Hi Al they were good old days then I worked for cardiff transport we would do three Scotland’s and two North East a week tip Dalbeattie load ravenscraig back to South Wales drop swap back out again , ct had a reputation also no fuses in for limiter 
,with carline I had a Scania which was fitted with a switch underneath the ashtray to knock the limiter out this photo is courtesy of Ron wetherall or chris farnahs pages
Janos:
At the same time, there was an infamous copper by the name of ‘Robbo’ who haunted the East Lancs, who, legend had it, had a thing against truck drivers. If you were stopped by him, you could expect no mercy. For years previous to being an o/d I had been up and down the Lancs and never seen him, or got stopped by anybody. One morning I had tipped in Haydock after a red eye trip up from Felixstowe and was heading back into Liverpool along the Lancs when a Police car came out of nowhere, and forced me into a layby. He left it so late I nearly ran into him. I finally got to meet the mythical Robbo. He asked for my cards, and then spread them out along the dashboard. He then scooped them up, handed them back to me, and told me…if I ever stop you again, and the distance traces don’t match, then he would ‘do’ me. He then jumped out the cab and roared off in his jam butty. Not sure why he just slapped my wrist…but never did it again. Never knowingly run bent since that day either.
RobboCop - Graham Robinson, he now runs his own transport consultancy business advising companies on O Licence applications etc, tachograph regulations and infringments etc, and appears at public inquiries in front of the Traffic Commisioner in support of hauliers (usually). Say what you will about him and his time as a traffic cop, but he does know his stuff.
when I started driving in the mid 00’s there was still the off road driving rule. Many days you could get an easy half hour extra driving if you were in slow traffic by writing off road on the card. Friday afternoons usually saw the clock wound on 9/11 hours. The boss knew we did it and would pay us the night out and Saturday money even though we’d be back in the yard on Friday night.
It was common to drive to your first tip / load without a card and only put it in when you were at a weighbridge. I got called into the office one day after vosa had checked 10 wagons at random in the yard. Out of 20 cards on my wagon I had 10 infringements. After an interview with vosa 8 of the 10 drivers were taken to court. I initially got a £4000 fine plus costs. I sent a letter into the court explaining that the new overhead tachos seemed to be faulty and after you shut the drawer they didn’t start working. I waffled a load of bullcrap and it paid off. I had 9 of the offences of missing kms thrown out and ended up with a £400 fine plus costs for not writing on a card that I was a passenger in a wagon for 3 hours on a Monday morning.
Now I’m squeaky clean. Honestly.
PC Angus Cairn from the TV documentary series was an ex owner driver, and knows all the tricks,he had a Scania 142.
It is not recommended to pull the wool over his eyes if stopped by him.
Poacher turned gamekeeper.
Hiya in the log book days i always kept a return load phone book…at the back was a list of villages on major routes
with names close to where i lived…on the Southampton route we come through Cirencester these a village their with
the same name as one close to where i lived…I’d book of at the village but go home then book on at the village nr home.
it saved hanging around doing nowt for 3 hours wasting time.
John
robroy:
If nobody believes this post I won’t blame you but on my life it IS trueA guy who worked for me in the 80s used to work for Robsons of Carlisle in the early 70s on an old split windscreen type Foden. This guy liked a pint or two to say the least and his favourite tale was telling me how he would spend all day Sunday in the pub and set off about 10 at night for London taking his 13 yr old lad with him.
He drove to the motorway where the lad would sit on his knee steer the motor down the M6, and when he needed to change gear would knock his dad on the leg to wake him, this happened numerous times and the lad grew up to be a driver himself. …I kid you not
He wouldn’t get much sleep then!..
spooky70:
Did anyone ever ‘hold’ the speed on the tacho in a 113 or a 143?
would it be possible to claim the arthritis in my left thumb was a industrial injury and try for some compensation??
happysack:
when I started driving in the mid 00’s there was still the off road driving rule. Many days you could get an easy half hour extra driving if you were in slow traffic by writing off road on the card. Friday afternoons usually saw the clock wound on 9/11 hours. The boss knew we did it and would pay us the night out and Saturday money even though we’d be back in the yard on Friday night.
Didn’t realise that had been stopped! 
How do you go on now then, it could take you twenty minutes driving around quarries etc getting loaded so surely that can’t count as driving time? 
I always stuck the tacho on ‘box’ as soon as I entered quarries and sites etc, or whenever I was off the public highway, if you were tipping at an airfield or MIRA you could be driving an hour or more off road so that should go down as ‘other work’ I would think? I reckon that nowadays I would be doing less work than we did years ago, not my idea of progress and surely nobody wins?
Pete.
Hiya we did have a leyland 95 thet the tacho front only 2/3rd opened. i didn’t drive it very often
if you,d didn’t fiddle the card onto place properly the card would jam in the hinge and the pear
would turn in the clock. it happened to me one day when i had an easy day just an hour up
the road about 3 hours unloading and back to depot…thats when i found out about the card,
when i mentioned to the tsp manager he said it happens all the time with the regular driver,
i wounder why…
John
Bent running i know nothing about that ahem 
… what i would say though is if they ever drain the English Channel there would be quite a few nervous drivers
mrginge:
It is annoying sometimes on the digi’s, just this afternoon I was 45mins from a drop but only 30mins drive left on a 4.5hr but if i then took another 30min break to wipe the slate clean i would not make it before the customer closed in 1hr. So i drove it back to the yard for someone to deliver tomorrow.The drop is only 45min from our yard so its not the end of the world but it meant i couldn’t get the load off and go somewhere else for a reload for Monday.
I don`t know if you are driving a vehicle with one of those new type tachos in but the older digi tachos eat up your time .I was in one of our yards one day and had to move several times to load before i got out ,i was there 45 mins and when i checked my time i had used 32 mins of driving time … ridiculous
3300John:
Hiya we did have a leyland 95 thet the tacho front only 2/3rd opened. i didn’t drive it very often
if you,d didn’t fiddle the card onto place properly the card would jam in the hinge and the pear
would turn in the clock. it happened to me one day when i had an easy day just an hour up
the road about 3 hours unloading and back to depot…thats when i found out about the card,
when i mentioned to the tsp manager he said it happens all the time with the regular driver,
i wounder why…
John
Yes John, that’s why I preferred the Veeder Root tachos with the two locating pins which most of our trucks were fitted with.
Pete.
Owner-driver trying to make it pay 
. Sadly most of his Tacho’s were like these, eventually his wife had to contact the Police, she had a phone call from him to say he had loaded in Southern Italy for home, then she didn’t here from him for 3 days, which for him was unusual. The Police contacted the Italian Police, who contacted the Italian firm he had subbed the load from who even had their drivers keeping a look out for him, Services etc, his wagon was eventually seen by 1 of the Italian drivers, the Police opened his cab door that was unlocked & he was sat behind the wheel in his underwear, had a heart attack, they think he got out for a leak, got back in & never made it back into bed . We have all pushed the boundaries, & yes I can sit here in my model room with my cup of tea & biscuits on a sunny Sunday afternoon like many of your good-selves & smile at the memories, but sometimes I think was it really worth some of the stunts we pulled just for a wage packet! Chris’ wife couldn’t afford to bring his body back, so he is buried down the South of Italy somewhere, she has only been to his grave a handful of times, he was a really nice bloke who loved his work! Regards Chris
Used to bend the rules running Europe in the 80,s never went crazy, couple of hours here and there, and sometimes when I was tramping in the UK would get so close to home I could have been tempted to borrow some time off the next days card.
Some drivers used to use amphetamine, they would get out of there cabs and give anyone who would listen a proper ear bashing about any old ■■■■, they could not standstill or keep there eyes pointed in one direction.
There used to be a cold remedy called Contact 400, take 3or4 of them little beauties and you would be whizzing your head off.
toby1234abc:
Its funny to read the media headlines of a driver that went to court for tacho offences, they will get a quote from the Police about the case which is always the same old cobblers of :
“We take the safety of road users very seriously, a tired driver is a menace on the road and the amount of damage that a Lgv can cause can be fatal, we agre with the Judges decision to jail Boristanivockoff Monravistinople for twenty years for driving for two minutes over a limit of what is permitted by EU law .”
In the days of fuses and wires, nobody got killed, nobody fell asleep at the wheel.
It was done for their benefit to meet your mates or a decent place to eat.
The Dutch had hidden switches in coffee percolators that would block their vision, the
ones with filter paper.
If you spent all day and night loading in a packing house, the agent would book the ferry on the time you left, but all day , you were driving and working on deliveries or collections, so should book off to rest at night.
If you did it legally, complaints would be what took you so long, when such a driver or rival firm got there quicker.
On the old roads in the 90,s, it would take four days to get from Dieppe to Lisbon, arriving late at night on the third day to unload on the morning of the fourth day.
It was normal for the rest of the drivers to do the trip in a day and a half, non stop, only stopping for the loo or a microwave sleep of ten minutes.
It would take two days to do groupage collections in the North of Porto, some factories would literally hand make the goods while you wait, then pack it and load it.Textile and shoe factories had workers that were under 16 years old.
Friday nights were hell.
Finish off the load at depots in Porto, cab rocking all night, while they loaded it.
Or move the truck or night, off the bay, on to another bay, move to the yard for an awkward side load, back on the bay.
No sleep all night , but booked on Mondays ferry, so the next day drive tired to reach Burgos or Victoria.I think you are being a bit blinkered to think no one was killed or fell asleep at the wheel,because they exceeded driving hours.
David
Log sheets were the best,use three a shift to get home,not numbered like log books.As for booking off,well Newport got some hammer,plenty of them int UK.Also owt ending in “field” or some nondescript place on Ordnance Survey map. Board Hill was a favourite on Woodhead,the hill past Dog and Partridge boozer.Our Barking office spent some time looking for it…Saltersbrook was another. Good old days. Landlord of Dog and Partridge would threaten local “silent checker” with his Alsatian if he was seen snooping round back of pub looking at wagon reg plates.His name was Nelson,lived at Penistone and very often sat in his car at Flouch crossroads. You had, therefore to put a legal destination down if spotted,but owt yer liked if not.
This of course was in 60s and 70s.
5thwheel:
toby1234abc:
Its funny to read the media headlines of a driver that went to court for tacho offences, they will get a quote from the Police about the case which is always the same old cobblers of :
“We take the safety of road users very seriously, a tired driver is a menace on the road and the amount of damage that a Lgv can cause can be fatal, we agre with the Judges decision to jail Boristanivockoff Monravistinople for twenty years for driving for two minutes over a limit of what is permitted by EU law .”
In the days of fuses and wires, nobody got killed, nobody fell asleep at the wheel.
It was done for their benefit to meet your mates or a decent place to eat.
The Dutch had hidden switches in coffee percolators that would block their vision, the
ones with filter paper.
If you spent all day and night loading in a packing house, the agent would book the ferry on the time you left, but all day , you were driving and working on deliveries or collections, so should book off to rest at night.
If you did it legally, complaints would be what took you so long, when such a driver or rival firm got there quicker.
On the old roads in the 90,s, it would take four days to get from Dieppe to Lisbon, arriving late at night on the third day to unload on the morning of the fourth day.
It was normal for the rest of the drivers to do the trip in a day and a half, non stop, only stopping for the loo or a microwave sleep of ten minutes.
It would take two days to do groupage collections in the North of Porto, some factories would literally hand make the goods while you wait, then pack it and load it.Textile and shoe factories had workers that were under 16 years old.
Friday nights were hell.
Finish off the load at depots in Porto, cab rocking all night, while they loaded it.
Or move the truck or night, off the bay, on to another bay, move to the yard for an awkward side load, back on the bay.
No sleep all night , but booked on Mondays ferry, so the next day drive tired to reach Burgos or Victoria.I think you are being a bit blinkered to think no one was killed or fell asleep at the wheel,because they exceeded driving hours.
David
I’m sure the Family off the Dutch driver who’d spent all day loading tipping around Venlo and Berg op zoom for Frans Maas in the late 90’s, and then proceeded with a regular night trunk from GE Plastics Berg Op Zoom to FM Great Yarmouth, had not been running around the clock. Well He didn’t get to Gt Yarmouth, because he drove off the A12 at Darsham at approximately 3am, and was killed as the Cab off his Scania folded around a very large and sturdy tree.
But hey ho there for the grace off god and all that.
Most Drivers were doing some kind of off card work. With hindsight I really appreciate how much better the conditions are without the pressure to run bent now
5thwheel:
toby1234abc:
Its funny to read the media headlines of a driver that went to court for tacho offences, they will get a quote from the Police about the case which is always the same old cobblers of :
“We take the safety of road users very seriously, a tired driver is a menace on the road and the amount of damage that a Lgv can cause can be fatal, we agre with the Judges decision to jail Boristanivockoff Monravistinople for twenty years for driving for two minutes over a limit of what is permitted by EU law .”
In the days of fuses and wires, nobody got killed, nobody fell asleep at the wheel.
It was done for their benefit to meet your mates or a decent place to eat.
The Dutch had hidden switches in coffee percolators that would block their vision, the
ones with filter paper.
If you spent all day and night loading in a packing house, the agent would book the ferry on the time you left, but all day , you were driving and working on deliveries or collections, so should book off to rest at night.
If you did it legally, complaints would be what took you so long, when such a driver or rival firm got there quicker.
On the old roads in the 90,s, it would take four days to get from Dieppe to Lisbon, arriving late at night on the third day to unload on the morning of the fourth day.
It was normal for the rest of the drivers to do the trip in a day and a half, non stop, only stopping for the loo or a microwave sleep of ten minutes.
It would take two days to do groupage collections in the North of Porto, some factories would literally hand make the goods while you wait, then pack it and load it.Textile and shoe factories had workers that were under 16 years old.
Friday nights were hell.
Finish off the load at depots in Porto, cab rocking all night, while they loaded it.
Or move the truck or night, off the bay, on to another bay, move to the yard for an awkward side load, back on the bay.
No sleep all night , but booked on Mondays ferry, so the next day drive tired to reach Burgos or Victoria.I think you are being a bit blinkered to think no one was killed or fell asleep at the wheel,because they exceeded driving hours.
Anyone who says they have never nodded off at the wheel, even if only for a few seconds, is either lying/in denial or they never been anywhere
Regards Chris
David
I worked regular nights for 8 years for Glass Glover Distribution.Our shifts were 9 hours,everything was legal,no need to run bent. I had to stop many times for a break when starting to nod off,always near end of shift.A cup of tea and a ■■■ with a ten minute break was sufficient. I got plenty of kip in the daytime as well,so daytime rest was not an issue. As Chris ADR says,anybody who says they never nodded off at the wheel are - to put it politely - fibbing.
Chris
Just squeaking into the early eighties.
There were no restrictions on drivers’ hours in Saudi doing internals.
But there wasn’t the same pressure to be there at a specific time either. We probably worked about 14 hours a day, most days, but we weren’t ‘booked in’ anywhere.
We stopped when we we tired and drove when we weren’t. But it was often difficult to drive in the heat of the day, your eyes started to close, the road was a never ending ribbon in front of you. No air conditioning, the windows were already open. Smacking your face to keep awake.
Not much point in stopping, you would immediately be sweating so much you couldn’t sleep.
Taking a tape and winding it to the middle, then throwing it out of the window and seeing how far it would go behind you.
The desert was an ocean of blue in any direction - the mirage illusion.
Hard to stay awake, but no joy in stopping!
John
