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What started out as a schoolboy hobby has turned into a full-time business for John Martin.
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From an early age John Martin,the owner of website lorryspotting.com,waS interested in trucks. The playground of his primary school in Plymouth backed onto a transport yard run by a lirm called Broads Transport. "They had a Volvo fleet — this was at the time of the F88 and then the FIO came out, which was a really good looking truck," Martin reminisces. "They were all painted red. blue and white. I used to spend playtimes watching the lorries come and go. Broads Transport... they had lovely vehicles..."
As he grew, his interest in trucks stayed with him. Even when he was at Manchester University studying for a BSc and then an MSc in biochemistry he carried on watching the roads."! used to spend weekends on a bridge over the M6 watching trucks. All my friends were from the North and tended to go home at the weekends so I was Billy No Mates — I used to go out and watch lorries instead."
But apart from a short-lived ambition to drive a truck for a living, Martin was not interested in a job in the transport industry.
Science beckoned and after university he joined a large French pharmaceutical company where he stayed for 10 years. He later branched out on his own to start a medical supply company — John Martin Medical — which sold everything from pacemakers to surgical instruments. But all that time he was still mad about trucks.
Dotcom business
As with so many hobbies it was the advent of the internet that changed his interest from a solitary pursuit to a shared one and turned Martin into a doicom businessman. The iirst hints of truckspotting sites, indeed the first incarnation of what eventually became lorryspotting. appeared online as early as 1997, but at that stage the intcrnet was still the preserve of the rich or techno-savvy.
"There were a couple of intern et sites mainly centred around the Eddie Stobart phenomenon," says Martin. Spotters would collect information on Stobart vehicles. input the data into a spreadsheet and post this on the intemet. The retirement of the original site's owner gave Martin his chance. "The bloke running it. Doug Chinnery.put a post on the site saying that he'd had enough and asked whether anyone else wanted to run it," says Martin.
"I said yes and went about building my own site.To say it was Heath Robinson would be an understatement.but it was inforrnative,that was the important thing, and we did that for a year. Then in 1999 my wife gave me an ultimatum: she told me it was taking up too much of my time and I had to decide whether to ditch it or to run it as a proper business."
There was only one answer, but the first hurdle was convincing the bank it was a viable business proposition."I put together a business plan and took it to the bank and they absolutely roared with laughter.They basically told me I'd cot a perfectly good business selling medical supplies and asked why on earth I'd want to start the website. I just told them !thought there was mileage in it."
With the eventual backing of the hank and web design in place from Newton Abbot firm Webselect. lorrvspotting.com launched on 19 March,1999, with just four fleets listed Eddie Stobartiames Irlam,Welsh firm John Raymond Transport and local haulier Langdons.The first two were obvious choices:"Whe never you saw one, you saw the other,"says Martin. Langdons was included as it was a fleet relatively local to Martin's Devon home and John Raymond because it provided its fleet details.
Tidy outfits
From those initial four the numbers have mushroomed the latest addition is Northern Irish haulier D Curran & Sons. making a grand total of 264. "To be honest I turn away more hauliers than I put on Our broad criteria are that is has to be a tidy outfit -well kept and well maintained vehicles,adds Martin.
Although a fleet might initially fail, that can change. "Five years ago Devon haulier Evans Transport would not have met our criteria to be on the site. but now it is the most popular haulier on there."
It's not enough that a company runs shiny vehicles: it has to want to be on the site. "They have got to offer their co-operation. It's all well and good to put a haulier on [the site] but you need to have information coming from the company about what they've put on the road and what's come off at the other end. Some are better than others, hut sometimes it can be like pulling teeth."
Martin's team of volunteers-Will Lewis. Colin Wilson. Brian Sean. Dave Baxter. Barry Davis and Grant Nairn help keep the site running smoothly. Maintenance is crucial. There are 24,000 photos on the site with 50-60 added each day and membership is well into four figures. Each day there are around 17,000 unique visitors, As we chat, Martin's Blackberry PDA announces an incoming e-mail. It's a lorryspotting member sending in 27 new photos. -As soon as you put a new haulier on the site you'll get a real influx of pictures I'll probably receive around 120 today," he says As well as pictures. lorryspotting members can access the fleet lists of the hauliers on the site and tick off their spots as they go. Martin attempts to explain its appeal."It's a very British thing give someone a list of something and they will try and see every thing on it. There's very, very keen competition to be top of the league I've known people drive from one end of the country to the other just to get one spot.
"I do hear some ridiculous things from time to time people even use their children to get into depots. They say 'My little lad likes lorries can we have a look round'?' and the security guard won't upset a little lad, will he?"
Inevitably the most-spotted haulier is still Eddie Stobart, but sometimes this innocuous start leads to something harder. "When they initially join a lot of people say they only spot Eddie Stobart but 12 months down the line t he ■ 're spotting every fleet [on the site]."
Message service
Despite its ubiquity Stobart is also a very hard fleet to finish, says Martin, because one truck is permanently based in Germany and only returns to the UK once a year for its annual test. However, lorryspotting members have used technology to find it."We usually get wind of when it's back and we run a text message service to alert members," says Martin.
He still spots avidly and is a keen truck photographer. He also makes full use of the latest technology. His two digital cameras are remotely linked to a laptop PC that allows him to edit photos and post them on the website within minutes of taking them. even from his favourite vantage point on a pedestrian footbridge over the M5 in Devon. The whole site is slick and businesslike despite the fact that for Martin it's obviously a labour of love. He still enthuses about his favourite fleets Bale Group, car transport firm ECM and one North Devon haulier. M Way.
However there are downsides to truck spotting not everyone recognises it as a harmless hobby. "We've had two or three point blank refusals Cold Move even described us as'a bunch of anally retentive idiots'.
"Mind you Dave Young I former editor] at Truck & Driver called us that and four years later "Ruck & Driver is advertising on my site."
If further proof were needed this is not necessarily the preserve of men in beige coats and thick glasses, Martin lists his other passion in life as surfing. •