Question for truck and driver and anyone else

[dave_1]

firstly, great news sponsoring the forums again. well done, you know it makes sense.

the question.
in all the years ive been reading truck and driver i have noticed that when you go out with people who show you there jobs etc that they all drive really well.
you often say things like " the driver reversed into that tight space with ease etc etc. or handled the truck really well"
now whilst i know that most drivers are good drivers over the years i would have thought that maybe you have been sat with a driver who has scared the hell out of you. if so have you ever wrote this in the magazine.

for everyone else.
have you been out with anyone as a passenger in the truck and they have scared you

[marcustandy]

dave:
for everyone else.
have you been out with anyone as a passenger in the truck and they have scared you

Often!! And that’s despite having dual controls fitted!! The trick is to not let it show or it gets worse before it gets better!!

[dennisw1]

Well not in a truck as such, but a Tesco van.

Boss says go out with ****** see why he’s taking so long.

He waggled the wheel so much you got sea sick! in the 3 hours i was with him he must have hit at least 4 kerbs, he managed to demolish the side mirror of a parked coach with the rear box, and everry gear change you got whiplash. This is someone who reckoned he was experienced with driving ‘large’ vehicles like 7.5 tonners.

When i get back my boss said what training do we need to do with him. I just said “give him BSM’s phone number, thats a start!”

I did give the guy a few pointers, but i mean where do you start!

[daxi]

The worst one for me was being sent out with this ex army guy who had been licenced for years but never done any real driving.
I have no problem with being asked to get another driver back into the driving seat, but I would have liked to have been asked to do that & not just to have been sent out with a “new” driver.
To make matters worse he was “Mr I have done it all whilst in the army” So it came a a total zb’ing surprise when he couldn’t keep it on the M25 at 20 mph.
We had to change over 10 minutes into his first period behind the wheel, because he was messing himself.
Bosnia must have been a real laugh when serving with him, as if the M25 scares him that much when empty ,(it was 3 am,) what the zb was he like when under fire ?, that is presuming he had been in the Army & was in Bosnia as he claimed.
As we were forced to change over on the M25 & because we did not change the charts over as a result, I have to admit to being less than charitable with the boasting little git ( & Git is a self edited opion of what I really thought & still think of him.)
I did get him back into the right hand seat, but it was in daylight & not on a road that scared him stupid.

[kw]

dave:
have you been out with anyone as a passenger in the truck and they have scared you

I don’t scare easily and can usually sit back realxed when someone else is driving.But.

The very first day at Edwards I had to go with another driver to pick up a new trailer then load in Aachen for Halewood.
I drove from Genk to Zele where we picked up the trailer,all shiny and new,and we made our way to Brussel’s.
On the E40 before Brussel I came up behind a woman in the middle lane who was swerving about and only doing 70kph.She had her mobile phone clamped to her ear,and my co-driver was banging on the inside of the windscreen calling her all the names under the sun.And then some!

She eventually pulled away from us,but we caught her up again just before the Brussel’s Ring,this time she was in the right lane,still on the phone,and as we passed her my friend was literally hanging out of the passenger window shouting at her and waving his fist.

The next morning I was dozing on the bunk on the M6 while he drove.
He had been telling me that he’d been here,there and done it all! (though he must have only got the one t-shirt as he was still wearing it three day’s later)
anyway,he asked me which way is the best route to Halewood.
I told him along the M56 and over the Runcorn bridge.Ah yeah! I thought so,I know that way, he say’s.
A while later he wakes me up and say’s “Where are we?”
How the hell should I know,you’re driving!
It turns out we had reached the end of the M56 and had to go back!

As we approached the turn off for Runcorn again!,albeit from the other direction the traffic was queueing in the left lane for the exit.
So what does this plonker do?
Indicator on and out into the middle lane,steaming past the queue!

Erm! We need to come off here,say’s I.
Yeah! I know came the reply.
At which point he STOPS in the middle lane,put’s the left indicator on and wait’s for someone to let him in!!!

Meanwhile,I’m sitting there waiting for the bang and bracing myself!
You could hear the screech of tyres from behind us.

I have never been so nervous,worried and downright scared before.
After we unloaded in Halewood I drove the rest of the way over to Hull where he picked up another unit.

He left the company,then returned a few months later.
Only to leave again.This time I know he won’t be back.

[bigandy]

A while back i started a job collecting and delivering plant equipment.
Told the boss at interview i had never done this type of work before and he assured me that for the first week , i would be with one of the other drivers.
oh yes me thinks to myself , ive heard that one before , but to give him credit he was true to his word.
Monday morning , 8 o clock start and i am at the yard ready for my first day.
Goes into the office and introduced myself to everybody and was told the lad i was going to be with had gone out early with a rush job but would be back soon. Grab a brew they told me , he’s only gone to selby so he wont be long.( I am in york at the time ) Two and a half hours later one of the firms wagons comes roaring into the yard , and out of the cab jumps a rather irate young man and storms off in the direction of the tea room. Your with him, the yard foreman shouts over , great thinks I .
Anyway , he comes out of the tearoom in a better mood and starts to tell me what we are going to do and where we are going.
A rather simple job of a 3 ton excavator and a 4 ton dumper to a site and collect a road roller on the way back .simple.
got the machines on the back the wagon and he showed me how to use the chain and ratchet to secure them to the wagon.
This is where the fun ( if you like being scared zbless) begins. he starts the engine and selects first gear. bearing in mind we only have 7 ton on the back i found this a bit odd, but each to their own i think to myself.
out the gate and up to the main road and he is redlining thru the gears. this carries on thru the day so i ask is the engine not got any power , he says he does’nt and always drives like this.
next day 2 x 9 ton dumpers to filey and off we go again. first gear start and redlinig thru the gears. comes to a roundabout and i thought we are going a bit to fast on the approach but he just threw the steering wheel round and i honestly thought we were going to go over at one point.
gets up to the dual carriage way at the bottom off whitwell hill coming up behind a morrisons artic and he says " this annoys me . whys he only doing 50 mph on this bit of road " i looked at him and said it is the speed limit . no it is not he says and asked me how i got through my test. told him and asked him same question , the army was his smug reply.( not to insult any army / ex army divers here , my father was a tank transporter driver for 9 years ) i thought what a zb.
gets to site and promptly started to hit every kerb on the way in and knock down a lamp post.
was i glad to to go out with someone else for the rest of the week.
since then he has demolished a bus shelter , had his wagon off the road for numerous repairs due to style of driving and scratched all down one side of his new ( 2 year old ) truck.
I am glad i dont work there anymore

[kindle530]

KW wrote

I don’t scare easily and can usually sit back realxed when someone else is driving.But.

He had been telling me that he’d been here,there and done it all! (though he must have only got the one t-shirt as he was still wearing it three day’s later)

I have never been so nervous,worried and downright scared before.

Thank God for that… i thought you were going to tell everyone about the time when you picked me up at Stanton and i had to drive back to Tongeren
Can you remember the illegal immigrant hanging out of a German drivers roof on his euroliner, seeing the signs for Brussels, and realising he wasnt about to get on a boat to England■■? So he got the bar you use to pull back the sliding roof, and started to whack the glass sunroof of the drivers truck, hoping he would stop and let him out
I do rember you taking a photo of the incident, i would love to see it if youve got it■■?

[jessicas_dad]

kindle530:
KW wrote

Can you remember the illegal immigrant hanging out of a German drivers roof on his euroliner, seeing the signs for Brussels, and realising he wasnt about to get on a boat to England■■? So he got the bar you use to pull back the sliding roof, and started to whack the glass sunroof of the drivers truck, hoping he would stop and let him out

bloody hell i would have stopped and pummelled him tied him up and chucked him into the back of the trailer and left him there all week…

and no im not exagrating i really mean it.

[militantgraham]

When I worked in a quarry I used to get sent out with the new drivers to show them how the tipper or skip gear worked, whichever they were driving.
We picked up a load of old foundry sand from Cinderford, Glos in an ERF B series skip lorry, it must have been pretty close to its 16 ton limit.
Coming out of Cinderford, there’s a short steep hill with traffic lights at the T junction at the top as it joins the main road.
I would guess it’s around a 1:6 or 1:8, I’ve seen an artic stuck there spinning his wheels unable to pull away in the past.
Anyway, the lights were on red, so the new driver rolled to a halt and sat there slipping the clutch waiting for the green
He seemed quite surprised when I told him to put the parking brake on as it would be me who would have to put a new clutch in the lorry.

[wheel_nut]

I dont want to turn this thread into an anti army campaign, but I volunteered to take an ex squaddie with me for a week as a favour to my local trucksalesman.
Dont worry, he just needs a little refresher course, because he hasnrt been in a truck for 6 months.

He used to drive those Antar tank transporters, so you will have no problem

famous last words, i remember

He pulled out of Thompsons in Beverley and hit the mirrors on lamp posts and bus stops down grovehill road, at the roundabout we went back for new mirrors.

Obviosly those antars have stronger mirror arms than a DAF. I drove out of Beverley and let him have another go down the M62 / M18 before he scared me some more

I drove the rest of the way down to Wolverhampton and started to tip the tank, he sat in the cab, it seemed as though he wasn’t going to learn anything.

I went back to the cab after a while and he was there smoking, in a chemical works with his feet on the dash

If anyone goes into schenectady at four ashes and sees a soldier boy wanting a lift, I would leave him there, I did

[craig_111]

Dave,

So far all the guys I’ve ridden with when writing articles for Truck & Driver have truly been first class drivers. You might think that they were all on their best behaviour with a photographer recording their every move, but on the LDDs I’ve done with Keith (KW) and John (johnny) from this site they’ve had to suffer me for several days and were still top of the game.

I think it may have something to do with the type of guy or girl who contacts us to be featured in the magazine: they are usually very keen truck enthusiasts and take a pride in the job, so they want to do it well.

Meanwhile I have to admit that Keith kindly forgot to mention when I scared him while driving his FH12. Rather than going into a long story all I shall say is that we quickly found out that some over the counter drugs can have surprising effects on your driving, even if the packet carries no warning of after-effects

Craig

[mrflibble]

Twice. Once when I was at uni, I was doing part-time work for a company which did laser and firework displays. One Friday night we went from Birmingham to Bromley via Corby. I was under 21, so I couldn’t drive the (hired) van, so the boss had to do all the driving. He was the MD, and it was my first day as a hired hand, so I couldn’t exactly tell him to stop driving (although I probably should have done). He was driving tired. Very tired. By the M25 he was starting to weave in and out of our lane. It was [zb]ing dangerous, especially considering the quantity of explosives (fireworks) we had on board (I suspect that they should have been subject to ADR, but were ignoring it).

Fortunately, the company is no longer trading.

The second one was riding with a T&B driver in a wagon & drag - he took some of the roundabouts so fast that I was sure we were going to roll…

[johnny]

thanks very much craig.
it’s always pleasing to be complemented on ones ability and you did an excellent impression of a truck driver too. it was probably much harder for you as you drive so many differnt trucks but well done.

[tk_dave]

My experience has been similar to Craig’s and in many years accompanying drivers while doing stories for T&D I can say - hand on heart - nearly all have been very good indeed ( far better than me in most cases.)
Yes I have occasionally been scared. In the early days of ‘Trucker’s Test’ when we’d take a new wagon to a truckstop and get drivers of a similar spec vehicle to have ago I was sometimes apprehensive.
Obviously if someone is unfamilair with a new truck and has a journalist next to them when trying to come to terms with it they will be nervous, perhasp missing the odd cog. We don’t report that. It wouldn’t be fair and it’s not relevant to what they think of the truck. However on a couple of occasions tipper drivers took revs so far into the red I feared for the engine and took roundabout so fast I feared for my bowels. (This isn’t anti tipper driver rant - I’ve worked as one in thepast.)

Most most scary moment was when testing the new Scania Topline 4 series in the Belgium Ardennes at 40 tonnes. We’d been warned to watch the grass verges on the narrow and often steep forest roads as after heavy rain they were very soft.
My co ‘driver’ - a Brit journalist - wasn’t used to LHD but rahter than take it easy or ask for advice put pedal to metal to appear macho. Consequently we ended up running the nearside of the unit on a soft verge next to a ditch with me in the seat most likely to take the brunt of overturning. My voice went the fall gamut, from an initial polite request to get back onto the blacktop, through urgent requests to desperate shouting. Fortunately the manufacturer’s demo driver accompanying us grabbed the wheel and got the wagon back on track. The Brit journo was unconcerned, and unapologetic and I swore I’d never go in a cab with him again. Fortunately truck manufactuers talk to each other and he’s since fallen off the invite list for such events.