Late leavers...

We've all been there, I suspect. You know, the moment after a bit of distraction when you suddenly realise you are just getting to the slip road for the junction you mean to leave at?  "Mirror, Signal., Manoevre" is the correct procedure and, if you can't do so safely then you should just carry on to the next junction and either back-track or find another route.

Anyway, any trucker will tell you that far too many cars, so busy on getting past you, leave it to the last minute. Presumably they miss all the signs for the previous mile or decide they have more time to carve across your bows than they actually have?  A couple of weeks ago I saw my most extreme case however. I was heading south on M1, just past junction 24 heading almost past J23a when a sports car decided to go the for the 'last minute cutting-in'. Its a very acute angle containing first of all the white painted cross-hatching on the tarmac, then that 'grey area' where all the grit and rubbish collects, then the grassy bit before the armco crash barrier...  So the sports car manages to bounce over the grass, just missing the armco, and rejoins the lane he should have been in 200m before. Fortunately there was nothing else already in that space otherwise they would have hit each other.

Totally Without ATtention?
Or, more simply, TWAT (As John Cooper Clark might say)

Each time I post, I vow to make it a more regular thing - I fail!
Anyway, things have been quiet on the trucking front this year due to a need to get some jobs done at home. However, now I'm back so on to the latest entry:

Its about the perennial moan of all truckers - waiting to have a load tipped.
I am not given to moaning by nature - I just tend to sit and wait for the world to catch up - but it does concern me how much of people's time, effort, and therefore money, are wasted. This can only result in increased costs on products for the consumer.

So, last week, two contrasting experiences of working alongside Great Bear Distribution. I have worked many times for this company, either directly or as a sub-contractor (actually, being an agency driver, that perhaps ought to have read 'a sub-contractor or a sub-sub-contractor' - but I digress). Generally, as moderate sized companies go, they are quite a good company with little wastage of time or effort. I have however found one exception - Northampton. The five hours I spent there last week enabled me to catch up with my reading and so was moderately enjoyable. Other drivers with similar waits throughout the day were far less happy - either because it was their last drop (and one driver had to leave because of running out of time) or their schedules had been messed up for the remainder.

On a previous occasion I had a load refused because I was 3 hours later than had been expected (not my fault, I had done my drops in the requested order and at the requested times and didn't even know GB expected me 3 hours earlier. My employers on the day were none the wiser either!). I overheard a conversation that was to the effect that 'even though they were desperate for <the product> they were refusing it because a) they were too busy to take it, and b) they weren't going to let <my employers> get away with it'. Now that sort of bl**dy mindedness is fairly typical of some sectors of the transport industry. It is also a crucial flaw in wastefulness, bad environmental practice, 'just in time' deliveries, congestion and, of course, cost.

Maybe if GB at Northampton can't handle the pressure of unloading one truck every hour or so it should be shut down - or better management drafted in?

Raising speed limits

Today i found out the government plans to raise the speed limits for LGVs on single and dual carriageways to 50 and 40 mph respectively. That is good news. even though i am totally against raising limits elsewhere. This will save lives. How? Because the nearest misses i see on a regular basis are those almost caused by impatient idiots trying to overtake me when i am stuck at 40 on a road designed for higher speeds. Not everyone is just involved in near misses. Some people die in head on collisions. Not just the guilty. My only complaint with this change is that the idiots will still be out there...

Good services M6 J31a

Spar have a distribution centre just off this junction. They also have their own motorway services with spar supermarket, fast food outlets and fuels - all at standard non-motorway prices. Very handy for those of us en route to the IOM!

Long time no blog?

I've decided its time i got into this properly. 2 days running down to thurrock from nottingham. Nice to see the new crash barriers on the m25 between junc25 and 28 almost done. However the impending new ones on the m1 between junc16 and 19 seems to be causing hold ups already because the lanes are oh so narrow. It can only get worse unless things are changed. I have thought before that too much space is given to contractors at the expense of the safety of road users.

BadRoads.org.uk

I've been meaning to do this for some time. One thing I have learnt whilst out driving artics is that the people who design roads blatantly don't think enough about the larger vehicles that need to travel on them. So, if you have experience of this sort of work, head off over to www.BadRoads.org.uk and submit a report...

Snow on the Pennines

Yes, really about 2-3" when I went over the M62 yesterday evenning.
Today, going up past Sheffield, there was plenty of snow on the hills
there too!