Just for a laugh, these rumours were heard all over Europe many years ago.
In fact they were circulating so much, I thought they were true .
1: If you had an Adr load, you got fined for having a beard, as wearing breathing apparutus would not stop fumes and gasses.
In Paris on the dreaded Wacky races road known aa the Periphique, the rumour was watch out for the French motorbike Gendarme, who was Scotish and had a ginger beard .
The Gendarmarie woukd tune im to CB chatter, to hear drivers bragging of running on the wire or fuse .
Pinocchio in Cherbourg, who hated truckers after breaking his bones while tail gating a rig on his cop.bike, he would wait on top of the hill with binoculars, for British and Irish trucks .
Pinocchio operated by himself, at ĺeast sometimes, not as one of a pair. He busted me for allegedly jumping a red light.
One story was if you blew a little over the yop on alcohol you’d be ok if you had a meal receipt- wine was ok with a meal but not drinking without food. Some believed it.
whilst running to Italy (double manned ) my companion was led to believe from an idiot that probably heard it in an rdc that, if you tailgate another truck with the pay box in the window through the peage the barrier stays up as I thinks you are the same vehicle, this might have been fine if he did not lift his foot at the precise moment we crossed through only for the barrier to come down bounce along the magnum cab roof drop between the unit and trailer which snapped it off and left it hanging on the door mirror arm by the time we emergency stopped, a large Italian lady rushed out of the pay booth shouting what I think were obscenities, so I took the toll box off the windscreen showed here shrugged and said as she lifted it off the truck, drive now, which we did, why he even attempted it is beyond me as while we had the box in the truck how would we have known it worked.
toby1234abc:
Just for a laugh, these rumours were heard all over Europe many years ago.
In fact they were circulating so much, I thought they were true .
1: If you had an Adr load, you got fined for having a beard, as wearing breathing apparutus would not stop fumes and gasses.
In Paris on the dreaded Wacky races road known aa the Periphique, the rumour was watch out for the French motorbike Gendarme, who was Scotish and had a ginger beard .
The Gendarmarie woukd tune im to CB chatter, to hear drivers bragging of running on the wire or fuse .
Pinocchio in Cherbourg, who hated truckers after breaking his bones while tail gating a rig on his cop.bike, he would wait on top of the hill with binoculars, for British and Irish trucks .
Well… I was working in Paris in the 70s. I was mates with an old British gent who had gone there in the 20s as a stable lad with the race horses in Chantilly. He had married a French girl and had children, all of whom spoke excellent English in addition to perfect French of course.
One son was a Gendarme. He was based in Paris and he would occasionnaly be on the Periph. He was a motorcycle cop. His dear old Dad told me how he got quite angry with Brits and other foreigners who disrespected traffic laws. He felt that most assumed they could get away with anything as they were foreigners.
This dislike started when he had pulled a British bloke once for some traffic offence. He had dealt with the case in French as he was supposed to do. He had been decent and did not pursue the offence merely admonishing the offender. But as he walked away to his bike he heard the bloke swearing at him behind his back. Needless to say he returned to the vehicle and took joy in using a good few of the earthier Anglo Saxon words Dad had taught him.
The old gent was not Scottish and I do not know if his son had a beard, but that is highly unlikely as Gendarmes are military and should be clean shaven.
So the myth is probably just that. But you never know quite who you are dealing with, eh?
More than 1000 litres in the truck fuel tank, rumour was , you would need ADR training for that .
The Basque had a severe reputation for high court deposits to be paid on the road side to be contested later if you could afford time off to attend, the myth was illuminated signage on top of the cab , at the front, with the firms name .
Some bizzare advertising rule they had.
Well these 2 are true, not myths because…I was that driver.
Pulled the disc while loading because the resto for the night was opposite. It turned out to be closed so I drove sans disc for 15 kms to another, got fed and parked up.
Next day the ministry man studied the discs carefully, pointed out the missing zig zags and asked ‘looking for a restaurant?’ No use denying so said yes. Answer, ‘ok, carry on’.
Driving in Italy with the girl friend in the passenger seat. Had forgotten in the rush picking up the trailer in Dover to put my plate on it.
2 Carabinieris stopped me, demanded I put the plate on immediately. While walking to the back with the first officer, the 2nd one, who had been eyeing the dumplings boiling over from the GF’s low top as she leant across the driver’s seat to plead with him for directions to a ristorante because she was starving, called me back urgently. I was not allowed to put the plate on as the directions he was giving to the resto were far more urgent.
With the French it’s food, with the Italians it’s women.
