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Further to your article headed: "Hopes of overturning punitive fines fade away (CM15-21 June), I am an owner-driver of 32 years, the past 15 years on international work. At the moment I am travelling to Trance from the North-East of England twice a week. On 20 June I had loaded in Sens, near Paris, and apart from Pages I never stopped.
Within half an hours drive from Boulogne I had to stop and take my 45-minute break and I didn't leave my truck in that time. After my break I travelled on to Boulogne and parked at 21:00hrs outside the booking-in office, in sight of the Customs office.
At 08:30hrs the next morning I booked on the 09:15hrs ferry to Folkestone. I came out of the booking office and opened the rear doors of my trailer to checked my load—a fairly simple task as I was only half-full. I drove to the parking area, locked my cab up and went to do some shopping. I returned to my truck and again checked my trailer inside and out, and this time fitted a plastic seal to the rear door of the trailer. I then drove onto the ferry. On arrival at Folkestone I checked the seal and found it OK. I drove off the ferry. One hour later on the M20 passed a car and then about five minutes later the same car passed me and indicated for me to pull over onto the hard shoulder. I was ignoring this when I noticed another vehicle behind me was also flashing its headlights and indicating for me to pull over.
As every driver will tell you, don't stop unless you see the blue light. I pulled over anyway and both car drivers told me they had seen a leg dangling underneath my trailer.
When I got down I saw a frightening sight: sitting astride the centre axle was a person. I couldn't believe it. When I got him out onto the grass verge he was white and shaky.
When the police arrived I told them it was a good job I had been stopped because there was no way this chap could have hung on for another threeand-a-half hours until I stopped for my break.
So everything was done to comply with the code of practice. I wonder if Home Secretary Jack Straw could tell me what good padlocks and security cords were in this case?! swear on my life that this guy was not on or inside my truck when I drove onto the ferry. He got onto the ferry in a solo trailer then while at sea he transferred to my vehicle.
Honestly, 99.9% of my fellow truck drivers are doing their best to avoid and protect themselves from this problem. Mr Straw visited Calais once. With respect, he has seen nothing. He is not living in the world that myself and my fellow truck drivers inhabit We see what's going on; why doesn't he get to the bottom of the problem and catch the real crooks whom we are having to run the gauntlet for? It seems very easy to get 22,000 from some unsuspecting UK driver or company for not doing ajob which is not really theirs to do.
I felt I had to say something after what has happened to me because, who knows, if the car drivers had not stopped me I might have been sitting in some police station writing out a statement against a manslaughter charge when the poor immigrant eventually fell off my trailer and out the rear of the trailer, just for the following car or truck to finish the job. I would have lost everything through no fault of my own. Ian Scott, TA Scott and Son, Northumberland.