Hi.
Thought I’d tell you a story, or at least get the story off my chest of what happened on the way in to work today. It’s long… Sorry…
I’m working for an agency on a contract until early September from a company on Heathfield Industrial Estate, Newton Abbot.
I’m driving in to work at about 17:20 and am crossing over a quite large roundabout that goes over the A38 Plymouth to Exeter. I’m on the busy roundabout and a Polish artic nearly T-Bones me as he enters to roundabout without right-of-way doing around 30mph coming from the Plymouth direction. Cars hammer their breaks on, horns are blazing and I’ve managed to get in front of the lorry as I didn’t want to hit my breaks and get rear-ended.
In the next mile or so as I enter Heathfield Ind Est this lorry is still up my [zb], so rightly or wrongly I gave him the horn and finger out of my car window and continued on to the place I work. Unbelievably he was delivering to where I’m working.
As I pulled the car in to the car park, he stopped and gave me his horn. Pretty peturbed at this, I ran around to his door (left hand drive), and told him to get out. He then pulled a knige from a bag or something in the cab and started waving it at me and shouting something or another from the cab. By this time I was fuming and tried opening his door which was locked, as I wanted to drag him out and give his a good beating. A few work collegues had heard the comotion and come out to calm the situation down. I gave his door another punch (one of many) and walked off to the lorry I was picking up.
He had to turn around in a neighbouring residential area to get his load off. Next thing I heard was a crunch followed by more shouting… He had ripped the front end off someones 4*4 as he was turning. Instead of stopping, he drove off and presumably found somewhere a bit more suitable to turn, with a few angry people in tow.
About 20 mins later he arrived at my workplace and a police man showed up. I had a word with the copper about what happened with me and he told us to wait for traffic dept to turn up.
Anyway, to cut a long story a bit shorter, they found 2 knifes in the lorry. The one he pulled on me had about an 8 inch blade and they found a smaller one as well. The police man said that he would have been better-off ditching his tacho’s before traffic turned up as there were a LOT of violations and his lorry was not in a driveable state either.
If this were an English driver he would have been reamed for this, but even the Police said there was little they could do other than pass his details on to the port authorities to flag him if he enters the country again. I’m not sure if they are taking any further action against him but his lorry won’t be driving anywhere until it gets sorted.
I am NOT perfect and yes, I did react violently to what he did, especially when he pulled the knife on me. He could have killed someone on that roundabout and if I hadn’t of reacted quickly he’d certainly have T-Boned me. He was driving the artic like a boy-racer so I’m not upset that he’s been done for it. He thought I’d back off when he showed his knife - people like this need a good hiding in my point of view.
We all make mistakes and I’ll be the first to put my hands up and say I’m sorry if I do ■■■■-up. I never used to get wound-up at people like this until I had a child a few years ago. These days I see drivers like this as people who would risk the life of children in cars and innocent people just so they can get from A to B a few minutes quicker.
If he’d of apologised I would have dropped the matter immediately, but to pull a knife on someone you’ve just cut up■■?
Maybe I was wrong, maybe I was right. One thing for sure though, I’ve knackered a knuckle on his door and it hurts like hell.
Paul.
(Small language edit. If you think it needs stars to beat the auto-censor, take that as a hint it isn’t allowed. Or type the word in fully and try ‘Preview’. Simon)
i always find pullin the park brake on eventually leads to em gettin out of the cab 
probably would’nt have come about.