Brandane
Legendary Member
- Location
- Costa Clyde
It has been over 2 years since I actually drove an articulated lorry, having previously driven them on a full time basis for about 6 years. I took redundancy and since then have been employed in other ways. As of September 9th, all drivers who want to earn money from it must possess a Certificate of Professional Competency (CPC for short; and don't start me on the rights and wrongs of that particular piece of money raising bureaucracy, that's a whole new thread).
I am not convinced that I want to invest £350 on sitting a course for a certificate which I may or may not find a use for in the future, so I decided to have a last blast at driving a lorry and see if I still enjoyed it. So I contacted an agency that I have done work for in the past and they assured me that they have plenty of work if I want it. Ha ha; we have heard this before! But as I am not fully relying on this for a wage I decided to give it a go. Last week I spent 3 days driving a gully cleaning rigid truck; a dirty filthy job and a truck which had very much seen better days. It was a labourers job, not a drivers job. So I told the agency not to send me back to that particular company and asked them to find me an artic to play with.
Today they found me this (not me in the photo but it was this company and same lorry):
It was a 07:30 start, quite civilised in trucking terms as it can often be much earlier. To be honest, I was slightly nervous about getting behind the wheel again, especially when I found out it was a spotless 2014 model! Sometimes it is better to have a lorry which has seen a bit of action, as the owners are not so fussy if you scrape a loading bay or a misplaced pallet at the side of the cab.
Anyway, I put my tachograph card in the unit and set about doing my checks. The unit and trailer were already hooked up together so no need to start off with that faffing. Next, get the driving position sorted and those mirrors adjusted to erradicate the blind spots (which they DO, once properly adjusted @MontyVeda
).
Time for the off then, as I gingerly made the tight turn out of the gates of the depot, with an audience which included a couple of drivers I know from the past when our paths used to cross at Aberdeen airport. They were quite amused to find that I hadn't driven for 2 years and were ready to pounce on any mistakes. Luckily there were none as I left the yard.
My route was a pleasant one today, from a depot near the Braehead shopping centre in Glasgow down to Galashiels in the Borders via the M8, A720 (Edinburgh bypass) and A7 to Galashiels. The M8 was its usual nose to tail self, then stop/start until you clear the Kingston Bridge bottleneck (on the return I avoided that by taking the new M74 across the south side of Glasgow). The run was clear along the rest of the M8 until .... a major hold up at Livingston junction 3, all the way to the Edinburgh by-pass. Rather than sit in that, I got brave and headed off to the A71 which runs parallel to the motorway and also joins the Edinburgh bypass.
Down the A7 was a bit stop/start with all the works going on for a new railway line from Edinburgh into the borders, and then Galashiels itself was a nightmare with all sorts of works and diversions going on.
TomTom helped me to find my destination, a packaging company right beside Gala RFC home ground. I had a full trailer for this one drop, about 16 tons of packaging materials. The signs directed me to "goods in" at the back of the plant, in a tight little yard which had a skip sitting right in the place I wanted to be to get reversed onto the loading bay!
So my first reverse in 2 years was going to be a little bit challenging, involving a bit of "jack-knifing" of the trailer (getting the angle of the tractor and trailer past the right angle) to get it onto the bay. Well for once I got lucky and got the trailer onto the bay without too much trouble
. The storeman said it would take about half an hour to unload, so I asked if there was anywhere nearby to get lunch. He sent me to the Borders College across the road, which has a very nice canteen open to the public. A soup and sandwich was had for lunch, then I wandered back to the lorry. By that time my regulation 45 minute rest break on the tachograph had been recorded and I was ready to move off the bay and head back to Glasgow.
I found my way back through the diversions in Galashiels and onto the A7.. Not far north, I came across 2 cycle tourists. Very brave of them I thought, cycling on the A7, a narrow trunk road. Each to their own, but it wouldn't be me. I waited behind them until it was safe to get past them both at once as there was a gap of about 40' between them.. Moving onto the opposite lane (of course!) to give them plenty of space, I got past them and headed back to base. The return journey was much quicker as there were no more hold-ups on the motorway.
Getting back to the depot about 3pm meant I was a bit early to be finishing (trucker hours are long, which is one reason why I don't have any intention of doing it full time) so I did a quick run down to Prestwick Airport and back to pick up a full trailer of freight for the night shift driver to take down to London Heathrow tonight. The collection at Prestwick involved another couple of tricky reverses; both of which went better than I was expecting. I didn't embarass myself anyway!
Sooooooo.... this little experiment looks like costing me £350 for my CPC as I really quite enjoyed myself today and I would like to think that I could make use of my hard earned HGV licence, even if just occasionally, in the future. Sorry for my non cycling related ramblings, but if you have read this far then you might just be one of the fellow truckers on here
.
I am not convinced that I want to invest £350 on sitting a course for a certificate which I may or may not find a use for in the future, so I decided to have a last blast at driving a lorry and see if I still enjoyed it. So I contacted an agency that I have done work for in the past and they assured me that they have plenty of work if I want it. Ha ha; we have heard this before! But as I am not fully relying on this for a wage I decided to give it a go. Last week I spent 3 days driving a gully cleaning rigid truck; a dirty filthy job and a truck which had very much seen better days. It was a labourers job, not a drivers job. So I told the agency not to send me back to that particular company and asked them to find me an artic to play with.
Today they found me this (not me in the photo but it was this company and same lorry):
It was a 07:30 start, quite civilised in trucking terms as it can often be much earlier. To be honest, I was slightly nervous about getting behind the wheel again, especially when I found out it was a spotless 2014 model! Sometimes it is better to have a lorry which has seen a bit of action, as the owners are not so fussy if you scrape a loading bay or a misplaced pallet at the side of the cab.
Anyway, I put my tachograph card in the unit and set about doing my checks. The unit and trailer were already hooked up together so no need to start off with that faffing. Next, get the driving position sorted and those mirrors adjusted to erradicate the blind spots (which they DO, once properly adjusted @MontyVeda
).Time for the off then, as I gingerly made the tight turn out of the gates of the depot, with an audience which included a couple of drivers I know from the past when our paths used to cross at Aberdeen airport. They were quite amused to find that I hadn't driven for 2 years and were ready to pounce on any mistakes. Luckily there were none as I left the yard.
My route was a pleasant one today, from a depot near the Braehead shopping centre in Glasgow down to Galashiels in the Borders via the M8, A720 (Edinburgh bypass) and A7 to Galashiels. The M8 was its usual nose to tail self, then stop/start until you clear the Kingston Bridge bottleneck (on the return I avoided that by taking the new M74 across the south side of Glasgow). The run was clear along the rest of the M8 until .... a major hold up at Livingston junction 3, all the way to the Edinburgh by-pass. Rather than sit in that, I got brave and headed off to the A71 which runs parallel to the motorway and also joins the Edinburgh bypass.
Down the A7 was a bit stop/start with all the works going on for a new railway line from Edinburgh into the borders, and then Galashiels itself was a nightmare with all sorts of works and diversions going on.
TomTom helped me to find my destination, a packaging company right beside Gala RFC home ground. I had a full trailer for this one drop, about 16 tons of packaging materials. The signs directed me to "goods in" at the back of the plant, in a tight little yard which had a skip sitting right in the place I wanted to be to get reversed onto the loading bay!
So my first reverse in 2 years was going to be a little bit challenging, involving a bit of "jack-knifing" of the trailer (getting the angle of the tractor and trailer past the right angle) to get it onto the bay. Well for once I got lucky and got the trailer onto the bay without too much trouble
. The storeman said it would take about half an hour to unload, so I asked if there was anywhere nearby to get lunch. He sent me to the Borders College across the road, which has a very nice canteen open to the public. A soup and sandwich was had for lunch, then I wandered back to the lorry. By that time my regulation 45 minute rest break on the tachograph had been recorded and I was ready to move off the bay and head back to Glasgow. I found my way back through the diversions in Galashiels and onto the A7.. Not far north, I came across 2 cycle tourists. Very brave of them I thought, cycling on the A7, a narrow trunk road. Each to their own, but it wouldn't be me. I waited behind them until it was safe to get past them both at once as there was a gap of about 40' between them.. Moving onto the opposite lane (of course!) to give them plenty of space, I got past them and headed back to base. The return journey was much quicker as there were no more hold-ups on the motorway.
Getting back to the depot about 3pm meant I was a bit early to be finishing (trucker hours are long, which is one reason why I don't have any intention of doing it full time) so I did a quick run down to Prestwick Airport and back to pick up a full trailer of freight for the night shift driver to take down to London Heathrow tonight. The collection at Prestwick involved another couple of tricky reverses; both of which went better than I was expecting. I didn't embarass myself anyway!
Sooooooo.... this little experiment looks like costing me £350 for my CPC as I really quite enjoyed myself today and I would like to think that I could make use of my hard earned HGV licence, even if just occasionally, in the future. Sorry for my non cycling related ramblings, but if you have read this far then you might just be one of the fellow truckers on here
.
