In a bus but i'm sure it's relevant!

Driving one of the oldest (S reg) buses in the fleet, of a type which we have around 100 in various sizes of every year up to 2003. Not long after i've started there and I took a wrong turning at 5am, ending up down a cul-de-sac, no room to turn a 10.9m bus around so my only option is to reverse out. Easy enough, right?

Press the brake pedal, engage reverse... nothing? Isolate, start it back up and nothing again! Damn! I radio control and explain my predicament and that I can absolutely not get reverse gear.. they're quite understanding and they rouse the (probably sleeping) mobile fitter to come out to me.

Completely unknown to me only 5 of the 100 or so buses have a reverse interlock, meaning you have to press 'R' and an unmarked button elsewhere in the cab to get it to go backwards. Mr Fitter was NOT amused, OOPS!

Similar thing happened to me a few weeks ago. I was a passenger on a busy South London bus route and thought it rather strange when the bus went past its usual left turn onto a side road. A few yards down the road the driver realised his mistake, pulled the bus up alongside the kerb, expertly reversed it into Halfords car park and retraced his steps. Credit to him, he admitted his mistake over the PA system and explained that it wasn't his usual route.

Mine would have to be delivering to a large building site..

I arrived, delivered, spoke to the friendly Irish storeman/banksman guy for a bit and left.I picked up my next ticket, punched the address in to the satnav, was rather pleased that it was only a few miles away and off I went...

Got to the next site five or ten minutes later, pulled in, parked up, walked off to find someone and bumped into the same Irish storeman/banksman!!
I asked him how the f### he got there so quickly and he absolutely pi$$ed himself laughing.When he was able to talk, he told me I had driven a few miles (in an area I didn't know to be fair) to simply enter via a different gate which was listed on my ticket as a different address.

It was at this point that I started to recognise the area I had been parked in a short time ago and the products I had delivered.And that the site offices, barriers, parked cars and surrounding houses all looked very familiar indeed..

I died.

Back in the late 80's I served an apprenticeship with Leyland/DAF at Heathrow Truck center in Colnbrook. While working at LeyladDAF Thames Water ordered 40 odd 8 legger high sided DAF tippers for moving slurry between various sites in the Thames Valley.

During my apprenticeship I was buddied up with 'Keith', a 6ft 4 ex army mechanic who was also the firms nominated test driver, which great for a 16 year old as I got to go out on all of the test drives.

As part of the PDI inspections all of the tippers needed a road test, and a brake test (we used to use Preist Hill in Windsor for the brake tests). On one of the tipper road tests Keith had a sudden attack of Delhi belly and had the urgent need to evacuate his bowles, trouble was we were just outside Windsor and seemingly miles from public toilets - not such an issue when you have a high sided tipper! We stopped in a layby between Datchet and Old Windsor and Keith clambered up the side of the tipper to take care of his cramping colon.

2 mins after dropping his overalls and squatting in the corner of the tipper body, a double decker bus full of school kids pulled into the layby next to us - to this day I can hear the screams of disgust from the girls and uncontrollable laughter of the school boys! All credit to Keith though, he finished his business before clambering back into the cab and saying 'Well, that was embarrassing eh boy??'......

Still makes me smile when I think about it now.

The urban trailer thread made me look back in my folder for this, not much weight on the back of an empty urban to counterbalance a heavy front. Theres a trick to it that the new boy didnt know about

Just got to try and not bump into empty trailers, they echo across the yard

Today - my usual unit wasn't in the yard so I was given a Scania. Never driven one before, an Auto with a clutch?

After a mainly motorway trip to Banbury I arrive at 3663 DC and take my turn in line. It can be a bit tight at times backing on to the bays, plus there's alway a good few want to get past you to other parts of the DC.

My time comes and I pull from the queue to the bay I want, stop just before and open the fridge doors. Jump back in and drive into position ready to reverse. Only I forgot to put my foot on the clutch when I stopped, before putting it in reverse. Not being used to said Scania I'm now fumbling with the gear change knob and trying to workout what the fk Im doing - might as well had been a rubiks cube at the time.

I eventually got on the bay and out of everyones way

I can confirm this

Yes, the clutch is used for stopping, starting and reversing, it's a terrific set up once you get accustomed to it