2 days in a row, ive seen some of the most stupidest things possible and id love to know what goes through these peoples heads!!!
Yesterday, i was heading back to the yard in a 6 wheeled volvo hiab and in slow moving traffic, only about a mile away from base. Anyhoo, the line was travelling about 30mph and i was keeping my eye on a a group that were walking towards me, who had obviously been drinking. All of a sudden, one of the lads who thought he was bad boy stepped off the kerb and in front of a taxi that shot in to park up, nearly getting knocked over! Looked at the cab driver and held out his arms to say “yeah? [zb] you”, then looked at me (i seen his head click with that same thought) and just walked straight out in front of me with his arms held out! I swear to god, i was not even 3 metres away when his m8 grabbed his arm and dragged him back! I love my job but i cant beleive how thick people are, Drunk or not!
And to top it off, today in same wagon, i was going down a residential road and the kids were just coming outta school. Travelled down for about 600yds and all of a sudden, this girl comes hurtling out of nowhere on my nearside on a pushbike, knocks over a bloke on the pavement and falls off her bike straight into the road and straight in front of me!!! This time i was abit away so manage to sink the anchors before nearly taking her head off with my bumper!!!
The funny thing about this one is, she got straight back up, wiped the blood off her nose after probably headbutting the road and carried on down the road. By this time, ive already had 2 sets of kittens and never even had chance to see if she was ok cuz she [ZB]`d off sharp!!!
What is the worsed (if any) that has happened to you?
I`m now off to sink a litre of whiskey to try and wipe the visions away
Squiddy:
Yup, they use their prams like traffic cones mate. Fortunately we don’t play tiddlywinks with prams.
makes me cringe when i see mothers pushing prams near the road.
Worst ones have got to be the parents that let their 3-4 year old children ride their scooters down the road in front of them. I always hold my foot over the brake if i see this!
Squiddy:
Yup, they use their prams like traffic cones mate. Fortunately we don’t play tiddlywinks with prams.
makes me cringe when i see mothers pushing prams near the road.
Worst ones have got to be the parents that let their 3-4 year old children ride their scooters down the road in front of them. I always hold my foot over the brake if i see this!
Had a nasty experience in central london when I was on vans. Glanced at my satnav and when I looked up a toddler was rushing in to the road. Skidded to a halt a few metres past it. Pure luck his parents shouting turned him round. And yes, they glared at me as if I was a dangerous driver
Pedestrians are idiots in general, I do multidrop work in a scania around bury St Edmunds and you can have your reverse beepers going hazards on and slowly moving back and they still walk behind you!
I used to stop to let them cross but now I just slowly creep back and if they are intent on still standing there I give them a blast of the air horn
That usually works!
The worst offenders are teenagers old people and office bods.
Most of my drops are quite late at night so its not such a problem. in the last week or so however I’ve had a couple of examples of peoples idiocy
Firstly, having to reverse off a main road into a side street. Now I’m not in a small truck, usually 16’, hazards on, reverse beeper on. Start to reverse, a woman decides to cross behind me, I get another couple of feet back, another pops out of nowhere. They can’t wait for 2 bloody minutes.
The second example kind of shook me up a bit. On a retail park, setting myself up to reverse into quite a tight yard. A group of 5 or 6 kids were messing around on scooters, the parents stood nearby battering away. They decided to race the length of the truck so I watched them in the mirror until they were clear. Started to release the handbrake whilst doing a quick check of the mirrors. I spot a ■■■■■■■ head sticking out from under the trailer! One of them I hadn’t seen on the other side had tried to go under me to beat his friends. He then scootered past my window, gave me a smile and went “alright mate?”. I could only shake my head in disbelief, a guy in a nearby van also shaking his head and giving me a knowing look.
I think there are plenty of people out there who put holes in Darwins theory.
And a few glass A cabbages but the 2 that stick out the most was while I was driving draw bars. One was while I was unloaded onto a loading bay via a tail lift when folks standing around inches from the back chuffing away on a ■■■ and rattling to one another while I’m balancing 3 cages full of mineral water.
The other was while I was in stationary traffic I had someone jump of my draw bar over all the air lines. Lucky enough I saw them go for it and waited till they emerged from the other side. No brains at all
Spent two years driving in London at least 3 times per week, so too many to mention
But one that I cant forget is a black guy in Dagenham, who just came from nowhere and was rubbing himself against my unit( :blush: ) I stopped and didnt move until he buggered off, he must have been high or summat
Loads that step out in front of you, women with pushchairs who think that you will not crush the child It`s a messed up world, it really is…
10-08:
A woman pushing her pushchair into the road then deciding to look if there was any traffic
I had one in clapham Junction. I was turning into the Asda, there is a very tight mini roundabout as you turn in to approach the store. I stopped because a clown in a car had got to close to the cut of the trailer and was in danger of having the front grill removed, when i went to slowly move forward, a young woman was pushing her pushchair and child UNDER the front overhang of my trailer, between my unit rear axles and the railings on the edge of the pavement. Lucky for her i did my mirror checks that day!
10-08:
A woman pushing her pushchair into the road then deciding to look if there was any traffic
I had one in clapham Junction. I was turning into the Asda, there is a very tight mini roundabout as you turn in to approach the store. I stopped because a clown in a car had got to close to the cut of the trailer and was in danger of having the front grill removed, when i went to slowly move forward, a young woman was pushing her pushchair and child UNDER the front overhang of my trailer, between my unit rear axles and the railings on the edge of the pavement. Lucky for her i did my mirror checks that day!
Blimey almost unbelievable, think thats the worst ive heard of, but i really wouldn’t put it past some people.
I’ve had 2 occasions which send a chill down the spine. First one in Bognor Regis going past the station and a clown running along the pavement, station side of the road, suddenly decides that he needs to be on the other side. Without so much as a look he’s out about 15 feet in front of me. I felt like my nose hit the tarmac when I stamped on the brake, only doing about 20.
The second was on a Saturday night before Christmas, Leicester city centre. Made the midnight delivery and started back about 1:30ish just as the clubs were starting to empty. Caught a red light, waiting to hang a right, and some total tool decides they are going to jump up on the catwalk. Just caught a glimpse as he jumped up while all the other “sights of the night” paraded around and in spite of my yelling this tool didn’t want to get off, well not till Plod felt his collar and waved me on my way.
Londons an obvious one for numpty pedestrians, they just walk out when and where they feel like, even if theres a proper crossing just meters away they’ll rather risk life and limb by dodging the traffic. Ive also had them jumping between the unit and trailer while sitting in traffic.
Theres one time i recall trying to back onto a site in Central London, had two marshalls either side guiding me in but still had pedestrians pushing their way past instead of waiting a few seconds, the marshalls were doing their best to stop them but they were just getting shoved out the way, right up til i got level with the gate they were still darting round the back of the my trailer, almost squashed one against the gatepost and trailer it was that close
Outside on London ive been through Shepton Mallet during school chucking out time, lost count of the number of kids playing chicken with the trucks, i suppose their parents tell them to do it so those nasty dirty trucks get banned from the town, well theyre certainly not telling them off from what ive seen
Sitting at a set of lights in the Bronx and seeing some kid duck and run under my tanker to cross the road, whe I shouted at him he gave me the middle finger and was told to '[zb] of white ■■■■■■■" and even the cop standing about 50 feet away said nothing. Trucks here do not have protection from people or cars driving underneath like they do in Europe.
On my warm-up before my C+E test I was heading down a hill in the pouring rain, there was a Pelican crossing with an old lady waiting there. I slowed down ready to stop if the crossing went red, when I got to the point of no return I put my foot down… the silly cow stepped out at that moment, must have thought I was stopping. Got to practice an emergency stop though, scared the ■■■■ out of me, I so nearly killed her.
The rest of my practice went down the pan because I was so shaken up, the trainer just kept saying whats happened, if you drive like that in your test you’ll fail, needless to say I failed, lost all confidence what I needed was a stop and a cup of tea.
Still the nearest I’ve ever come to killing anyone. (Well as far as I know I just gave up looking in the mirrors after that) .
the worst pedestrians are the ones that stop and gawp at someone thats been injured in an accident and then decide to start filming the injured party on their smartphones.
I was driving along at the top of Brixton Hill and on the approach to a crossing a cyclist who looked like a local tried to ride his bike straight across in front of me and I clobbered him. The worst thing is I was only in the van that day.
Delivering in York city center last week along pedestrian area passed 3 teenagers who were pratting about as I went past them then 1 of them ran behind truck so I turned on reversing camera & the silly sod was hanging off the tail lift.
I was helping my brother in law set up a christmas fair one year in the middle of kingston upon thames when our generator turned up. Bearing in mind that the generator weighed about two and a half tonnes, people still walked under it swinging on the Hiab no matter how much you tried to sheperd them around the truck. As the load got close to the deck one guy was not going to be stopped no matter what we done and decided to duck under the outrigger!. It was a pity he didn’t duck low enough as he walked away with the biggest grease mark i have ever seen all down his back.
