50p pieces for the meter don’t count William [emoji3] [emoji3] [emoji3]
Carryfast:
That’s fair enough.I was just raising the question that in the knowledge that no one with any sense was literally going to ‘one hit’ Milan,let alone much further South,at 50 mph average or less,without probably going off the road.Or thereby make what were at least 2 possibly 3 or even 4 seperate shifts any less by not taking the legally required daily rest periods.In which case what did anyone really gain by serious large scale dodgy running practices,such as splitting daily rest periods down into too small and/or too few segments in that regard.
We had a driver who put as place of departure “Brussels” and destination “Milano” on his tachocard, going through Switzerland and only had 4.5 hours of driving time on it, so effectively losing 5 hours, what do you mean 2, 3 or possibly 4 shifts ?
A trip Rome and another to Milan per week was not abnormal.
Tipping Lisbon on friday afternoon, loading Almeria saterday afternoon, tipping Brussels market on monday morning at 4 am was another regular trip.
We were doing air freight and refrigerated and up to 2006, losing about 2500 km on your tacho every week was considered normal.
I used to do between 235000 and 255000 km every year.
From 2009 I used to do this work as a team, together with my wife, and the first year we only managed 275000 km, and even these were not completely legal.
When I started in 1977 on international it was normal to go to your delivery or customs asap. The only thing holding you back was the roads, dual carriadge ways were the exception, not the norm. With the EEC progressing , distances were shortened with motorways, the disappearance of the borders etc…
When I started Brussels - Milano was 18 to 19 hours, now we do it in 13 through France, 9 through Switzerland.
Before we had nothing in the truck and anything was possible, now we have everything, from horsepower to microwave, and nothing is possible anymore.
I agree with NMM, the fun is gone, now your tacho tells you where and what time you are going to eat, and with whom. If you get to a restaurant at all.
But I made quite a bit of money in those days, I drive legal now, and my wages are a lot lower what I earned then.
newmercman:
50p pieces for the meter don’t count William [emoji3] [emoji3] [emoji3]
Meter?? We didn’t have none of that nonsense.
Straight to the streetlamp for us canny norvern types 
switchlogic:
Carryfast:
Let me guess you’d be volunteering to run a London-Glasgow-London trunk with a London-Glasgow-Manchester thrown in after that all done in one shift without any daily rest periods.Yes we know you’re an international super trucker.Back in the day if the money was right yes I would have, yes.
The problem would have been that you’d probably have got all the freight there too late taking all those cat naps there and back and running at 55 mph max.
As opposed to job and finish change overs done at pre limiter type speeds.With the win win of awake drivers who’d had their correct daily rest periods. 
Seriously looking back maybe I was better off where I was in that regard and leave the real continental ‘one hit’ runs for the quick car in my own leisure time. 
I know a bloke that did two runs from Sidcup to Northampton five nights a week, tipping and loading at both ends, easily done in a shift, however he worked another job on days, he did this for years, never saw him so much as yawn and he’d be in the pub from just after lunch on Saturday until closing time. To be honest he was a bit of an animal, he’d walk home eating a vindaloo straight out of the tin container with a plastic spoon, no rice, no Naan bread to calm it down.
As bald said, the Belgians and Dutch used to put some hours in too, the boys on the pigs that used to do two Naples a week were at the extreme end of the scale, but the fridge boys used to go some too, the Italians doing a Milan-Naples turn around each day didn’t get much sleep either and the Spanish fridge boys didn’t spend much time with the curtains closed either.
The Scandinavian drivers doing one a week were also running hard and they had the added problem of transitting Germany to deal with.
That’s just the European runs, once you went east the game changed again, not only did you have the long drives, you also had the long border queues that required you to stay awake for hours on end to avoid losing your place or having your trailer box robbed.
There was also weather to contend with, you might be close to where you are planning to stop for the night and a storm rolls in, you can’t just stop anywhere, you have to get somewhere safe, so you have to keep moving and sometimes what should take no more than a few hours can take a whole day and night.
You cannot compare any of that to a scheduled night trunk.
Carryfast:
switchlogic:
Carryfast:
Let me guess you’d be volunteering to run a London-Glasgow-London trunk with a London-Glasgow-Manchester thrown in after that all done in one shift without any daily rest periods.Yes we know you’re an international super trucker.Back in the day if the money was right yes I would have, yes.
The problem would have been that you’d probably have got all the freight there too late taking all those cat naps there and back and running at 55 mph max.
As opposed to job and finish change overs done at pre limiter type speeds.With the win win of awake drivers who’d had their correct daily rest periods.
Seriously looking back maybe I was better off where I was in that regard and leave the real continental ‘one hit’ runs for the quick car in my own leisure time.
Off you head into your fantasy land again. Its very hard to debate someone who lives mostly in a dream world…
dieseldave:
newmercman:
I was an 01er so it was the law to stop in Carisio.An 01er?.. That’s a little phrase that I haven’t heard for a while, and it doesn’t half take me back!!
Yes, Carisio was full of 01ers
As I remember it, `twas “01 Johns” and on a Friday night they were always loading groupage in “Prato John”. Dunno if Alexi Sayle was ever a trucker but he had the phraseology off pat.
Carryfast king of the road doing two Milan a month.
I read with interest trying to compare long distance European runs with UK night trunks and keeping awake etc. You can’t try and come very different things.
Most days I do three runs a day from Barking in East London to a landfill in Ware in Hertfordshire.I only do around 330 km a day but between the traffic and hold ups tipping and loading by the end of my shift which is only 10 hours I’m nackered in the past I’ve driven long distances on roads that are quiet I’ve done three times the distance in a 10 hour shift and felt fine.
Franglais:
dieseldave:
newmercman:
I was an 01er so it was the law to stop in Carisio.An 01er?.. That’s a little phrase that I haven’t heard for a while, and it doesn’t half take me back!!
Yes, Carisio was full of 01ers [emoji38] [emoji38] [emoji38]
As I remember it, `twas “01 Johns” and on a Friday night they were always loading groupage in “Prato John”. Dunno if Alexi Sayle was ever a trucker but he had the phraseology off pat.
No no no, it was “far king Prato John” and “Milanini” as in I’m going to Milan ain’t I [emoji3] [emoji3]
There was always a good bit of banter between us civilised blokes from the capital and the poor folk from oop north.
Although some of the 01ers were cringeworthy, loud and obnoxious, dripping in Ratners gold plated chains and rings wanting a punch up after a glass of frizzante, they never lasted long though, you’d see em once or twice and then they’d be back on the tippers telling everyone about the blonk [emoji110] [emoji97] [emoji97]
kr79:
Carryfast king of the road doing two Milan a month.
I read with interest trying to compare long distance European runs with UK night trunks and keeping awake etc. You can’t try and come very different things.
Most days I do three runs a day from Barking in East London to a landfill in Ware in Hertfordshire.I only do around 330 km a day but between the traffic and hold ups tipping and loading by the end of my shift which is only 10 hours I’m nackered in the past I’ve driven long distances on roads that are quiet I’ve done three times the distance in a 10 hour shift and felt fine.
Dukes of Portadown had some funny ideas on what a night trunk was…
Carryfast:
switchlogic:
Carryfast:
Let me guess you’d be volunteering to run a London-Glasgow-London trunk with a London-Glasgow-Manchester thrown in after that all done in one shift without any daily rest periods.Yes we know you’re an international super trucker.Back in the day if the money was right yes I would have, yes.
The problem would have been that you’d probably have got all the freight there too late taking all those cat naps there and back and running at 55 mph max.
As opposed to job and finish change overs done at pre limiter type speeds.With the win win of awake drivers who’d had their correct daily rest periods.
Hang on, where does a speed limiter fit into this, most of the running bent, was done either pre limiters, or disconnected limiters. I mean, if you were running off card, why would you let a little thing like a limiter get in your way 
Also as for night running, try getting the correct daily rest on night fruit and veg runs
Never saw a Fruitex lorry doing less than 100k’s an hr, unless it was tipping, and that included after limiter came in
In carryfasts world every driving job can be done better than how it’s done normal if they use his 80s night trunking experience to do it his way.
kr79:
In carryfasts world every driving job can be done better than how it’s done normal if they use his 80s night trunking experience to do it his way.
On that note 
I can see where there are transferable working practices between night trunking and any other type of haulage work, well I suppose you kick the tyres, and light the fires in the same fashion, but that is often where the similarity ends
Never done nor would fancy Euro work.
Funniest I’ve ever heard was some bloke in a driver’s waiting room giving it large about the Euro work he’d done when his mate appears and announces that the only Euro work that he’d done was when I let him drive my lorry off the boat and he made an arse of that.
Bloke coloured bright red and said not another word.
Made me laugh.
mick.mh2racing:
Never done nor would fancy Euro work.
Funniest I’ve ever heard was some bloke in a driver’s waiting room giving it large about the Euro work he’d done when his mate appears and announces that the only Euro work that he’d done was when I let him drive my lorry off the boat and he made an arse of that.
Bloke coloured bright red and said not another word.
Made me laugh.
You actualy met CF ? 
eddie snax:
Carryfast:
The problem would have been that you’d probably have got all the freight there too late taking all those cat naps there and back and running at 55 mph max.As opposed to job and finish change overs done at pre limiter type speeds.With the win win of awake drivers who’d had their correct daily rest periods.
Hang on, where does a speed limiter fit into this, most of the running bent, was done either pre limiters, or disconnected limiters. I mean, if you were running off card, why would you let a little thing like a limiter get in your way
Also as for night running, try getting the correct daily rest on night fruit and veg runs
Never saw a Fruitex lorry doing less than 100k’s an hr, unless it was tipping, and that included after limiter came in
I didn’t say that non one ever drove a truck at UK type speeds on the continent.The point was that even at pre limiter uk type speeds no one was going to be able ‘one hit’ Milan without exceeding driving time and/or daily rest limits by a silly margin let alone Southern Italy.While the real world speed regime for trucks on the continent was generally much less than that with limits at best of 90 kmh or more often 80 kmh more strictly enforced than the 60 mph motorway limit here was,such as the example of speeding offences being issued just by tacho trace evidence alone for example unlike here in the day.In addition to terrain enforcing a lot less than even that.
While as I’ve said the definition of ‘one hit’ in this case was more like a case of pointless juggling and breaking down of daily rest periods into short ‘cat naps’ etc just creating the illusion of a so called ‘one hit’ run.Which took more or less the same amount of time over all as it would have done by taking the legal breaks/rest.
On that note as for even fridges running around the Alps at 100 kmh + or kr’s idea of 990 kms in 10 hours at continental type speeds bs.While even that still wouldn’t be enough to get to Milan let alone much further South in ‘one hit’ without being a total liability on the road regards adequate rest.The result of all this pointless seriously bent running bollox being where we are now with digi tachos and speed limiters set at 90 kmh.
More waffle. Why do you ruin threads like this with your endless drivel? Do you get a kick out of driving everyone away and trying to make everything about you? You have precisely zero experience of what everyone has been talking about yet insist you know best and better than people who have actually done the work being talked about, all because you’ve done a bit of driving in the car in Europe. Give. It. A. Rest.
switchlogic:
More waffle. Why do you ruin threads like this with your endless drivel? Do you get a kick out of driving everyone away and trying to make everything about you? You have precisely zero experience of what everyone has been talking about yet insist you know best and better than people who have actually done the work being talked about, all because you’ve done a bit of driving in the car in Europe. Give. It. A. Rest.
I think driving a car in Europe gave me enough real world knowledge to know that no one was ‘averaging’ around 100 kmh running to/from Southern Italy and it wouldn’t have made much difference even if they did.While running bent seems to have been more often a case of preferring a bent penny to a straight pound based on a liberal interpretation of a ‘one hit’ run.The result being where we are now with over regulation to suffocation point.
I don’t think anyone said they were averaging 100kph going to southern Europe especially in the days when a lot was done on national roads.
As nmm pointed out the hours to get to Milan you would be averging 30-40 mph to make it in the time frame.
I’m pretty sure those who done it the way they dI’d as that was the quickest way to do it not because they didn’t want to go to bed every night for a decent sleep.
Especially in the pre open border days they probably would do it the way they did as some customs posts done import loads in the morning and export in the afternoon.
So they would be cracking on to get there in there morning your way might see you there after lunch which means you have lost a day waiting to clear customs.
kr79:
I don’t think anyone said they were averaging 100kph going to southern Europe especially in the days when a lot was done on national roads.
As nmm pointed out the hours to get to Milan you would be averging 30-40 mph to make it in the time frame.
I’m pretty sure those who done it the way they dI’d as that was the quickest way to do it not because they didn’t want to go to bed every night for a decent sleep.
Especially in the pre open border days they probably would do it the way they did as some customs posts done import loads in the morning and export in the afternoon.
So they would be cracking on to get there in there morning your way might see you there after lunch which means you have lost a day waiting to clear customs.
Firstly the point was that even going by nmm’s time scale example ( IE somewhere between 25-30 hours from Calais ? ) the arrival time,even with a legal break/rest regime,would/could have been around the same.
As for no one doing trunk runs as opposed to haulage to Northern or Southern Italy tell that to anyone who worked for Seabourne or IPEC for example.