Thought I’d let you guys over there know that cops here can be far more stupid than the average British Bobby…
Thursday afternoon I got home and recieved details of my next days load. I had Wilmington MA with a reload in Mansfield MA (Quite an easy day). I checked the weather channel to see that winter storms with 6 inches of snow were forecast in the Adirondacks (Home) and the Green Mountains of Vermont. The shortest and most economical route to Wilmington from home is through the green mountains. Snow was expected after midnight. After gettingcaught driving through 8 inches for hundreds of miles last winter I decided to have 8 hours break and set out at 1.00am.
On aproaching Rutland VT some guy on the CB told me that trucks were spinning on Route 4 over Killington Mountain (the best route) so I elected to head on a southern route down rte 103 through Ludlow VT because there would be less snow and a lot of smaller less harsh grades to climb. The snow touched 3 inches in some parts but I stuck at 50mph on the straight and 40mph on the bendy bits. Still headind south east the snow faded out after Bellows Falls VT and I crossed the bridge into Walpole, New Hampshire to find route 12 south dry and free of ice (apart from the odd black ice spot easily visible ahead in my headlights.
As I approached Keene NH guys were talking about rte12 being closed due to an accident and a detour being in place. About 5 miles south of Keene I saw a cop sitting in his car parked across the road with his lights flashing, he pointed to a road on the right and thinking this was the detour I turned into it. The new road was without any markings anywhere, a ditch each side and just about the width of two trucks, it got tighter and steeper the further I went then on the top of a mountain I came to a ‘T’ junction with no signs of any sort, I stopped and took pot luck on which way to go, I chose left as in my oppinion this was still heading south, I just got round the turn without getting in the ditch. I travelled for only a mile to find a dead end with a turning point made for cars surrounded by a ditch, no lights and log cabin set back in the circle. I couldn’t see back around the bend and had visions of being stuck there till daylight arrived. I chose to get out somehow and shunted back and forth my reversing beeper waking all in the cabins, my trailer ended up down one of the driveways ( You have to remember that hooked up my truck is 72 ft long). Eventually arriving back at the ‘T’ junction I assumed that the other route was the correct one and headed down the mountain. The road twisted and got tighter before climbing again to a dirt road, I took down bushes and small trees then merged onto a slightly wider tarmac road going downhill. I slowly went down the hill with my very loud engine brake waking everyone up no doubt to see at the bottom a cop with his lights flashing “Ah ! the end of the detour” I thought.
IT WAS THE SAME COP !!!
20 minutes of dragging that truck around the back of beyond to come out at the starting place. I climbed out of the cab and walked up to him, he smiled. “Where the hell does that detour go?” I asked.
“That ain’t no detour, you were just suposed to turn around” he said.
“Well wouldn’t it be a good idea to tell us that ?”
"Hey ! it ain’t my problem, you need to head back up route 12 to route 101 east for Nashua NH.
I headed back up the road to route 101 and headed east as I passed 2 others going down route 12 I told them the road was closed and they would have to turn around although the ‘Stupid Cop’ would not tell them. One mile along a twisty winding rte 101 one of the guys called me to say the cop had now opened the road and everyone can go through. I drove for miles but found no room to turn around for miles so I carried on to Nashua through an ice storm and joined I 93 south to wilmington arriving 1 hour later than planned.
Never call British police stupid.
