Have you ever thought that disasters only happen to you,
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or do you keep meeting people who can top your stories? CM brings you some of the sorriest yarns it has heard this year... Tie day has begun promisingly...the sun's just rising over the horizon as you nose your rig out of the yard and head for the motorway. You slide a favourite cassette into the music machine, Soon the cab's rocking gently in X-bass Dolby stereo to some soulful wailing by WayIon Jennings or a little Patsy Cline. You're looking forward to a high cholesterol all-day breakfast at that real transport cafe that's escaped the march of corporate mock-pine. Your everloving has filled your flask with something thick, homemade and hot; you're running bang on schedule and the wagon's on song...
But somewhere back there you entered a twilight zone where the rules no longer apply. The road you're on is about as firm as a sherry trifle .For better or worse you're running on the Highway to Hell. Come with us now as brave souls who have been there, and returned to the living purgatory that is the UK haulage business, recount their humiliating brushes with The Road That Dare Not Speak its Name...
• The Volks back home
Jonathan Lawton, transport lawyer, is the source of these sorry but true tales.
A car transporter driver heading along the motorway let slip his trailer containing a batch of new Volkswagens. When he noticed, the panic-stricken fellow called at a police station, telling the super sleuth behind the counter that he had "lost" a trailer load of Volkswagens. In all seriousness, the copper replied: "Were they Corgis or Dinkys, Sir?" The load was later found on the motorway hard shoulder.
The chairman of a bench of magistrates listened to Lawton patiently explaining that a client accused of overloading could not be guilty because he had been misled by those who loaded the vehicle. "Why are you telling me all this?" asked the learned beak, "I am only interested in the damage to the road surface."
• Copper cladding
Mick Binns, general secretary, National Owner Drivers' Association Binns used to earn a living delivering ready-mixed concrete. One day, he was driving up a hill with a load of wet cement only to find the traffic lights at the top were temporarily out of order and a single copper was directing traffic flow. When Binns attempted to turn right, his load of cement discharged itself smothering the young bobby up to his waist. Binns did the only sensible thing and drove on, observing the PC's expression of sheer disbelief in his wing mirror. He never heard from the police.
• Horses for courses
Rob McHugh, director, Owner-Operators UK.
McHugh used to haul racehorses for a living, but it's not surprising he no longer saddles himself with such work.
The job that put him off the gee-gees involved picking up a couple of yearlings from a farm in Shropshire for shipment
overseas. McHugh knew the site would not take an artic, so he arranged to collect the animals from another farm. Then the ferry company cancelled that night's sailing. The horses' owner assured McHugh that it was possible to take the yearlings back to the original farm by another route. On the brow of a 1-in-5 hill McHugh's attic became impossibly stuck. The owner walked his horses home; McHugh walked himself to the nearest pub. When he returned to the vehicle, the local police awaited his explanation. Satisfied that he couldn't move till morning, they left him to spend the night in his cab, stuck on the narrowest of bends.
• Breaking down is hard to do
Mark Guterres, director, showbusiness haulier Transom Guterres joined his crew on an overnight run from Grenoble to Paris on a job which was being filmed by the BBC. One of the artics broke down in Paris and Guterres volunteered to drive it back to England. Close to Calais the vehicle failed again, but while waiting in the service area, Guterres remembered that his car, driven by one of his drivers, would be passing by on its return to England. Sure enough, Guterres soon saw it driving towards him. He stood in the road waving. Naturally the faithful employee sailed straight past. The fuming Guterres was stranded for a further 24 hours. And what happened to the heedless driver? He is now Transam's logistics manager.
• Machine madness
Ilona Richards, Lady Truckers' Club Richards was driving a trailer loaded with factory machines out of a yard. She had it secured with chains, straps, the lot. Nonetheless, as she looked in her mirror she saw to her horror that the load was going, going, gone. Unknown to Richards, the machines were top heavy with oil. A crowd gathered from neighbouring factories; the road was closed for three hours while firemen mopped the spillage, and the police arrived. Richards was tempted to pull the Lady Trucker sun visor from her windscreen, fearing jibes about women drivers. Fortunately, the police accepted she was blameless.
• All the young nudes (1)
Del Roll, director, rock tour specialist, Edwin Shirley Trucking A double-manned Edwin Shirley artic was heading down to Rome through Germany on the recent Michael Jackson mega-tour. The driver suspected a flat and pulled over. As he walked to the vehicle's rear, his mate woke up and climbed out of the cab to answer nature's call. Inevitably the driver, finding nothing wrong, climbed back into the cab and drove off unaware of his sleeping partner's absence. Result: one furious relief driver, duly relieved, standing by the side of a busy autobahn in broad daylight, clad only in his undies. Fortunately, another Edwin Shirley vehicle was not far behind.
• All the young nudes (2)
Adrian Chafer, AA-BRS Fleet Rescue For a company that specialises in relief work this story is rather fitting. AA-BRS received a freefone call from a panicking driver who explained that he had locked himself out of his vehicle in a supermarket carpark and that his call was urgent because the store was due to open soon_ When the fitter arrived he found the embarrassed driver, who had left his cab to spend a penny, hiding in a rear door of the supermarket wearing only a cardboard box. You never know, it could become fashionable,