My Truck Driving Background & Experience

Part–Four of Four

Ever since I was a boy, playing with my Dinky Foden 8–wheeler or articulated car transporter, long before Dinky meant, Double Income No Kids Yet, I wanted to drive one for real. I even used to turn the garden wheelbarrow over on its side so I could sit on an old box and use the wheel as if it were the steering wheel of a large truck. I drove many happy miles in my grandmothers back garden in that way!

Later in life, and much to my ex–wife’s consternation, I eventually achieved my ambition by doing a complete HGV Class–1 course during three weeks of my annual holiday. At the time I was working in the computer industry, designing turnkey systems. She mightn’t have been that happy about it, but I was ecstatic.

It was a wonderful experience, and to me, a great holiday! The investment is still with me all this time later and still giving great pleasure whilst helping to pay the bills. A double whammy, in effect.

It was’t ice road trucking for me, but loads of sand

Have you seen the TV programme, Ice Road Truckers? It consists of fascinating tales of the guys who drive the big rigs over the frozen lakes and sea of North West Canada each year, taking supplies to the diamond mines and oil installations.

Thirty years ago I was doing something similar, but on sand and rock instead of ice. I used to deliver trucks to the Middle East by driving them overland, and with a loaded trailer as a bonus. I would cross the Jordanian Desert from a place where the tarmac stopped, on a route simply called H4, near Amman, and head across a somewhat dangerous and hostile environment to an oasis on the Saudi border. If you’ve wondered where you can find the middle of nowhere, that’s where it is.

Having coped with soft sands, rock outcrops and dried up river beds called Wadis I would eventually rejoin the tarmac a day or so later. After that it was only 1,000 miles to go to the Persian Gulf along the Pipeline Road. This was dead straight, except for 3–bends that occurred just over half–way along and where the road went around an oil head. Guess where the collisions would occur?

I followed this period of my life with a fantastic stint of off–road mountain driving for a Dutch company, Damco Van Swieten of Rotterdam. Running over the Assir Mountains of the Red Sea coast on goat tracks, and the like, to a then secret airbase. Often my outside tyres of the trailer would be out in space with drops from a mere half–mile up to 2–miles down to the desert floor below. It was the most exciting driving I’ve ever done and the most dangerous outside of the M25!

Also, and during the process of my divorce (yes I had one of those too) I quit my proper job whilst the house was being sold, and went off trucking around Europe for a while. Brilliant! Basically I was paid to see all of the Continent, bar Luxembourg, which was either closed or not on route.

I have been truck driving behind the iron curtain

Back then I was privileged to go behind the Iron Curtain. Whatever we may have felt about the Communist Regime, most regular folk were really friendly and helpful, and it was only the Authorities who spoilt it. Mind you, is that anything different for us on our roads over here?

Truck driving on the motorways and highways of the UK

As you can see, I have driven in many different environments in various parts fo the world, all of which have demanded certain skills in order to survive. You would think that driving on British motorways would be a holiday by comparison, but it isn’t. In some ways, back then in the desert hills, I was actually safer.

It isn’t the type of road that is a threat, it is the others you share it with. Statistically, whilst our motorways are the fastest and busiest of our fast flow systems, they are upheld as being the safest. However, the general standard of driving you see there is actually very poor, Regrettably, 99.9% of drivers, through no fault of their own, who use these arterial routes are inadequately trained to do so.

Poor training leads to all sorts of problems

For the most, anyone can get away with poor driving on these roads, but that is just so long as nothing disturbs the status quo. Get an object in the carriageway, a broken down vehicle or some other event that will cause someone somewhere to wake up and do something sudden and that’s when it all falls apart.

A slight disruption to traffic flow has vehicles running into each other all over the shop. That starts a domino effect, because one shunt causes further disruption and that triggers more – causing further disruption and mayhem.

I don’t take the normal, perhaps stereotypical stance on driving that most do, i.e. one of finding someone to blame. The driver system in the UK has just evolved, inappropriately for sure and very slowly from the days of few decent roads, and even fewer cars.

From poor trainers you will only ever get poor training

In the big picture of driving, most who would look after our driving interests and training are largely untrained themselves, because you have to remember that ADI’s (L–plate instructors) are only trained down to baby–driver level. That is their demographic and there is no incentive for them to do more.

Most ADI’s were only test pass drivers before embarking on a driving instructor career path, which is solely about teaching folk how to pass the dreaded Test. One of life’s great Rites of Passage. I’ve yet to drive with an ADI, who has not been trained to normal Ride Drive levels, who can really drive well.

Consequently, those who rise to head the authoritive driving organisations have no real underpinning in terms of knowledge or appreciation of real driving practice on real roads, in today’s cars and at today’s speeds and congestion. Somehow, those words of the blind leading the blind come to mind.

Taking on greater levels of training, just like we would in every other learning experience, perhaps at work, in a profession, a sport, hobby or pastime, should come natuarally, but it doesn’t. Until someone with the authority says that enough is enough and then brings about positive change, nothing will get better.

Thank you for travelling with me

It has been great having you on board with me, and I have really appreciated your company. I hope you have found the experience enlightening and I have helped to give you a better understanding of what it is like to drive an articulated truck on the often congested road networks of the UK.

If you have any questions or observation you would like to make, visit the Ride Drive motoring forum, where I will answer your enquiries.

First Published February 2008

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Truck Driving Part–1, A View From The Cab
Truck Driving Part–2, Views of The Motorways
Truck Driving Part–3, More Views From The Cab
Truck Driving Part–4, John Covington, My Background

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Saturday, 29-Jan-2011

My Truck Driving Background & Experience