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Bob Triggs suffered the lorry drivers' worst nightmare when he lost his HGV licence through ill health. He now runs his business with the help of an employed driver.
• The lorry drivers' worst nightmare came horribly true for Bob Triggs when he lost his HGV licence just over 10 years ago.
In June 1979 he was an owner-driver running a tipper in London and business was bubbling when illness struck.
Periods of blurred vision coupled with severe shoulder pains and finally an insatiable thirst pointed to diabetes. Triggs had no idea what the symptoms meant and when a blood test at Hillingdon Hospital confirmed the worst he was devastated.
"1 didn't even know what diabetes was. It sounded bad and I asked the doctor 'Flow-long have I got?' He told me that with insulin injections and the right diet, I could virtually lead a normal life," says Triggs.
NO CHOICE
Relief was tempered by growing worries about his livelihood. The doctors knew Triggs was a haulier and gave him a government booklet to read which strongly advised anyone with diabetes not to drive an HGV.
"1 felt I had no choice but to go by the hook and do what they said. I thought if I have an attack while I'm at the wheel and kill somebody I'll never forgive myself. But it was hard to accept. I'd been driving trucks for over 10 years when the diabetes was diagnosed and I'd never had any problem," he says.
"I decided that my living had been unfairly taken away from me. I was divorced and had custody of my two children, and I had a big mortgage. My savings were pretty big but they weren't going to last for ever. Most important, all I knew was trucks and I couldn't think how else to make a living."
Triggs gritted his teeth and took the Department of Transport to court. But it was a doomed fight. The case was heard at Uxbridge magistrates in 1980 and set Triggs back £1,600 in costs and nearly a lifetime in haulage.
MARS BAR
'The magistrates asked me if I was too ill to work. I pulled a Mars Bar out of one pocket and a packet of sandwiches out of the other.
"The doctors had told me that as long as I stuck rigidly to the injections and kept Triggs: "1 could not believe the law allowed me to drive a Ferrari at 270kmIh (170mph) but banned me from driving a lorry at 80kmih (50mph) . . .11 should be one or the other, not just singling out lorry drivers." up my blood-sugar level with regular snacks, I should have no problem," Triggs recalls. "But EC law stated that although you can drive trucks if you are being treated by diet alone or by tablets, you cannot if you have insulin injections.
'The court stuck to the letter of the law and ruled against me. I couldn't believe the law allowed me to drive something like a Ferrari at 270km/h (170mph) but banned me from driving a lorry at 80krrilh (50mph) with enforced rests under drivers' hours regulations.
"What I am saying is that it should be one or the other, not just singling out lorry drivers. It's astupid law."
Triggs sold his business to keep up his mortgage repayments and support his children. He was encouraged to take some kind of vocational training course which paid £40 a week — an offer that still rankles.
"They wanted me to take up carpentry when all I knew was lorries. It was ridiculous." Instead, he tried to break out of the diabetes trap by buying a pub in Bath. It didn't work out and a couple of years later Triggs tried once more to get back into the business he knew best.
A £10,000 loan arranged by a friendly Barclays Bank manager at Alperton, West London got him back on the road, if only by proxy. If he couldn't drive himself, Triggs would set up a new company and employ someone to drive for him.
RE Triggs (Haulage) specialises in site clearances and demolition work, using a
new lveco Ford grab loader bought last December.
Triggs has moved back to his home patch and now works out of Cowley near Uxbridge. The grabber is kept busy, often taking three different loads a day.
Being based near Heathrow Airport has been a boon, says Triggs. The British Airports Authority has provided him with a steady stream of work. Contracts are won by reputation and through small display advertisements placed in the Yellow Pages (at a cost of £1,500 a year) under the name All Waste Disposal.
'The fact that he is barred from driving a truck is both a handicap and an unexpected advantage. "If I had my licence I would buy another lorry tomorrow and so the business could grow fast. But I suppose that being stuck in the office does give me time to organise our work better and ring round for new work.
"I make contact with small builders, paving firms and for a while now I've been working for Indian businessmen in Southall. If I'd been on the road, that would have been difficult," Triggs admits.
SOB STORY
his is not a sob story, he insists. "All along, my attitude has been 'I won't let them beat me'. Before the diabetes thing happened, I was doing so well I thought I'd be able to retire by the time I was 50.
"Well, I'm 48 now and I'm nowhere near that. I reckon the loss of my licence has put me back at least five years," says Triggs. "The point is that I'm over it now. I'm happily remarried and I've made a new start. But it has been a hard struggle. I can still remember sitting at home in despair seven days a week. 24 hours a day, when they took my licence away.
"I know there are hundreds of lorry drivers out there who are in the same position as I was. Rather than go by the book like I did and have their licences snatched away, they try to keep it quiet SO they can keep on the road. If the law was more flexible. I think many of them would come forward." says Triggs.
HUMAN RIGHTS
"It would be fantastic if they could get together and take this issue to the European Court of Human Rights in Brussels. I'm still bitter about the law that took away my licence. It should be changed, and the only way it is going to be changed is by drivers banding together and fighting. On your own, you will lose."
by Paul Fisher