Some bright spark in the traffic office got Gillingham mixed up a bit, instead of sending me to Gillingham Kent they put Gillingham Dorset on the ticket, Another mistake I had to deliver a 45 barrel of oil to a taxi firm near Manchester but the typist put the owners address [A mansion with a double driveway ] as the place to deliver the said barrel so being a bolshie so and so I put a couple of tyres down a tipped the barrel outside of the front door. Needless to say the houseowner wasnt too pleased !!!
I overheard a guy screaming on the phone whilst I was working on one of his motors in our workshop. Turned out his driver was in Wadebridge Cornwall instead of Weybridge Surrey. In a F86 six wheeler that’s a lot of diesel. The driver blamed the mistake on the owner’s Geordie accent.
hiya i was in Galasheild one day running towards Carlisle i’d phoned in. the transport chap said make your way to
oyk (thats the best i can spell it)well i looked and looked but knew nothing about this place it was’nt in the map.
luckily i saw a chap i sort of knew and asked him. he told me how to spell it (hawick) i felt stupid as i’d been driving
through the place for years, i’d done a big housing job running bricks from Buxton to Galasheilds.traveling up the A7
time after time.
What a pratt i felt.
John
andrewv8:
Dan Punchard:
I once asked my cousins to send a pick up from uttoxeter to load at rowsley in Derbyshire the driver satnaved and went to a rowsley in ■■■■■■■■I bet Roger wasn’t too happy, he usually sits watching the tracker then rings people up when they go off route or sat in a cafe for 46 mins!!!
Just guessing you must be Andy y I ?
If you were in Galashiels and asked for Hawick I’m surprised the the bloke didn’t grab a brick from the back of your truck and hit you on the head with it.
I lived in Gala for the first 25 years of my life, no love lost between there and Hawick. ( pathetic really )
A travel guide once described Gala as “nothing to offer during the day with an air of menace at night”, Hawich didn’t even get a mention.
Jeff…
I remember in the 50s getting a return load from Claribell Motors in Fairfield Street Adwick Manchester, Their taffic manager was a Mr Ogden Ex RAF Going by his handlebar tash, Anyway he was a real nice sort of a bloke & would help you out if he could, Anyway I had a few pickups with this re-turn load which in fact went very smoothly, I had a few drops in the Newcastle area, Anyway I got loaded & set off home & stopped at one of my fave cafes a Diggle Annies Café One of the best in my book food cooked to order & at a drivers price may I add, It was then I deciced to look at my del, notes 7 much to my dismay one of them was for Newcastle Under Lyme Not Newcastle upon Tyne, Never mind it was too late to go back so I just went back to The Tyne & explained to Jonny Baxter the bloke I drove for what had happened, He was OK about it, & He was paid to take the mistaken goods back to Claribells Depot, No harm done, There was no red cards in those good old days thank goodness, Regards Larry.
Retired Old ■■■■:
On a similar note, don’t you just love it when Johnny Foreigner parks his lorry on the traffic lights with the hazards on & wanders off looking for directions?
When I was Johnny Foreigner in foreign parts I would often do similar, never too proud to stop and ask; it’s far betterer than finding yourself on the wrong road with no turning place for 20kms.
Standard practice would be to ask, preferably at a garage or similar with the hope you could have a look at their map, if there was no map and language was proving a problem you’d listen intently, nodding at appropriate times then thank them get in the truck and go around the corner and ask someone else. How on earth did we manage before sat-nav 
In this case it wasn’t my fault but I was sent to recover 4 new Vauxhall Royal Mail Vans.
The delivery notes just said Royal Mail p/mouth and it said the same on the windscreens. My opposite number had dropped them off in Portsmouth. They were destined for Plymouth 
Not about road haulage, but on a similar theme. Years ago in the Northern Echo, our local newspaper.
Martindales of Ferryhill, now long gone bus operators, had advertised and filled a coach trip for a weekend in Paris. 45 passengers got on the coach driven by a part time driver. Travelling to Dover and across the cross channel ferry, he couldn’t find his way in France. Driving round and round and failing to find paris, returned to Calais and back home. The company were being sued by the passengers for a ruined weekend.
Hi, Folks, We ran alot down SOUTH WALES to the NCB coal pits one of our lads delivering on a Friday morning a laddy came into the pit with a load of pit props from Weston super mare ,our lad asks him how long the journey took him he looked a bit sheepish and said he left home Sunday afternoon had a quick look at his notes A BERDEEN SO off he goes TUESDAY afternoon phones in canot find this pit , office asks where he is tells the silence then came a lot of abuse you are supposed to be in Aberdare an easey error to make but costly ,a bit of usless info ,Cheers Barry
Believe it or not, but this scenario actually happened to a BRS driver from the Bedford depot. He picked up a load of bricks at Stewartby for St Ives in Cambs and phoned in from St Ives in Cornwall as he couldn’t find the building site. I won’t mention his name as he only passed away in Perth WA a year or so ago. However, when I was talking to another old friend who recently retired as manager of the Eton Socon branch of Prestons of Potto, who was a traffic clerk at BRS Bedford in the 60s, we had a good old laugh about it.
Norman Ingram:
I remember a driver who was given a job to do in St.Ives Cambs, and the firm who hire him, phoned up to ask where he was, the traffic manager said he should have been there ages ago? When the driver contacted the office, he was asked where the hell are you, he replied Cornwall and there is no firm of that name here! There is in St. Ives Cambridgeshire look at your paperwork. Have you been in a different place than your logbook?
The log sheets were better as if you had made a mistake you would simply make out another one as they were not numbered and you could work 7 days a week every week 11 hours driving and 14 spreadover. I was very conscientious and my log sheets always looked as if they had been made out on the kitchen table when I got home as they were handed into the office in a pristine condition and around 90 log sheets would last a month as you were able to please everyone all of the time. 
cheers Johnnie 
And you could screw a handful of them into the air filter, set light to them and fire your engine up on a frosty morning. Can’t do that with a digital tacho.
Sammyopposiote
Them was the days , proper logsheets. Pick up a hand full on Monday morning ,make one out through the day and then make a legal one out at the end of the day.
I once witnessed an RTA ,copper say’s "I’ll come round tomorrow night for a statement ", when he arrives I’m sat having my tea with logsheets and time sheets spread around getting every thing shipshape for the office. Copper picks a logsheet up and asks “is this the proper one or the one for the day”? I said you’re not here about them and you haven’t seen them. He said probably just as well I,m not . He knew the score.
Bassman
Many years ago when I worked for Hanson Haulage in Huddersfield, I worked on the Castrol oils contract delivering to garages in Yorkshire. One of the regular drivers was off so they put a spare driver on his truck. Later in the day I was called into the office and asked to speak to this driver as he couldn’t find his first drop. He gave me the address and asked for directions, I asked him where he was and he answered Bridlington, the run started at Drighlington near Leeds. Turned out he couldn’t read or write very well and must have been too embarrassed to ask before setting off.
Hi, Moved up to Orkney 8 years ago, got a job mechanic- driver, first trip out couldn’t find any taco cards in the cab, went in the office for cards to be told there will be a book somewhere fill it out later, thought them days had gone, now in Glasgow retired, no more hassle
Les.
In my driving days I was told to deliver to Rainham and was just about on the outskirts of Rainham Essex and looked at the paperwork, (for the first time), to check the address and it was Rainham in Kent. Luckily I was coming from the north so I was going in the right direction so no damage done. I once had a driver finish up in Gillingham Kent when he should have been in Gillingham Dorset. Also Preston can confuse some drivers, most people assume Preston Lancs, but there are about 17 Prestons in the UK. Only last week we took a back load out of Lydney for Swinton and the haulier we got the load off said it was for Swinton Manchester, 6 miles from our place, load Friday and deliver Monday. When the driver had brought it back to our yard he handed the notes in, I looked at them and it was for Swinton, Mexborough, near Rotherham. So we had to haul it to Mexborough on Monday for no extra revenue, half a day wasted and the extra mileage. Also another confusing and potentially costly problem when quoting rates for jobs or accepting work is the modern trend of just being given the first part of a post code and assuming that the town the code is based on is the destination, instead of giving the actual destination. Some Postcodes cover vast areas, such as Peterborough (PE), Ipswich (IP), and Inverness (IV) which covers most of the Highlands.
sammyopisite:
The log sheets were better as if you had made a mistake you would simply make out another one as they were not numbered and you could work 7 days a week every week 11 hours driving and 14 spreadover. I was very conscientious and my log sheets always looked as if they had been made out on the kitchen table when I got home as they were handed into the office in a pristine condition and around 90 log sheets would last a month as you were able to please everyone all of the time.cheers Johnnie
What my old man used to refer to as his “daily liar”.
Bernard
Log sheets- greatest work of fiction since Shakespeare
Log sheets…now there’s a memory. I was once prosecuted 
re the log sheets. this was the days before motorways, speed limit was 40 and we were double shifting with the changeover supposedly at Wetherby. I’d done the Batley to Billingham and back down to Wetherby, rang in on the way down to say what time I would be there and “Oh Brian, do us a favour and bring it down to Red House at Doncaster” Well, I booked off as normal, he booked on at Doncaster, silent checked by the ministry men AND, nobody was driving the bloody thing from Wetherby to Doncaster. naughty, naughty.