I believe these were the golden years for British transport for getting all over Europe and beyond, long before I was even a twinkle in my fathers eye
I’m just wondering if Brits caused as much carnage around Europe back then as EE drivers do now? Its plainly obvious a lot of EE trucks are smashed to pieces with a few exceptions, vectra international (RO) run a cracking fleet for example.
Now I’m not going to tar them all with the same brush as I’m sure some/most of them are perfectly fine but it seems whenever I come close to one I’m almost expecting him to do something daft.
This week alone we’ve read about
CZ (hungarian driver) stobart reversing up the toll
Hungarian waberers doing an obviously impossible U turn on a single carriage way road
I’ve just driven up past the M42 jct7 where it joins the M6N and a EE driver has the missed the juction and attempted to drive over the grass to rejoin the slip (at least he didn’t attempt a reverse back I guess ) and yep, you guessed it, completely bogged down stuck. closing a lane and causing chaos.
These are all incidents within 30 miles of my house! so I can only guess its country wide the mayhem spreads
I ran over the water in the 90’s luckily drivers would often communicate with each other and assist with things such as directions etc.
mind you we also had to use a certain amount of judgement and common sense.
having said that when you get to some places and think jesus it cant be down there and it is you can see why ee drivers struggle in the uk.
add in a rhd abroad and even simple things like junctions etc, become much more of a challenge than you think, I did like the eu way size wins when driving mind.
Maga, I came past the M42N/M6N incident I guess about 20 mins afterwards - one EE driver was using his truck to try to pull his compatriot out of the mud between the carriageways and had definitely burnt out his clutch, as you could smell it!!. It left the towing truck across both lanes of the sliproad onto the M6N -
I do hope both get the full wrath of VOSA/DVSA and our traffic police set upon them!!
Going down the M6 past J9. Waberer driver indicator on in lane 1, stupid car sitting in his blind spot in lane 2. Waberer started to move over, I honked horn to save the stupid car (and a giant ■■■■■■■ tailback, this was 3pm…). Car sped up out the way and the driver moved over (to stay on M6).
Passed him and was surprised his mate didn’t see the car…
maga:
I believe these were the golden years for British transport for getting all over Europe and beyond, long before I was even a twinkle in my fathers eye
I’m just wondering if Brits caused as much carnage around Europe back then as EE drivers do now? Its plainly obvious a lot of EE trucks are smashed to pieces with a few exceptions, vectra international (RO) run a cracking fleet for example.
Now I’m not going to tar them all with the same brush as I’m sure some/most of them are perfectly fine but it seems whenever I come close to one I’m almost expecting him to do something daft.
This week alone we’ve read about
CZ (hungarian driver) stobart reversing up the toll
Hungarian waberers doing an obviously impossible U turn on a single carriage way road
I’ve just driven up past the M42 jct7 where it joins the M6N and a EE driver has the missed the juction and attempted to drive over the grass to rejoin the slip (at least he didn’t attempt a reverse back I guess ) and yep, you guessed it, completely bogged down stuck. closing a lane and causing chaos.
These are all incidents within 30 miles of my house! so I can only guess its country wide the mayhem spreads
Now do you see what happen when you are the only country in the whole continent with driving on the wrong side
I really do hope you don’t judge all EE drivers from numerous countries, backgrounds, mindset, skill etc.
You wanna see mayhem mate, come to Bulgaria during the summer season, an army of 300 000 Brits decent upon us - drunk as hell, driving drunk, heaving ■■■ on the streets, defecating out in the open, falling from balconies, attacking people, doing all sort of crimes because of alcohol and drugs.
But guess what I’ll not judge 60 million Brits by their alcoholic tourists.
You get my point. There is good and bad apples everywhere.
Thread like this are becoming more and more pointless.
EDTRUCK:
Maga, I came past the M42N/M6N incident I guess about 20 mins afterwards - one EE driver was using his truck to try to pull his compatriot out of the mud between the carriageways and had definitely burnt out his clutch, as you could smell it!!. It left the towing truck across both lanes of the sliproad onto the M6N -
I do hope both get the full wrath of VOSA/DVSA and our traffic police set upon them!!
I must have missed that as when I came past it was blocked off by a womble.
its like the wacky races out there
htmldude:
Going down the M6 past J9. Waberer driver indicator on in lane 1, stupid car sitting in his blind spot in lane 2. Waberer started to move over, I honked horn to save the stupid car (and a giant [zb] tailback, this was 3pm…). Car sped up out the way and the driver moved over (to stay on M6).
Passed him and was surprised his mate didn’t see the car…
so the waberers had someone in the passenger seat and he still nearly side swiped a car?
Firstly maybe DEANB could post some of the numerous jobs wanted ads in his old copies of Truck magazine which might at least help to bust the myth of the ‘Golden Age’ of Brit international work which never was.
As for East Euro lets just say that driving a car,let alone a truck,in Yugoslavia at least in the day left me in no doubt that the slavic mindset and driving were often and maybe still are a lethal combination.Only exceeded by the Turkish idea of it all being about what God decides not the driver.
Europe in the 80/90’s was great fun, Every driver would help every other regardless of who or where they were from and we all got home roughly on time somehow.
Changing a wheel in the middle of nowhere or tipping the cab for a problem ALWAYS got another truck pulling up behind and "need a hand " or “I have a spare one” comments.
The drinking and games that when on were serious at some places…whole weekends on the ■■■■ while waiting for a load or on a break. It was usually the same guys who were a hard breed and loved the lifestyle, in a cab that is not the palace you have now with every mod con.
Life thank god has moved on , and most of the real ■■■■■■■■■ “Lads” are dead because of the lifestyle and age. But if you ask any of the remaining older lads that are left would they want to do it again and you would see them saying No because life has changed. We now live in a world of technology , rules , regulations and beaurocracy , with deadlines and stress ! The job is ■■■■■■ .
Can’t speak for the 70’s or 80’s (too young)! Started going over the water in 1995 so probably caught the tail end of the so called ‘Golden Era’.
Brits seemed to be everywhere, even on small lanes in the middle of nowhere. Every services, border queue and truckstop had a few brit trucks who were always up for a chinwag, offer help etc.
Never heard any stories about side swiping cars like you hear in this country with foreign drivers and the impression I got was that lorry drivers, regardless of nationality, were treated with much more respect and dignity than they are here.
But as mentioned previously, I don’t think I would want to do it now, I keep reading about different police forces nicking drivers for all sorts of things that just wasn’t heard of in those days.
maga:
I’m just wondering if Brits caused as much carnage around Europe back then as EE drivers do now?
In a word, no. I did continental work for well over 20 years and while we all had the inevitable bump and scrape, there was never an epidemic of British drivers sideswiping cars, in fact I have never once seen a British truck and a spun-round car parked on the hard shoulder on the continent, ever, in any of the countries I have ever been to. Ever.
maga:
I believe these were the golden years for British transport for getting all over Europe and beyond, long before I was even a twinkle in my fathers eye
I’m just wondering if Brits caused as much carnage around Europe back then as EE drivers do now? Its plainly obvious a lot of EE trucks are smashed to pieces with a few exceptions, vectra international (RO) run a cracking fleet for example.
Now I’m not going to tar them all with the same brush as I’m sure some/most of them are perfectly fine but it seems whenever I come close to one I’m almost expecting him to do something daft.
This week alone we’ve read about
CZ (hungarian driver) stobart reversing up the toll
Hungarian waberers doing an obviously impossible U turn on a single carriage way road
I’ve just driven up past the M42 jct7 where it joins the M6N and a EE driver has the missed the juction and attempted to drive over the grass to rejoin the slip (at least he didn’t attempt a reverse back I guess ) and yep, you guessed it, completely bogged down stuck. closing a lane and causing chaos.
These are all incidents within 30 miles of my house! so I can only guess its country wide the mayhem spreads
I’ve read on Twitter that the EE driver who has got stuck on the M42 has been done for careless driving and it has cost him or the company £4500 for recovery. This from the police forces own Twitter feed. Surely they have been ripped off with the recovery? I thought it was about £2500 to be recovered by a wrecker?
Im glad to have done a bit in that era, and am equally glad I dont have to do it today. We are all guilty of tending to remember the good times and downplay the bad.
Days spent in the TIR park in Matoshinos using the unit as a taxi to go to the beach, and a choice of good restaurants outside the gates. Weekends doing the tourist bit in Prague.
Against arriving with a load of groupage at Aosta about 2a.m., putting papers in at 8. Collecting T2s at 11.30 at giving it “the big one” up to the boat. All in 320 or maybe 400 horse truck towing a tandem trailer on euro weights, on mostly national roads.
Definitely a time of extremes. Some good memories, but no desire here for a re-run.
Wasn’t there a continuous thread posted by someone a few years back. It was this guy telling the story of his first few years euro driving during the 1980s in a uk reg bonneted American lorry. It was fantastic reading. He split it up into hundreds of posts. It read like a professionally written book. The poster said he actually had plans to get it published. Wonder if he did. Does anyone have the link to the old posts?
