First day on class 1 I was told to take a certain empty trailer to a place to be loaded and then brought back to the yard. I had been driving a 1 month old 460hp Renault premium earlier in the day with its regular driver in the passenger seat but was now going out on my own for the first time in an old daf cf 360hp. Anyhow,I connected up to said empty trailer and was on my way when I noticed it seemed a bit sluggish but just presumed It was because I was driving a dead heap of scrap after getting out of a new and much more powerful lorry so kept going.
When I got to the place and pulled back the curtain, to my and the flt drivers surprise the trailer was three quarters full with massive bags of spuds!!! Disaster!!! Wtf 
Rang the office and after getting a bit of a telling off for not checking the trailer was empty I was told to do the hour and a bit long drive back to the yard, swap for an empty and go back up. Drove back absolutely kicking my self for being so stupid.
Not the worst thing to happen on your first day in comparison to some others I’ve heard but i still feel like such a tool when I think about it.
A couple of years ago i had to deliver to a private address in Lostwithiel with an 18.00tonne rigid. As i got nearer and nearer to the address the road got narrower and narrower with cars parked on both sides of a twisty turny street going downhill into the village. I was hoping and praying that there would be a suitable exit somewhere further on down the lane. I arrived at the private house , delivered the stuff i had for them and then enquired about an exit strategy.
I was informed that the road actually got narrower and the only way out was the same way i came in. I decided i could not reverse , it would be at least a mile around tight blind bends etc , so i decided the only thing for it was a 3 point turn.
Nearly an hour later and 250 shunts later , i just about had the vehicle 90degrees around , a cup of tea from well wishers and 1 more hour later i was another 45 degrees further around. The sweat was pouring of me , the clutch was burning and a good crowd had gathered . Finally about 4 hours after i had started i had the vehicle facing the correct way… oh the relief i felt was better than ■■■ i tell you , i got about 400 yards down the road and on a tight bend i struck a car and a wall and found myself wedged between the two… Well FFS i thought . …Finally 6 hours after i entered the village i was able to leave , my tail between my legs and vowing never to deliver to that hole ever again…i can laugh now but it was not funny at the time. 
delivery to the shop at St Stephens in a rear steer, done it loads of times. next to the shop is a bungalow which the company own,so you reverse into that driveway and deliver to back of shop. that day i was on the phone to another driver, (bluetooth) backed into the driveway and finished the conversation with me mate. Looked around and thought “this don’t seem right”. I’d only backed into next doors driveway and had the old biddy who lived there peering through the curtains, probably thinking “WTF” !! 
Some good ones so far keep them coming enjoy reading them 
Had 22ton of Cornish new potatoes (worth IIRC about 800 quid a ton) for a buyer in Liverpool wholesale market.
I’d been there many times, same routine, get there about midnight, undo the curtain straps and loosen the curtains so matey on the forks only has to pull the curtains, take the load off wake me up with a signed ticket and I turn in again.
Happened on one occasion, turned back in then another bang on the door sometime later.
I opened the door and the buyer’s asking where his spuds are. I said your forkie took them off before, but apparently he hadn’t so ■■■■ knows who had them but they weren’t in the market anywhere and of course security saw nothing.
1969, I’m 21 years and 3 weeks old and I’ve now got “heavy motor cars” on my licence, so the world’s my lobster. I’m in the old Covent Garden market with my brother’s D800. It’s an early, pre-Tautliner attempt at a curtain-sider, 3 curtains each side with elastic bungees along the bottom that hook on along the side raves, and eyelets in that fit over loops in the vertical posts, with a 6 foot-ish steel pole with hooks in to hook over the loops with two elastic bungees stretched down onto more hooks. Sounds complicated, you’re right! I’m parked kerbside behind another lorry and have tipped, secured the curtains and ready to move off. The lorry in front is a traditional growers lorry, drop-side with tall slatted greedy boards and a sheet over. The driver’s rolled the sheet halfway forward and removed the steel bracing bar that holds the greedy boards together, so the side’s hanging outwards and the sheets bulging out about 3 foot. It’s a bit tight with lorries parked on the opposite side, so off I go slowly, by time I’m halfway out of the space I’m brushing past the other guy’s sheet and can’t see my back end in the mirror, but convinced I’m now well clear, foot down. Bang! Followed by a load of shouting and swearing. Get out and go round the back, all the porters and other drivers are leading off. What happened was, I wasn’t quite as clear of the other motor as I thought. One of the poles holding the side curtain had caught on the sticking out corner of the greedy board, lifted off it’s hooks, stretched it’s elastic until it broke then shot off like a javelin, narrowly missing the assembled crowd and burying itself in a pile of bagged cabbages about 15feet away! We all had a laugh afterwards, no damage to either lorry except my broken bit of elastic, but it was a bit scary at the time, could so easily have killed somebody.
Bernard
Was on Demount multi drop from Leeds. Setting off for 30 odd drops in St Helens. Should have taken container 038 and somehow I picked 149 instead. I realised on my down Windy hill on the M62. I turned round and came back, stuck my head through the transport office down and fessed my mistake that’d cost me 2 hours.
Transport manager looked up but not at me and said, “I was only thinking yesterday that no one’s done that for a while”
End of conversation, didn’t look at me and off I went for round 2.
I wasnt involved but there was a case of 2 drivers from the same firm who were both given the instruction to travel up north and then change trailers, it was supposed to have been a changeover with a northern trunk, the drivers didnt know each other as one was a newbie, the planner who had been recently promoted from post boy gave out the job sheet with vehicle details and trailer numbers and completely messed things up. The 2 drivers left the depot at a 30 minute interval and proceeded to drive the 4 hour drive, arriving at their destination, they introduced themselves and proceeded to change trailers with each other before departing, the ■■■■ hit the fan the next morning when everyone arrived for work and were asking where the overnight trailer was ■■ when i was told i couldnt stop laughing.
truckyboy:
I wasnt involved but there was a case of 2 drivers from the same firm who were both given the instruction to travel up north and then change trailers, it was supposed to have been a changeover with a northern trunk, the drivers didnt know each other as one was a newbie, the planner who had been recently promoted from post boy gave out the job sheet with vehicle details and trailer numbers and completely messed things up. The 2 drivers left the depot at a 30 minute interval and proceeded to drive the 4 hour drive, arriving at their destination, they introduced themselves and proceeded to change trailers with each other before departing, the [zb] hit the fan the next morning when everyone arrived for work and were asking where the overnight trailer was ■■ when i was told i couldnt stop laughing.
That is when stupidity becomes genius our TM couldn’t plan that even if they tried lol
jackseymour:
I’ve only been driving artics since end of march but in my second week I was doing pallet line deliveries (usually do the easier distribution stuff). As anyone that has done pallet line stuff will know, it could be pallets of anything going to anywhere.Anyway, second Friday into it I was sent to Wisley golf course with 13 pallets. It’s off the A3, and signposted unsuitable for HGVs, however it’s the only way in, so I went in, had terrible directions, went through Wisley village, tight as a ducks arse, managed to miss the unsignposted entrance and had to carry on to find a place to turn around. About a mile down was a 7.5 bridge and a car park with boulders, tried a blindside reverse with the whole pub garden watching, got a cheer when, after 10 minutes I stopped to let a load of cars past. Couldn’t be done in the end.
Called the office, weren’t terribly interested. So I had to call the police, who came and kindly closed the road both ends so I could reverse the whole mile back. Very steep learning curve for me and needless to say I always make sure I triple check addresses and get phone numbers if the address has the words street or lane in it!
I can laugh now but it was without doubt the worst day of my driving career.
That was the spot on right thing to do there in the circumstances. A hell of a lot of drivers, in the same situation would have panicked and got stuck on grass, demolished a wall or badly damaged the truck. It’s also common to come across an attempt at a u-turn or turning round, that was never going to happen, when the reverse back would only be a couple of hundred yards or less.
i hit a skip filled with water at a waste transfer sit with the side of my cab when all the bin wagons were in waiting to empty (i was the only one swapping boxes over so took time in a small yard especially when bi waon drivers just walk away from their trucks and leave them parked in my way (Y) )
This is one for Drift, having passed my PSV Test, two days before this incident, there I was, leaving the old Skelhorne Street Bus Station Liverpool, 10-40ish in a 36 foot Dual Purpose Coach/ Bus. ( X27 ), Liverpool-Skipton. Now, being new to the job as a Driver, having spent some Fourteen Months as a Conductor, leaving the station, concentrating on the clearance,on my Off- side I totally forget about where my nearside was going.
A quick look to my left, hit the brake, alas bump, caught the wall of the exit, with front near side. No great damage, seems a couple of Pop rivets soon put the damage right.
Being a new Driver, garage fitter back at Southport, approached me and, Honestly, said, ( now you can call yourself a Driver ).
Believe me guys, I felt so much more relaxed as a result of that bump, plus of course, it stopped my fellow colleagues from running a book on who will be the first of the Newbies to have a mishap. To be honest to this day I still have no idea how much they made out of my mistake.
Back in t day. Tramping on general haulage. Get back to yard fri am and told to pick up trailer full of birdhouses for multi drop to b&q, wicks and the like. I pulled the curtains halfway back and this thing was full, I mean really full of these bird houses. All loose stacked into each other to the ceiling. Quite a sight.
Get to first few drops, pull curtains back at rear and tick off amount of bird houses required and take from rear of trailer working forward. B&q store men sign paperwork and on to the next drop and so forth.
It’s a rubbish day, tipping it down with rain, I’m tired and tight on hours. I get to a place about two thirds through the list. I pull down 8 of these blinking bird houses and wander off to find the storeman. He comes out and says he only wants 5 of the “morning dew acorn bird regencies” and where’s the 3 of the other type, the “sun parched balls acorn bird hiltons”? I replied rather ■■■■ sure that surely a bird house is a bird house and the trailer is full of them, theyre all interlocked. He said 'no normally they stick the other type against the headboard, they’re similar but extra green bits"
Well with that white faced dread you get and the confidence in my reply gone, I pull the curtains the other way and sure enough there’s a slightly different style of bird house. You’d have to squint to spot the difference. Think an extra green bit of trim. At that moment I had that dreaded nagging doubt. I rang the office and sure enough, all the previous drops were supposed to have had a mixture of the two. The store men hadn’t checked properly and just signed.
I asked the TM what I should do as short of hours and about 50 thousand bird houses up at the front and 25 gazzillion down at the rear. He was silent for a bit, sighed and said ‘oh what a ■■■■ about, bring the extras back, we’ll sort it Monday, it’s Monday’s problem’
Sorry B&Q, between me and your equally Friday feeling storemen you had a birdhouse detritus that day.
When I first started, I did casual work for the company I’m at now. I got asked to take a load of steel down to a park in waltgamstow, for a new footbridge that was being built. I got told ‘you can drive straight in, there’s room to turn at the bottom’. So like a ■■■ I believed them, and drive in through the wide pedestrian gate, round to the left abc then the right on this oversized footpath. The steel got unloaded, and I said to the bloke ‘I’ll turn around at the bottom and get out if your way’. ‘You won’t you know, that’s where we’ve put all our cabins’. Oh ■■■■, so I’ve got a z-bend reverse on a footpath that seemed to be getting narrower the more I looked at it.
I was almost getting there when the n/s front wheel went off the edge and sank up to the axle. No amount of rocking would free it, and the builders all stood videoing it on their phones, being no help at all. Eventually the crane drive de-rigged and dragged me out, then calmly talked me through it all (having a class 1 himself). He did say that if I wasn’t comfortable I could drop the trailer, get the unit out and turned round and he’d lift the trailer and spin it for me, but I got there in the end. Wouldn’t have been do bad, but I’d taken my father in law with me, and he does like to remind me every now and then!
Gary
Anyone who has used Hiabs will know that the first thing to break on them is the electronic over height sensor. Said sensor is also the first thing not to get fixed if your work for the family type of firm I used to work for.
On the day in question I was driving my 18t Brick Grab/Tipper with the Hiab with no sensor. I tipped 8t loose topsoil at a local football club, and the bloke I was delivering to was a mate of mine, so as I was tipping we were talking about ■■■/football/whatever the ■■■■. Anyway as it was a Brick Grab to tip the body you needed to lift the arm in the air, and as we were gassing, guess who didn’t do his full walk round checks before jumping back in the cab and driving off??
Me 
■■■■■
Luckily my friend had asked me to get into a very tight spot requiring 3 shunts to get in and out. Luckily during the first shunt I felt the Brick Grab clunk against the main boom. Got out and it had pulled a telephone line nice and tight. I sheepishly reversed, dropped the arm and went into the football club with my tail firmly tucked between my legs. The phone line somehow just fell back into place (Probably with an extra foot of slack) and the phone worked fine 
Now it doesn’t matter if,there is harem of ■■■■■■■ bunnies lying down naked next to the wagon, and asking for some over the side action, you ain’t even getting an acknowledgement from me until my gear is stowed and my wagon is ready to roll.
Then we can play 
2 mistakes I can think of , I always did European work ,I had a delivery in Amsterdam ,I drove down the side of this canal with the 4 pallets of print items , nice houses on the side of the canal and I still hadn’t twigged that these houses would not be wanting 4 pallets of print ,the road got tighter and tighter leaving me about an inch either side of my unit and trailer, I located the delivery address ,rang the bell only to be told it was a common mistake courier vans come here all the time ,but this was a first in an artic.It turned out there was a road with the same name on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Amsterdam Horror of all horrors ,I had to get out ,but how ? although I used to be able to put a trailer where I wanted this was going to be tight, as I reversed back there was a bridge with a 7.5 ton limit on it to my right and no cars parked near it ,only a line of cast steel bollards , I got the unit into position knowing what the rear of the supercube was going to do . Got over the bridge ,looked in the mirrors as I was going over it and saw 5 bollards ripped out of the ground ,the bridge rated at 7.5t tons actually took 38 tons , Dont know if they had trouble opening it !
The other notable ■■■■ up was when I was delivering a full load to Awia electronics in Barcelona, there was another lorry on the bay discharging , so I thought the best thing would be to park in the Cul de sac opposite and wait , I got to the turning point at the top which was tight , the rear of the trailer came into contact with the wall and as I was turning the wall was like a set of dominoes and a length of over 100 feet collapsed
These are brilliant thanks for all the replies keep them coming x:-)
Another empty load story. I arranged for four empty containers to be shipped from Stevenage to Germany. I went down to the warehouse, witnessed the loading as we’d had damage in the past, gave them the all clear to go. Couple of hours later the receipt guys asked why they had empty containers… You guessed, forky had loaded the wrong ones and sent €1.6m worth of new hardware back to Germany. They got as far as the tunnel before we got hold of the driver.
Moral of the story, check the serial number AND look inside the boxes.
Cheers
Paul
sonflowerinwales:
Another empty load story. I arranged for four empty containers to be shipped from Stevenage to Germany. I went down to the warehouse, witnessed the loading as we’d had damage in the past, gave them the all clear to go. Couple of hours later the receipt guys asked why they had empty containers… You guessed, forky had loaded the wrong ones and sent €1.6m worth of new hardware back to Germany. They got as far as the tunnel before we got hold of the driver.
Moral of the story, check the serial number AND look inside the boxes.
Cheers
Paul
That must have been a serious headache moment !
I had to pick up an empty trailer from a yard and the number I was given took some finding. They were 3 deep and in lines of about 10 with spaces where some had already been taken from. I found mine right at the back but fortunately there was nothing in front.
I reversed down the middle with trailers either side and backed under…2 tugs…then tried to open my door I couldn’t get out 
not passenger side either. Blasted horn for what seemed like for ever till a shunter came to my rescue. The look on his face was priceless - this was before mobile phone cameras
That will NEVER happen again