Au contrare! I didn’t hit curbs, it was just that in the earlier days of left-hooker driving I’d arrive back in the yard at silly-o-clock in the morning with eyes hanging out of their sockets and have to CONCENTRATE! It was bad enough changing gear with the driver’s side window winder (remember those?). Nuff said 
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On the wire/fuse, the ones that did burnt out early and were once young men that aged quickly from no sleep on a diet of caffeine and a chain smoking habit.
An English boss said he had booked me on a ferry the next day when I was still loading in Barcelona at 18.00, I texted back to him tw@te”, let’s say he didn’t like that.
It says ERF on the front grille, not RAF.
So you can’t make the morning boat then, I will book you on the afternoon boat he says to me.
His company went bust no long after.
Spot on. I used to say that the most dangerous thing on the road was sleep deprivation.
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The scientists have proved that driving while tired is the same as drink driving with poor cognitive reasoning and judgment.
It’s not just me but other drivers have said they had the same experience of pulling in to lay-by for a sleep on the bunk then wake up in a total panic and frenzy as they see a parked trailer a few feet away from in the windscreen then jump out of the bunk to sit in the drivers seat to slam on the brakes thinking they are driving in to the back of the trailer.
What do you mean by “Ireland”? NI or ROI?
I lived in ROI for a number of years, my UK registered car had to be changed to ROI registration within a specific period when I got there, then when I returned to the UK permanently, I had to re-register the car as UK, again within a specific period.
I’m sure there are some who don’t do that, but I don’t see what they get out of it apart from driving an untaxed and uninsured vehicle with the hope that the ROI plate will keep them off the computer systems. VED and insurance in ROI is significantly higher than in the UK, pretty much double.
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Just my bad driving then after all.
Tbf I have heard the same complaint by other left hooker drivers…(honest guv😃)
It’s still “a thing” in the industry; a mate of mine was doing outside broadcast work all over Europe. One day his clutch went and because of the age of the truck there weren’t readily available replacement parts. So he’s stuck in some German garage, being told “we’re still trying to source the parts”, his boss meanwhile went ahead and booked him onto a ferry after just assuming how long a clutch replacement would take and then inventing new exceptions to the drivers hours rules claiming the clutch replacement allowed him to class this as an “emergency” so he could exceed his hours to catch the ferry.
Needless to say he stopped working for those guys not too long after.
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Road sweepers are generally left and right hand drive dual control.From memory the main control including starter switch was left hand drive generally driven as left hand drive for obvious reasons.
Also drove a lot of centre drive trucks which were a handful at 10 feet wide +.
It doubles all the issues of road positioning of using a left hand drive in UK etc.
Luckily Rob wasn’t driving those along Feltham High Street.
As for flagging out that’s generally a UK truck used on foreign plates based in the cheapest and most cowboy advantageous state.Obviously slightly easier before the unified EU O licencing requirements.But with the disadvantage then of a less cabotage friendly UK work environment.
So it’s possible that a LHD truck on UK plates could be a way for a foreign operator to increase the cabotage allowance even more.But doubtful if it would be worth it.
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There was one of our drivers who was quite happy to stay at a Scania garage over the Christmas and new year time period due to his truck being broken down, the garage had a small bedroom and a shower that was for the fitters to use on a late night call out.
They kindly gave him the key to the room but the boss insisted he wasn’t going to stay in Italy so dispatched a driver to rescue him, which meant a one hit to get there in time before the driving bans kicked in for Italy and France, the chap that was rescued told the driver that rescued him to not sleep on the bunk on the drive back to England and must sit in the passenger seat.
It could easily be done for dual use vehicles that do UK and continental work by having the steering wheel in the middle of the truck or a system where the driver could simply slide it to one side to the other depending on which country he or she was in.
im not sure which part they are from. I used to see a lot of cars with “funny plates” (3 letters followed by 4 numbers) in and around south ken to begin with i assumed they were diplomatic plates but then started seeing double deckers with the plates
vat etc is less though. when i was at school it was common for people to buy a bmw or merc from germany and bring it back. with the exchange rate between the pound and the mark and that profit wasnt added on to the import duty it was a darn site cheaper.
you also only have to register a car that you have imported if it is going to be used on british roads for more than a certain amount of time. if you take it back out the country you can bring it back and the clock starts again
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Those are NI number plates. It’s an easy way for the vain-but-financially-challenged to get a “personal” reg, eg BIL 5678
VAT in ROI is more complicated than in the UK, their standard rate is higher than ours, so a pair of boots has a ROI VAT rate of 23% compared to our 20%, but there are 1st and 2nd reduction schemes for other goods.
However, you need to appreciate that wages in ROI are generally significantly higher than in the UK, but the costs of everything you need to buy are massively higher. We commonly (every 6 weeks to 2 months) made a round trip of 250 miles to a town over the border in NI to stock up on a range of things which were in NI 50% less than in ROI. Even factoring in travel, hotel etc it was still a major saving and a free weekend break.
Apart from when you’re a resident in the country where the car is an import: If you’re becoming a UK resident (again, as was the case for me) with your ROI registered car, it makes no sense to wait too long.
As always it comes done to not-messing-around-with-insurance-companies-if-you-have-any-sense. If you do mess them around and you’re involved in an incident, they will cancel the policy, that means for the rest of your life you’ll end up paying far higher insurance premiums than other people. It comes down to that question you see on every insurance policy application: “Have you ever had an insurance policy cancelled?”
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I think not.
It doesn’t really matter where where the vehicle is.
What does matter is the home address of the registered owner.
I daresay some will say otherwise, and may indeed (mistakenly) believe in that.
Whoops.
Posted at same time as Zac
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Centre drive doesn’t make any difference to the visibility issues of driving a LHD truck in UK or vice versa.It just makes them worse by creating the same blind spots but on both sides not just one side.
In general forward visibility in the case of a nearside driving side is dealt with by dropping much further back to narrow the angle of visibility along the offside, also reading the road ahead along the nearside, of the vehicle ahead.
While lane changes and road positioning are done with very careful use of the passenger side mirrors and timing.
Centre drive just doubles all the same problems.
While a nearside driving position is actually advantageous on narrow roads especially in mountainous regions.
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Tempory import a vehicle
bringing a car from ni Bringing your vehicle in or out of Northern Ireland
If you are a UK resident you can move your vehicle freely between Great Britain and Northern Ireland if all of the following apply:
it’s registered in either country
you’re not moving it to sell it, or for any other commercial purpose (for example, using the car as a taxi or hiring it to someone)
the car is for your own or your household’s personal use
i doubt tfl and go ahead or who ever has the contract now are worried about personalised number plates for their double deckers.
Erm… NI and GB are both part of the UK.
ROI is a “foreign country”
That was just to illustrate how NI reg’s present, I wasn’t talking about busses.