A bit of a comedown

[Cock Womble 7]

Today, John and I have been mostly driving this:



Two Class 1 drivers driving the sttiest little 7.5 tonner in the world. Seats designed by the Marquis de Sade, a stupid dog-leg gearbox with first gear down instead of up, no cruise control, wobblier than a very wobbly thing and bouncier than a bouncy castle. Oh, and limited to 52mph.

One kitchen to Dereham, Norfolk and another to Kings Lynn on the way back.

That's right kids, manual labour. I'm sure there's something in the Class 1 Constitution that forbids actual manual labour...

[Getragdogleg]

" no cruise control"

it's a hard life.

[Cock Womble 7]

Who's going to be the first to shout "FRONT FOG LIGHT wkER"?

[Getragdogleg]

Oh, was there a pic of the van there ? I didn't see it it's so small.

[Cock Womble 7]

To be fair, it was ideally suited to the job. I believe the deliveries had been "failed" before, because they couldn't get a 15 tonner anywhere near the addresses.

That little thing got right up to the front door.

[iva cosworth]

On a similar theme,the 2 drivers at my place who drive the 18T and 26T trucks claim to not

like taking out the 7.5 or 12T .

The 18T driver who is as ignorant as you can possibly get claims the small trucks are

"too much like a car and i don't feel safe in them".

He had 2 accidents in 1 day last week in his 18T .

Nuff said.

[Group N]

Sounds like a perfect job to me - 2 drops a day with a navigator / laborour

[Cock Womble 7]

Group N said:

Sounds like a perfect job to me - 2 drops a day with a navigator/labourer

Navigator? No, my Sat Nag did that, John slept most of the way there - even brought a pillow with him.

(He did pull his weight on the deliveries though.)

[Digby]

I'm in a 3.5 ton curtain sided Fiat tomorrow! It does drive nice etc being brand new, but I took it out a few weeks ago when my truck was off the road and found that even with a reversing cam, I was looking in the mirrors and thinking "Have to be close to that shutter door now..." and on exiting the vehicle, was still ten feet or so away.

[yorkieboy]

I drove a 7.5t from Bath to Stranraer last thursday with no cc! Wasn't to bad

[K50 DEL]

yorkieboy said:

I drove a 7.5t from Bath to Stranraer last thursday with no cc! Wasn't to bad

I did a couple of hundred thousand clicks in various 75e15 Iveco trucks..... not one of them had cruise, mind you, they weren't limited to 52mph either lol

Driving that truck all over the UK is still the favourite job I've ever had.

[yorkieboy]

K50 DEL said:

I did a couple of hundred thousand clicks in various 75e15 Iveco trucks..... not one of them had cruise, mind you, they weren't limited to 52mph either lol

Driving that truck all over the UK is still the favourite job I've ever had.

Mine was limited! Was only a 1 off trip. Went onto Belfast then flew back to Bristol. 9.5 hours there and took 50 minutes to fly back

[K50 DEL]

yorkieboy said:

K50 DEL said:

I did a couple of hundred thousand clicks in various 75e15 Iveco trucks..... not one of them had cruise, mind you, they weren't limited to 52mph either lol

Driving that truck all over the UK is still the favourite job I've ever had.

Mine was limited! Was only a 1 off trip. Went onto Belfast then flew back to Bristol. 9.5 hours there and took 50 minutes to fly back

I used to do Devizes to Glasgow outskirts once a week on average..... my finest hour was when my boss made a bet with me at 9.30am that I couldn't make it back to our local for last orders.

It's 386 miles each way, making a total distance of 1240km and I walked back into the pub at 10.45pm

I stopped for fuel only and my foot was welded to the floor all the way there and all the way back, I even called the drop and told them what was going on and they cleared a bay ready for me, I was unloaded in record time and back on my way..... as I said, no limiter and in my younger, stupider days the tacho was something other people worried about!

It actually makes me cringe now, but it was fun at the time, the look on the boss's face when I walked in the door was worth it.... mind you, he wasn't too impressed with the fuel bill for the day!

[yorkieboy]

I love story's like that! Pity doing trips like that are getting less common

[K50 DEL]

yorkieboy said:

I love story's like that! Pity doing trips like that are getting less common

I have dozens of them... as I said before, those 18 months of my life remain the happiest I've ever been, I loved that job and its freedoms...
I still have the diary that I filled in every day with the runs I did, I really should dig it out!

The only downsides were that it was damn cold sleeping in the cab in winter and I never got to go into Europe