adr:
I run our depot & drive as well, I have got a couple of younger ones on, nice lads but quite frankly I’m closer to being Pope than they are to being Lorry drivers! They dash about like idiots thinking they are clever, I have told them & told them that they are just gona make it worse for themselves but no, they been driving wagons for about 4 years each (serious big-wheelers!) I come from a transport family, have known nothing but wagons since I was in nappies & been driving them for 29 years so hey, what do I know! I have told them, the wagon is on tracker, and the PDA computer in the cab records everything from the vehicle checks to the time you shut her down at the end of the day, at the flick of a button head-office can bring up your whole days work timed to the second! So I ask you what kind of tw*t speeds? Who are you trying to impress? I can gaurantee you the Judge won’t be impressed when you get to 12 points & he slices you off at the knees & you are grounded & out of a job! Now guess whats happened, surprise surprise they are now getting more drops put on them every day, their reward for doing 12 hrs work in 9! The job has changed, tther’s no point in trying to be a hero, all you will do is stress yourself out, we all like to go home early when we can, but this is wagon driving & you will get home when the job is done & thats it, if you want set hrs go & work in a factory & do 8 hrs! With cameras that photograph eveything except the length of your johnson, VOSA, un-markes cars you just don’t need the hassle, so get your foot off & do it legal cos now its the only way, the days of going 80 mph with your hair on fire have gone!
Some might say that because I’ve not been in the game for a few years I should just STFU, but for me from where I sit you’ve summed up much of the modern game (in the UK /EU at least). I was back in the UK earlier this year and while the place seemed to be wall to wall with shiny new wagons (a far cry from even the 80s when I was on the road) the sheer number of speed cameras, ANPR cameras, point-to-point cameras, plus regular apperances by the wheeltappers, 90km/h restrictors, Plod everywhere and the digital tacho it seems to me that if you speed at all it’s a case of when you’ll get done not if.
So you may as well just plod along, get the work done that you’ve got on and enjoy if for what it is. Look around you, there are worse jobs out there - factories full of people beign turned into robots, offices full of cubicle farms populated by people who stare at a partition wall all day day in day out. At least if you’re out on the road you’re seeing something different most days, even if it’s only the shunt from the yard to the tip and back. Accountants have their place in transport, but they shouldn’t be running ops cos for all their devious ways of cutting overheads you can bet your ar$e in the end any savings they make will get blown out of the water when somethign goes wrong.
Some part of me still thinks back to when I was in the game and how much I enjoyed it, but I’m old enough (if not wise enough) to know those days are gone for good and if I did get back in the saddle I’d probly hate it within a week. And I won’t say all younger drivers are like it, but the attitude of some I’ve seen makes me shake my head - I hope to christ I wasn’t that up myself when I was that age. I think are probly quite a few younger blokes in the game these days who do try and do want to be professionals, it’s just they don’t seem to get the coverage that the real tw@ts do.
As to the bloke muckaway talks about - as best you can ignore the clown. It’s only a matter of time before he gets busted and if trying to reason with him doesn’t work IMO you’d be better off making sure to$$ers like this don’t ruin your own enjoyment of the job.
Sorry for the rant, I’ll see myself out 
