Post by Dave on Oct 7, 2010 22:08:59 GMT
I can’t believe this last four weeks out on the road driving for my living as not a day has gone by where I have not been held up for a allsorts of reasons that have just made my working day even longer and yet more hours working for free.
In North Devon the hold ups have been caused by so many temporary traffic lights due to road patching taking place and yes those lovely tractors but the most funniest was a cow sat in the middle of the road and as hard as the farmer tried to move the bloody thing the cow was having none of it.
I have been surprised by the number of vehicle fires that I have seen recently and only last week a guy was standing in the road doing all he could to stop people driving past his blazing four by four and later when I found out it was a duel fuel one and therefore had a tank full of gas as well as petrol I know what his real concerns were. I drove past that spot today and looking as the damage to the grass where he managed to get the land rover onto, it looks like they let it just burn out completely while staying water on it from a distance.
This week has been no different and I got held up every single day again this week and as I left Newton Abbot heading for Weymouth this morning I said to myself its all going to end today and I’ll get around with no holdups and while still going over my eight hours it certainly won’t be a ten hour day again.
WRONG!!!! When I got to the roundabout near Bridport I looked over and saw one of those prebuilt very large chalets on the back of a lorry with two escort vehicles turning onto the coast road to Weymouth I was just about to drive along.
My first thoughts were I hope they were not planning to try and get beyond Abbotsbury as they would never have a cat in hells chance of getting that thing around the very tight bend at the end of the village.
I never gave the very narrow part right in the middle of Burton Bradstock a thought at all until that lorry got to that point and the driver put his lorry as far over to the right as he could. He was inches from the wall on the right-hand side and all was looking good until I noticed the left hand side where the over hanging chalet was going over the wall on the other side until the lorry went down the slope in the road and the chalet got stuck on the wall that side.
Out they all got and they knew they could not carry on driving forward but were to worried they would do more damage to the chalet by trying to reverse. 35 minutes I got stuck there and in the end was able to get to a side road on the left (we could not use it before as cars coming that way had blocked it) as we managed to get drivers to reverse back out of the way because only a few yards along that side road was a very narrow short street that came out just the otherside of where the lorry was stuck. Boy was it a tight turn getting into that tiny street and I was praying I would not end up getting the van stuck as well.
In the end I did it and was able to then carry on to Weymouth and all the other towns I had to call on, but was never able to make the time up. Better luck tomorrow I hope as its my last day for a week as I’m off next week with Carol to have some time together doing what we enjoy doing. My only hope is she will remain well next week as there are a few things not as good as we would like where her health is concerned.
In North Devon the hold ups have been caused by so many temporary traffic lights due to road patching taking place and yes those lovely tractors but the most funniest was a cow sat in the middle of the road and as hard as the farmer tried to move the bloody thing the cow was having none of it.
I have been surprised by the number of vehicle fires that I have seen recently and only last week a guy was standing in the road doing all he could to stop people driving past his blazing four by four and later when I found out it was a duel fuel one and therefore had a tank full of gas as well as petrol I know what his real concerns were. I drove past that spot today and looking as the damage to the grass where he managed to get the land rover onto, it looks like they let it just burn out completely while staying water on it from a distance.
This week has been no different and I got held up every single day again this week and as I left Newton Abbot heading for Weymouth this morning I said to myself its all going to end today and I’ll get around with no holdups and while still going over my eight hours it certainly won’t be a ten hour day again.
WRONG!!!! When I got to the roundabout near Bridport I looked over and saw one of those prebuilt very large chalets on the back of a lorry with two escort vehicles turning onto the coast road to Weymouth I was just about to drive along.
My first thoughts were I hope they were not planning to try and get beyond Abbotsbury as they would never have a cat in hells chance of getting that thing around the very tight bend at the end of the village.
I never gave the very narrow part right in the middle of Burton Bradstock a thought at all until that lorry got to that point and the driver put his lorry as far over to the right as he could. He was inches from the wall on the right-hand side and all was looking good until I noticed the left hand side where the over hanging chalet was going over the wall on the other side until the lorry went down the slope in the road and the chalet got stuck on the wall that side.
Out they all got and they knew they could not carry on driving forward but were to worried they would do more damage to the chalet by trying to reverse. 35 minutes I got stuck there and in the end was able to get to a side road on the left (we could not use it before as cars coming that way had blocked it) as we managed to get drivers to reverse back out of the way because only a few yards along that side road was a very narrow short street that came out just the otherside of where the lorry was stuck. Boy was it a tight turn getting into that tiny street and I was praying I would not end up getting the van stuck as well.
In the end I did it and was able to then carry on to Weymouth and all the other towns I had to call on, but was never able to make the time up. Better luck tomorrow I hope as its my last day for a week as I’m off next week with Carol to have some time together doing what we enjoy doing. My only hope is she will remain well next week as there are a few things not as good as we would like where her health is concerned.