Hit The Road Jack...........

Alnico

There is no short way to explain any of this so expect something to read with each post, except maybe the bad days, then you can expect short and sweet, jaded pessimism !

This is going to be an ongoing blog of life on the road as a Trucker. 

It's an insane adventure, often into the great unknown and i promise you, there is as much adventure in finding and safely getting in and out of a Farm in Gloucestershire, as there is climbing mountain roads in Scotland. It's a difficult job to do 100% correct and professionally but over the years it's become the most rewarding job i can ever imagine doing. Contrary to popular belief, i get much more of a kick out of hauling a full 44 tonne GVW up a steep hill and REALLY driving the truck, than i do from sitting at 56mph on the Motorway. I recently collected a full load from a company in the Forest of Dean and some of those roads were just sheer driving pleasure. Empty on the way in and fully loaded coming out. My Truck is 460hp Renault T and it's only 6 months old so everything works really well and despite the Automatic gearbox, it's a great thing to drive. If it's a manual 16 speed like we all used to have, it would be perfect but that's never going to happen now that Auto's have completely taken over.

For the Record i would still prefer a 1999 ERF EC14 Olympic with a 16 SPeed ZF - Google it - Proper, Classic, British Truck.

Anyway, my Renault pulls containers for a very well known specialist container Transport Company which my employer has permanently sub-contracted myself and all the other drivers into. So because we are 'Subby's', we are not bound by all their own company bullshit that their own drivers get, it's our own Tractor Unit and we just pull their trailers and do their work. We are worth a lot to them BECAUSE we are not bound by all that crap, we just pick up the paperwork, fly into the Docks, get the box (Container) we need and get our heads down and get there, no matter what. We don't have Tracker and we don't have Telematics so it's Old School Trucking in modern Trucks. The Transport company loves it because in legal terms, we are nothing to do with them, we have our own employer with all the legal requirements to operate and as long as we don't get nicked for anything and stay within our hours, everyone is happy. Our trucks do 56mph whereas their own trucks only do 52mph. Across a long distance this can seriously affect your ability to get to deliveries on time. It's more than just time and distance, it's about missing rush hour hotspots before they build up and that seemingly small difference in top speed makes a big difference in real, on road terms. Next time i pull out in front of you to overtake one of the 52mph lads, i will be past him and back in the left lane within 60 seconds so i hold up the overtaking lane for way less time than the 1/2mph warriors that take 20 minutes to get past the truck in front ! Believe it or not, if i come up behind a truck that's just a tiny bit slower than me, it doesn't cause brain damage to press the " - " button on the cruise control and travel at his speed, a safe distance behind him, for maybe 30 minutes. Most of the time, they turn off at some point in front of you so it's never for too long. If i'm only pulling a 6 tonne box, my Truck drives like it's empty, especially up hills so that 55mph truck in front might be fully loaded and much slower up hills. It won't be long before a hill comes up and you get the chance to fly past safely without holding the road up too much.

All this adds up to it being entirely possible (and quite common) to pick up a box at 4pm and park up straight away at the Transport yard at Felixstowe Docks and then have a 9 hour Rest Break until 1am when you set off for Cardiff to hit a delivery booking time of 08:30.

I quite often start work between midnight and 3am because i get to cover crazy distances without anyone in my way and when you're talking about roads like the A303 between Salisbury and Exeter, that makes a MASSIVE difference.

So the job itself has some crazy elements to it, mainly at the docks. It's the most confusing, mindfucking place i've ever been in lorries and i still learn new stuff about the places every time i go to them. The deliveries are a little different from the back of a container than a Curtainsider but the locations and process is largely the same. The driving is the same, except a container trailer has way less overswing than a Curtainsider or a Reefer trailer would and that's at the front just as much as at the back. The life on the road is no different to any of the other truckers out there. That's quite often the tough part but with careful planning and a considerate controller, it can be surprisingly comfortable...................but not always !

I have been on this job for 8 weeks now and there has been way too much happen to post here so i am going to start this today with this brief introduction and as i keep the blog going, i will try to include the highlights from the last 8 weeks. They have been an incredible adventure and it's been pretty amazing to see the cab and how i approach the job, develop and 'Get into the Groove' over those 8 weeks.

The cab is really getting close now to being a home-from-home and i've even got a printer to wirelessly connect with my Galaxy Pro Tablet so for work purposes i have a mobile office in the cab. It's got a decent fridge, really comfortable bed and seats and it's an incredibly effective Tractor with good equipment all round. I still have a few things to buy and then develop as i fit them into the cab's interior but mostly it's there - things like a fitted dashboard table that's perfectly flat, storage for the top bunk bed (Which doesn't get used) so i can have drawers / baskets of clothes instead of bags and rucksacks rolling around loose, some nicer curtains than it comes out of the factory with, some nice floormats, etc.

So it's 1pm on Sunday right now and i have to be asleep at 7pm for a 1am alarm to be in the car at 1:30am and at the truck for 2am. Refit clean bedding, get all my bags out of the car and put away, set the cab up for work and put any shopping brought to teh rtcuk in fridges and cupboards until 2:45am. Put tacho card in and start shift with 15 minutes of 'Other Work' (Crossed Hammers Icon on Tachograph) which is the time we do our pre-flight checks and log whatever we need to on our paperwork before driving off at 3am. Filling up with diesel at the truckstop over the road takes 15 minutes and the journey to Felixstowe from there takes around 1h 45m so leaving at 3:15 will get you to the Docks around 5am. Swap trailers for one with a loaded box that's going to Kirkby-in-Ashfield for 10 am. 

15 Minutes to change trailers and 45 Minute Tacho break puts you leaving the docks at 6am and it's roughly 4 hours to Kirkby from there, not rushing and allowing for some early morning traffic which puts me there bang on time.

So anyway, it's time to get things done and relax for a few hours before all that starts again.

Ramble on,..........................

Phil_aka_Pip

Glad you're a get-on-with-it overtaker. Those wallahs that overtake a truck that's doing 0.5mph less than what they can do really piss me right off.

thumpingrug

Subscribed.  Looking forward to reading more.

Neil

Good stuff although you had me at the crossed hammers bit!

COYI!

Adam_MD

Excellent read. Good luck m'lad >-

Guitar_Slinger

thumpingrug said:

Subscribed.  Looking forward to reading more.

+1

chillidoggy

I've just been out and bought a Yorkie on the strength of this.

TTony

Alnico said:

a 1999 ERF EC14 Olympic with a 16 SPeed ZF - Google it - Proper, Classic, British Truck.

For many years I lived in the town where the ERFs and Fodens were born.

I even had a summer job once year helping to clear out one of their old factories as it was being "redeveloped".  

 

Sarge

Brilliant, I'm hooked already.

racefaceec90

   

ah maybe this is more suitable for you alnico   

axisus

Fascinating stuff

ourmaninthenorth

Fantastic... gonna follow this.

Ramble on Pal. 

=D>

stickyfiddle

Excellent OP. My Dad drove HGVs on and off throughout his career (mostly as motor vehicle engineer for Leyland/Ford/Lotus), didn't drive that often past 40 but kept his licence up and still used it occasionally so this stuff is always really interesting. Looking forward to more.

Alnico

Thanks and definitely for the video's !

Well today went to shit.

I'm not going to write this on a daily basis but as direct reality check from what i had planned yesterday, i thought this would be useful to anyone considering doing this job and resound with those who do.

Up at 00:30. Spend  half an hour being a zombie on the sofa and telling myself i really must put my kit together and get it in the car. 01:15 Wake Deb and try to convince her everything is ok and the flat isnt on fire. Throw neck and her in the car at 01:30. I drive while she wakes up.

02:00 decamp into the truck and say Goodbye to Deb for the week. Spend roughly 45 minutes putting bedding back onto mattress, shopping away in cupboards and fridge, get cab all set up to start work.

02:45 put tacho card in and start shift. Spend 15 minutes doing vehicle checks and paperwork.

Shift starts here at 02:45. 

I can work 13 hour shifts every day, having an 11 hour rest period or i can work up to 15 hours in a shift and have less than 11 hours rest but NO LESS than 9 hours, 3 times a week. The other 2 or 3 days of the week MUST be kept to 13 hour shifts with 11  hours rest.

So a 13 hour shift will end at 15:45 and a 15 hour shift (The absolute finite maximum working time allowed between daily rest periods) will end at 17:45.

Leave the yard at 03:00 to get Diesel just over the road at the Truckstop and then head to a place called 'Woolpit', just past Bury st Edmunds where another driver had hauled my container out of Felixstowe docks and into the yard there waiting for me on monday morning. 

Sorted.

Land in Woolpit at 04:20 to be told they didn't leave it on wheels (Container left mounted on the 'Skeltal Trailer' (Skelly) and ready to hook up to and go). They had needed the 'Skel' Trailer and so because they have a container yard and a handler (MASSIVE telescopic martian forklift that picks up containers like they're a 6 pack of beer) they lad lifted the box and put it into the container stack.

"That's fine i said, i don't mind just swapping this empty box i've brought you for the loaded one and keeping my trailer. No problem at all !", i said...............

"Ok lad, well when the Handler Driver gets into work around 6, we'll try to fit you into the que and sort you out !"

"WTF !!!", i imagined myself saying before i threw an hand grenade into the transport office and walking away lighting a cigarillo........

"Ok, then...........Thanks", is what i actually said and walked away looked defeated,...................before the sun had even come up on a Pouring with rain, now miserable monday morning.

I pissed around in the cab pretending to re arrange cupboards and really think about the practical mechanics behinds grill mounted rocket launchers and then after 3 extra-curricular coffees and a whole new playlist created on the Tablet, the magician that flings containers around in the air finally arrived and eventually around 06:30 i left. I was supposed to be there for about 30 minutes and would therefore miss just about all of the morning rush hour on my way to Kirkby-in-Ashfield (Approx 3 hours without traffic).

That went to shit all the way to Alconbury where i gave up and had breakfast.

By the time i had gone back on the road it was just a bright, wet, slog up through Newark and when i got there at 10:30, i got ignored for an hour and a half so i didn't get unloaded and gone until 14:00 - now i'm WAY BEHIND. An hour south the Coalville and swap the complete trailer for one with a loaded box on it, going for Export (You See Woolpit, it is possible !).

Decide at 15:00 that i can run a couple of hours south towards Tilbury and dent the journey, leaving just a couple of hours to run in the morning. 

Feeling low, hit the M1 in the pissing, bastard, pouring, i'm-really-fucking-bored-of-getting-soaking-wet-changing-trailers-now, misty, spray inducing, fucking horrible rain !

Dickheads of every class in every size and type of vehicle keep having a go at me, even when i give up completely and sit in the left hand lane at 48 MPFH just for a bit of peace !!!

Just 10 miles from parking up and some food and rest i hit a wall of traffic because the M1 was down to 1 lane. The reason was that a container truck had rammed up the back end of another truck and slightly fucked it, you might say. Diesel and engine oil everywhere, the 2 lanes stayed closed for hours, they might still be. When i got to the back of the que it was only 3 miles long and that took an hour. God knows how bad it got behind me.

I got parked and pulled the Tacho out at 17:00 feeling like hell.

I havn;t enjoyed a single minute of today and that's unheard of for me. Some fucker somewhere took the jam out of my doughnut at every bloody turn, so much so that the general public thought it was funny and joined in just for the hell of it.

It CAN be an amazing adventure and the best fun with the big toys that i could even imagine, but not all the time and even though any 15 hour day is hard, it much harder when you havn't had a single laugh all day. Not one moment of any kind of stimulation or pleasure. No nice roads, no nice views, let downs and delays all day, miserable fucking rain and aggressive driving with an ultimate sense of entitlement. The only solice is pulling the curtains and forgetting about everything on the other side of them...........for 10 hours before it all starts again.

A cold drink and some decent music on and it is all disappearing now but that was a rare and VERY hard day.

I Seriously hope that was the one off day it felt like. I know it will happen again sometime in the future because the delays and weather will certainly keep happening but i just don't want to end up feeling that bad again for a long time.

Even on the really difficult days, there's some kind of happiness to be had somewhere but this was one without anything and i don't want to see another one in a hurry.

TTony

I got a bit wet walking from the office to the station this evening, because it wasn't raining hard enough for me to bother getting the brolly out of my bag.

And then the train was 10mins late getting me home.

Yup, doesn't really compare.

Woolpit - is that the massive looking container park visible from the A14?

thumpingrug

Certainly puts my day sat behind a PC dealing with emails into perspective.

One thing I'm curious about.   What happens if your close to the end of your driving hours and then get stuck in a jam for several hours.  Are you given any leeway for this.

Alnico

thumpingrug;788449" said:

Certainly puts my day sat behind a PC dealing with emails into perspective.

One thing I'm curious about.   What happens if your close to the end of your driving hours and then get stuck in a jam for several hours.  Are you given any leeway for this.

Great question.

Yes we are but the circumstances of the delay are important. We are allowed to continue to somewhere where it is safe to park but it must be the first available place. If it was possible to stop before you did, once out of hours, it might get difficult to prove if questioned about it at a later date.
Tacho records historically and keeps a few months worth of shifts on the card but your records are permanent and can be brought back up anytime for analysis.

The procedure is to run a printout of the shift and write an explanation on the back with a signature.
If stopped you can show the printout to prove you were aware of the over run and did your best to cope with it safely.

Then you cross your fingers and hope they agree with you !

Alnico

TTony;788417" said:

I got a bit wet walking from the office to the station this evening, because it wasn't raining hard enough for me to bother getting the brolly out of my bag.

And then the train was 10mins late getting me home.











Yup, doesn't really compare.

Woolpit - is that the massive looking container park visible from the A14?

Yes Tony, that's the one.
I think its J47 but I rarely look at the numbers on the A14.
Its the exit for Ixworth, Elmswell and Woolpit.

jonnyburgo

thumpingrug

Cheers for that explanation.   Looks like you had another very early start.  Hope you have a better day today.

Alnico

thumpingrug;788791" said:

Cheers for that explanation.   Looks like you had another very early start.  Hope you have a better day today.

Thank you.
As it goes I am doing, despite the weather and traffic being no different. I guess some days are just bad from the start.

Anyway there was one thing I forgot to mention with 'running over hours' that you asked about.......

Yes you can do it, once in a blue moon, when you absolutely need to however the rest of your tacho records need to show a consistency of compliance with hours etc and although there is no hard and fast rule as to how often you can do this, it is massively frowned upon if its any more than just now and again. Even then if it keeps happening then your own ability to manage and plan time and journeys will be called into question and if it still persists then it will come down on the driver legally.
If you get caught and found guilty of breaking your hours its prison, no messing about. How long for depends on how serious the breach is and what the rest of your records look like, to paint a picture of compliance, so to speak.

Most of the guys I know will not even push close to the limits but on the days where you get caught out and have no choice, its adrenalin pumping to say the least.

Reverse parking isn't easy but imagine literally only having 60 seconds left to get into the last available space in a truck stop, without clipping anyone else's mirrors and getting spot on first time.

It happens but we pray, not too often !