.Edit: Muckles was (a lot) quicker
Yes there isthat I suppose.
Saw plod accosting some wagons parked up under the bridges on the surrey stretch last night as well.
Does this so-called “Crackdown” apply to Surrey as well then?
A Proper crackdown would be a £240 fine, and load confiscated if you carry on breaking the law further by staying there.
If there’s nowhere to park - Lobby your EU masters to hand us a load of our own money back to get green field sites turned into truckstops in the southeast in particular. 
Hertfordshire Police are cracking down too.I have heard that height barriers are planned to stop trucks parking under bridges where the hard shoulder is separated so that fire engines can go under but not artics. Last night there were 9 trucks parked on hard shoulder at Newport Pagnell services, are with no lights on. There was one parked at Toddington services partly in lane 1 of the slip road. Driver went to Costa but returned to truck via a passing Police car. One ticket later made it an expensive cup of coffee. There is a desperate need for truck parking but breaking the law by parking on the hard shoulder is not the answer. It’s strange that the majority of UK drivers can find a legal parking space but foreigners can’t?
If a driver is getting paid £100 a week to come over here with a truck - they’re hardly going to have the £25 a night it costs to park up at one of our official truckstop establishments - are they?
Winseer:
Lobby your EU masters to hand us a load of our own money back to get green field sites turned into truckstops in the southeast in particular.
Yep can see the Daily Mail headlines now, EU bureaucrats force us to tear up our Green Belt for truck parks. 
Winseer:
If a driver is getting paid £100 a week to come over here with a truck - they’re hardly going to have the £25 a night it costs to park up at one of our official truckstop establishments - are they?
I assume many of the companies will have some sort of account, or why would they park in Ashford and Folkestone.
And anyway what are the MSA’s going to do if they don’t pay to park, can’t clamp them anymore, just send a letter asking for the money if they can get somewhere to send it?
extrucker:
Hertfordshire Police are cracking down too.I have heard that height barriers are planned to stop trucks parking under bridges where the hard shoulder is separated so that fire engines can go under but not artics. Last night there were 9 trucks parked on hard shoulder at Newport Pagnell services, are with no lights on. There was one parked at Toddington services partly in lane 1 of the slip road. Driver went to Costa but returned to truck via a passing Police car. One ticket later made it an expensive cup of coffee. There is a desperate need for truck parking but breaking the law by parking on the hard shoulder is not the answer. It’s strange that the majority of UK drivers can find a legal parking space but foreigners can’t?
UK drivers probably know of somewhere to park in their own country but if you’re from a different country you don’t, these so called foreigners which everyone seems to enjoy slagging off probably know where to park in the own country.So maybe think before commenting.
Before we all start being stupid about this…Think…When you drive in Europe there are plenty of FREE places to park with decent toilets and showers !
So can 100 000 of us send a petition to govt to get us the same rights as our sensible foreign pals discussed in parliament …Make more free places to stop with facilities.
parliament would discuss it …discuss it ad infinitum and then announce that all the facilities will be in place by 2030 .
3 wheeler:
Before we all start being stupid about this…Think…When you drive in Europe there are plenty of FREE places to park with decent toilets and showers !
So can 100 000 of us send a petition to govt to get us the same rights as our sensible foreign pals discussed in parliament …Make more free places to stop with facilities.
Good idea,like your thinking.
bobbya:
Seems they’re having a crackdown on illegal parking on the hard shoulder on the Kent motorways,on twitter they reckon to have moved 140 just last night.Question is where do they move to,there is hardly anywhere to park in Kent as it is.
It won’t last for long, only tonight the hard shoulders on many of the junctions were packed again.
They’ll wait until the next vehicle drives into the back of a parked HGV before another purge.
bobbya:
3 wheeler:
Before we all start being stupid about this…Think…When you drive in Europe there are plenty of FREE places to park with decent toilets and showers !
So can 100 000 of us send a petition to govt to get us the same rights as our sensible foreign pals discussed in parliament …Make more free places to stop with facilities.Good idea,like your thinking.
Why can’t we have our money back from the EU to pay for it though?
Last time I looked, WE had to pay FRANCE to put that damned fence up in Calais… Did we even build it for them as well? 
Winseer:
bobbya:
3 wheeler:
Before we all start being stupid about this…Think…When you drive in Europe there are plenty of FREE places to park with decent toilets and showers !
So can 100 000 of us send a petition to govt to get us the same rights as our sensible foreign pals discussed in parliament …Make more free places to stop with facilities.Good idea,like your thinking.
Why can’t we have our money back from the EU to pay for it though?
Last time I looked, WE had to pay FRANCE to put that damned fence up in Calais… Did we even build it for them as well?
Don`t be silly, it went up too fast 
Winseer:
bobbya:
3 wheeler:
Before we all start being stupid about this…Think…When you drive in Europe there are plenty of FREE places to park with decent toilets and showers !
So can 100 000 of us send a petition to govt to get us the same rights as our sensible foreign pals discussed in parliament …Make more free places to stop with facilities.Good idea,like your thinking.
Why can’t we have our money back from the EU to pay for it though?
Last time I looked, WE had to pay FRANCE to put that damned fence up in Calais… Did we even build it for them as well?
We have an agreement with France (an agreement between the UK and France nothing to do with the EU) to have our border security based in Calais, This means when our Border security find an illegal immigrant trying to stowaway they can kick them back into Calais.
the alternative we have the border security based back in Folkestone and Dover, then when they find them we’d have to deal with the problem here, of course if we did that would be there wouldn’t such a problem at Calais, which means they probably wouldn’t need a big fence.
bobbya:
extrucker:
Hertfordshire Police are cracking down too.I have heard that height barriers are planned to stop trucks parking under bridges where the hard shoulder is separated so that fire engines can go under but not artics. Last night there were 9 trucks parked on hard shoulder at Newport Pagnell services, are with no lights on. There was one parked at Toddington services partly in lane 1 of the slip road. Driver went to Costa but returned to truck via a passing Police car. One ticket later made it an expensive cup of coffee. There is a desperate need for truck parking but breaking the law by parking on the hard shoulder is not the answer. It’s strange that the majority of UK drivers can find a legal parking space but foreigners can’t?UK drivers probably know of somewhere to park in their own country but if you’re from a different country you don’t, these so called foreigners which everyone seems to enjoy slagging off probably know where to park in the own country.So maybe think before commenting.
Bobbya, that’s a fair comment but all the time I was driving abroad and from my friends who are still doing European runs, I’ve never seen a UK truck abroad having a tacho break in a live lane, parked completely on a footpath overnight or parked on a roundabout. As someone else has stated, there are more parking areas abroad but from my experience, it is a total disregard to uk laws that annoys me the most. It is not all of them but a large number. I’ve never dealt with a UK truck that had stopped in lane 1 of a busy motorway to change drivers, have a pee against the truck whilst changing drivers and all within 1 mile of passing a service area.