Evil8Beezle:
Yes I can tie one, but as yet never even had a rope…
that was the point of my question…you mght use straps and loading bars etc,but if you had to use now out of the blue,then you could,as its part and parcel of 1 aspect of the job…i thankyou 
scottie0011:
Could probably manage if I was pushed lol [emoji13]
It’s a work of art!
I can’t tie knots because I don’t need to know. It stopped being required knowledge for ‘truckies’ in the ‘truckie industry’ last century for most people.
simon1958:
Evil8Beezle:
Yes I can tie one, but as yet never even had a rope…Would’nt have to in Southampton. I thought all containers round
I drive a tanker, so don’t even carry Ratchets!
scottie0011:
Could probably manage if I was pushed lol [emoji13]
That’s neat mate, but where’s the flysheet?
I had putting 2 30x20s and a fly on a trailer, down to a fine art also, used to take a pride in it, and stand back and admire… but never took a pic so you’ll have to believe me ! .
taught by my father when I was young,used it a few times a few years ago but nothing since
scottie0011:
Could probably manage if I was pushed lol [emoji13]
Thats perfect! Imo this should be made part of the test. Makes me wonder what some would do if faced with being told to take out a flat and get it loaded, same as a tilt, having to strip it and rebuild it…
apparantly does not compute would be the answer for a lot of younger dudes…so sad.
i ripped half the low bar from the front of a unit a few years ago loading up on le shuttle…i told the dude that owned it that it would catch,i told him it was too low,and i told him it was a bollox and stuck out too far,but hey ho it was going to be perfect…1st trip out,i caught the lip of the thing on the side rails and bent it to buggery…your in france…on your tod…not working for a beancounter,and having to fend for yourself…i couldnt get it bent back myself being a wimp with no muscles…so i parked up next to 1 of those big concrete bollards at the fuel pumps,and dolly knotted the thing back to where it was meant to be and then some…due to the pully effect it was possible as it was already hanging out and down…it was also my fault to a degree though i didnt want the poxy bar fitted in the 1st place but they wouldnt be told…the point was…i made a handy horace repair and cracked on for the rest of the trip due to knowing how to tie the hitch and pully effect thereof.i didnt have ratchets with me on the fridge so i blagged a bit of rope and job done.i suppose i could have blagged a rachet stap as well,but the point is,that id think anyone should know how to tie the most common hitch/knot in the given profession…i.e a hairy assed truckie.
I love how you use an incredibly specific scenario to justify your opinion that all truck drivers should know how to tie a particular knot
taught by my uncle when I was about 5 years old over sixty years ago you never forget, he was a driver for over forty years never went over the water or inside a RDC so not a proper driver but had 3 log books does that count
I can tie a dolly, rope and sheet, use Warwicks and chains and field strip and reassemble an SLR blindfolded in under 20 seconds. All skills I learnt many moons ago and all redundant skills that I doubt very much that I’ll need to use again!
I carry a rope or two on the back of my motor because they are handy for getting branches off the top of the trailer when I’ve been crashing through trees. I can tie a dolly, and a double one, and a spreader but never need to now with a curtainsider and anyways, there’s nothing much to tie them off to on ours. I have a strap or two as well in case the trailer roof comes adrift. 
switchlogic:
[. It stopped being required knowledge for ‘truckies’ in the ‘truckie industry’ last century for most people.
Yeah, I thought that, guess one day being a “most driver” it’s just not your day …
Doing Hiab work in 2002. My old man luckily had showed me a dolly when I was a kid. What I didn’t learn was roping and sheeting as I was never out with him when he had the flat on. Who the hell does that in this century? Uh oh…
I joined a haulier full time on general 2003. They pulled fridges and curtains but no flats. Mainly spuds and veg, paper, palletised but increasingly ex military auction stuff but it all went in covered trailers. Then one day early hours Monday before a week tramping, a flat behind my unit with box of sheets, straps, ropes and turn buckles and a military address 3 hours down the road. The sheets looked like one of the TMs had found them in the cellar.
I spent twenty minutes looking for the roof of the trailer in the dark thinking it must have blown off. pacing up and down, and kicking the flat’s wheels with my boots - “how could this ■■■■ up happen”. After staring at the flat, half heartedly sifting through the sheets in the boxes and blinking at them like an open mouthed goldfish I realised just gazing at the trailer wasn’t going to make the thing turn into a fridge .
I got down there, rang up the boss at 9am to ask if a mistake giving it to me as he knew I wasn’t exactly an old hand. He said “no mate they’ve no fork lift only an overhead so it’s a rental flat”. I explained I didn’t know how to rope and sheet, I asked if he knew how as I was willing to give it a bash he could talk me the basics. “No mate”. Being a work around the problem kind of bloke I asked if he could go into the yard and ask one of the old tortoises how to do it. I said to him to pick the oldest and most grisled looking bugger and ask them to come in and give me the dime tour. He came back and said “I’m sorry mate no one here knows how to do it”. I muttered something about baby boomers then went off determined not to let it beat me.
A team of Reme squaddies were using an over head crane to load. I explained to the Sergeant I didn’t know how to sheet the bugger, I’d been dropped in it and do any of them know? He said no, but they’ll happily all pitch in and help.
Now I could rope perfectly fine, pretty well actually, I knew the theory of sheeting but that was it. Between us we got it done, it wasn’t efficient or pretty but safe but I got it back to the yard . Only a couple more times I had flats with sheets and I used it to practice every time. I got half alright but never felt I knew it which annoyed me. I even posted on here years later asking how to do it properly and got some good advice. It driving anymore unlikely I’ll ever have to do it. I say that but working for an airline once an did have to rope a set of hay bales on the back of a trailer (don’t ask). You never know when these man skills come up in life
dieseldog999:
apparantly does not compute would be the answer for a lot of younger dudes…so sad.i ripped half the low bar from the front of a unit a few years ago loading up on le shuttle…i told the dude that owned it that it would catch,i told him it was too low,and i told him it was a bollox and stuck out too far,but hey ho it was going to be perfect…1st trip out,i caught the lip of the thing on the side rails and bent it to buggery…your in france…on your tod…not working for a beancounter,and having to fend for yourself…i couldnt get it bent back myself being a wimp with no muscles…so i parked up next to 1 of those big concrete bollards at the fuel pumps,and dolly knotted the thing back to where it was meant to be and then some…due to the pully effect it was possible as it was already hanging out and down…it was also my fault to a degree though i didnt want the poxy bar fitted in the 1st place but they wouldnt be told…the point was…i made a handy horace repair and cracked on for the rest of the trip due to knowing how to tie the hitch and pully effect thereof.i didnt have ratchets with me on the fridge so i blagged a bit of rope and job done.i suppose i could have blagged a rachet stap as well,but the point is,that id think anyone should know how to tie the most common hitch/knot in the given profession…i.e a hairy assed truckie.
It’s not mainstream any more! So just like anything else that isn’t mainstream, new people aren’t going to know, just like blowing a load off, using a tanker or loading cars on a transporter.
I suppose you know all about looking after the horses and how to chain them up to the wagon, how long to run them before you rest them, do ya? Everyone in our game used too, but the game’s moved on!
If you’re telling me that without knowing how to tie a dolly you wouldn’t of been able to tie up ya low bar, it wouldn’t of stopped me! I managed quite well when the rear mudguard / light hanger fell off on a scania, armed with a brush and me rope I used for pulling the bulker sheet back over, despite having next to no room to pull it upwards, because there was a trailer there, it all stopped on fine, albeit not as far as your low bar traveled, but it made it back to the workshop.
I know, I’m still not a proper trucker
switchlogic:
I love how you use an incredibly specific scenario to justify your opinion that all truck drivers should know how to tie a particular knot
just one specific instance for me…tying up mudflaps,airkit and a variety of other faults and mishaps…ive mentioned several earlier…we dont all work for the,call out the fitter tosco h&s mobs.and its only a specific knot beacuse id assume its the 99.999% most common and popular knot in the trucking industry, i bet toby123 could tie one no bother when he strapped his bike to the back of the cab…
I know, I’m still not a proper trucker
[/quote]
im just curious as to how so many people seem not to know the most common knot in the trade…if your tying something up with a bit of rope,wouldnt it not be common sense to tie it up in such a way you could untie it easily?
im not a mechanic but i made sure i found out how to bleed a fridge and jumpstart it when i was away. and i have a few basic most common needed tools just in case.
the dolly is about the only knot i can tie,and i only know that because i took a career as a driver.
dieseldog999:
switchlogic:
I love how you use an incredibly specific scenario to justify your opinion that all truck drivers should know how to tie a particular knot
just one specific instance for me…tying up mudflaps,airkit and a variety of other faults and mishaps…ive mentioned several earlier…we dont all work for the,call out the fitter tosco h&s mobs.and its only a specific knot beacuse id assume its the 99.999% most common and popular knot in the trucking industry, i bet toby123 could tie one no bother when he strapped his bike to the back of the cab…[/quote
And as a PS to this, how many drivers would know how to get home with a blown trailer air bag, there are so many get out of jail and get you home tricks that would save you having to wait x amount of hours for the repair man to arrive, then the x amount of hours for said repair man to attempt to fix the problem, then he realises that he can’t do SFA, so it’s ANOTHER x amount of hours for recovery to arrive to "GET YOU HOME, or to the repair garage!!!
mostly the ones not classed as steering wheel attendants that can just get on with it.i think it just depends on your hands on ,crack on attitude,and nowadays not working for a lemming type plobber company also helps…though to be fair,that type of company deserve all the lazyness and unhelpfullness from their drivers that they deserve as they operate mostly similar as to why theres no uk industry left…i.e.british leyland with the jobsworth by the book attitude.
pierrot 14:
dieseldog999:
switchlogic:
I love how you use an incredibly specific scenario to justify your opinion that all truck drivers should know how to tie a particular knotjust one specific instance for me…tying up mudflaps,airkit and a variety of other faults and mishaps…ive mentioned several earlier…we dont all work for the,call out the fitter tosco h&s mobs.and its only a specific knot beacuse id assume its the 99.999% most common and popular knot in the trucking industry, i bet toby123 could tie one no bother when he strapped his bike to the back of the cab…
[/quoteAnd as a PS to this, how many drivers would know how to get home with a blown trailer air bag, there are so many get out of jail and get you home tricks that would save you having to wait x amount of hours for the repair man to arrive, then the x amount of hours for said repair man to attempt to fix the problem, then he realises that he can’t do SFA, so it’s ANOTHER x amount of hours for recovery to arrive to "GET YOU HOME, or to the repair garage!!!
Yep know how to do that, can bleed an engine, adjust brakes, fixed me donkey engine when it was ■■■■■■■ diesel out, repaired a split airline in the middle of the chassis somewhere, swap airlines, hydraulic lines, change wheels, change wheel bearings, change brakes, yada, yada yada, still can’t tie a dolly, can tie other knots and generally get myself out of the ■■■■, still not a proper trucker though!!
pierrot 14:
And as a PS to this, how many drivers would know how to get home with a blown trailer air bag, there are so many get out of jail and get you home tricks that would save you having to wait x amount of hours for the repair man to arrive
Most of the ‘get you home’ tricks you mention I learned in the 80s. Unfortunately (or not, depending how you look at it) most are illegal these days where your feet would not touch if caught, such as blanking off brake chambers and chaining up trailer axles … aka prototype lift axles .
Can the dog look after the horses?
