two years ago m6 north bound jct 13 i’am in a 03 plate 15 ton merc rigid traveling along with a polish plated artic behind. the artic only has about 2 kmph more than me so takes ages to overtake, eventually he gets ahead and infront of me. I start to back off to give myself a bit of distance eventualy end up with about a 100+ yard gap, just at jct 13 slip back onto the m6 i notice what looks like the front end of a car pokeing out on the front n/s of said artic so i start brakeing slowly then all hell breaks out artic slams on the anchors so do i but i,ve got no chance of stoping cant pull out to lane 2 solid with cars cant dive down the n/s again cars. so no coice but to hold on and wait for the bang. now that wasnt the scary part, once the steam had cleared and the reality of just what had hapend sunk in (2-5 sec) i check my mirrors but cant see a thing they’ve been thrown forward the scary part is me sat there in lane 1 with my backend in lane 2 knowing that there was at least two artics behind and which were gaining on me before the impact. so i,am sat there waiting for anouther thump luckily they had stoped outherwise i could have been minus legs or worse as my seat was back against the rear of the cab with my knees firmly planted into the dash, i will admit that’s the most scared i’ve been when driveing
jj72:
TheFan46:
milodon:
unloaded 15 tons of humanitarian aid in kiev, ukraine on a tuesday evening after four days in customs, headed straight out for a reload back to estonia from ostroleka, poland. on the ring-road of zhitomir, was following a local truck pretty close while waiting to overtake, one moment he swerved, I couldn’t. All I saw was a body all mangled up, limbs thrown all over the place like a ragdoll. I definitely wasn’t the first and probably not the last but the next stop was the polish border some 400km and about 7 hours away…you didn’t stop?
Yeah, that’s the gist of it - not everywhere has a fair and even handed police and legal system like what we do
thats made me feel ill 
ady1:
stawbery trifles,put the fear of god into me every time i get a load of them,trying to get round the m25 with a load of them is easily the load from hell,when i know ive got a load of them i normally turn up for work 15 mins late hoping someomne else will of taken them already
It’s crossing the terrifying Dartford Bridge with them that does it to you I bet.
Worst for me happened many years ago…i was driving a rigid car transporter collecting write off’s for scrapping.
Out in Essex, nr Sible Hedingham, a A road if i remember correctly…came across a set of temporary lights…as i got to the other end, there was an artic half up on the verge and a badly damaged car just in front of it…
Driver trapped in the car, head injuries, unconscious…kid of 11 or 12’ish on the back seat with facial and head injuries, young child of 4 or 5 in the front passenger footwell…big hole in front screen…
By now other people had stopped…i remember trying to reassure the kid in the back…then noticing someone had got the younger kid out of the car…so went over to see if i could help…and watched her basically pass away in front of me…still chokes me up even now…15 yrs later…
Worst thing was, i just got back in the truck and carried on…once the police had arrived…i never saw the actual crash so figured i had nothing to contribute…
Apparently, the woman driving the car came round the bend too fast…couldn’t stop at the lights, the artic was almost out of them, but she smashed into his front o/s wheel…there were no car seats in the car…no one was wearing belt…the hole in the screen was caused by the family dog going through it. The young child had been in the back but was thrown into the front by the impact…
I had dealt with far worse scenes of carnage whilst doing recovery work on the M25, but this one will stay with me forever.
As i’ve said before, my Actros has a bad habit of cutting out if splitting half gear and braking at the same time with the revs above 900 so attention needs to be paid when behind the wheel…well, with most of our drivers being on holiday over the xmas period, we had to work xmas eve to get the work out so we were doing multi-drop…yes, 2 depots at night I had Northampton then on to Cannock…nice for double bubble. I was exiting M1 J15a (n/b) and gently on the brakes and made the mistake of ‘splitting’ on the slip road. I’ll tell ya now,thats a hell of a tight turn to the A43 with no power steering…thought i was going over Managed to keep it upright and get it restarted before coming to a halt which helped with the power steering but it has to be shut down so it can reset itself before finding a gear again. Apologies to the tanker that was up me jacksy and had to take evasive action and everyone else i cheesed off whilst sat half way round the roundabout like a lost sheep while i searched for the gearbox 
Actrosman:
As i’ve said before, my Actros has a bad habit of cutting out if splitting half gear and braking at the same time with the revs above 900 so attention needs to be paid when behind the wheel…well, with most of our drivers being on holiday over the xmas period, we had to work xmas eve to get the work out so we were doing multi-drop…yes, 2 depots at night
You should not be driving it in that state!!! It’s obviously a hazard to other road users,and when the [zb] hits the fan it’ll fall back onto you.
Try this & see if it still does it:
Don’t touch the selector until you’re ready to enter the RAB (as indeed ofcourse you shouldn’t, brakes are for slowing, gears are for going)[unless ofcourse you’ve needed to crawl upto the RAB due to traffic], then split it & knock the selector back for it to pick its own gear all in one move.
Double post removed.
mine was about 2 weeks ago, coming over orwell bridge, when i braked it felt funny on the pedal, then on braking again somat major was wrong, heard all sorts of knocking,and unit shaking a little , managed to get in the layby at end of bridge, to find a brake missing but then noticed the traffic had stopped coming over the bridge,blue lites on bridge had stopped traffic to pick up stuff from the road , then suffolks finest pulled into the layby as the traffic started again and he said he had some of my brake in his car 
and made sure it was getting sorted then left me alone 
lets just say it was a 5p - 50p moment,
Scarab:
I was driving along a B road at 2am in 2005. Probably about 5 miles in any direction from any hamlet or civilisation of any sort and I see a pretty young girl with her dress in tatters frantically waving at the side of the road.I slow down and open my window, just taking off my seatbelt to get out and shout “you ok love?” at which she looks at me, smiles and then legs it through the bushes behind her. I decide something fishy is going on so put it into gear and start moving off, at the same time I look to my right and see two huge guys coming out of the hedge towards me with what looks like a crowbar and big pipe.
Obviously out nicking cars (or worse) I reported it to the police and they said that two people in the past week had been knifed for their cars along that road in the past month.
Shook me up for a long time after and I’ve not picked up a hitchhiker since!
see, you used your head but there are some people who have a deep heart would’ve got out and followed her
Some pretty horrible stories that people have had to deal with
Mine isn’t that bad but left me shaking. I was going west on the M4 between Maidenhead and Bracknell when I saw a car on the hardshoulder up ahead stationary with just it’s brake lights on, no hazards no signal nothing, I would of have got over into lane 2 having seen this but there was a truck already half way up my trailer overtaking along with other traffic up his arse. Anyway i kept it going as i had already seen cars in front go past it with no problems, about 100 yards from it, brake lights go off, signal comes on and pulls out from stationary… I slam on hard for about a second by which time I was right on him, evasive action on the hardshoulder and inside of him and back onto the carriage way. All over in less than 3 seconds, I didn’t even horn or light him up there was just zero time to do anything. It was so shocking that it was like he done it on purpose. How I missed him or even scraped him I do not know.
A good few years ago, near Maidenhead, following a school coach in the morning, from a side road a tractor with hay forks on the front was waiting to get on to the main road, he edged forward and as such the hay forks were now over the road, at the same time the coach was just passing him. He managed to take out every window and pillar at seating head height down the full length of the near side.
I was sure I would end up finding numerous decapitated kids, thankfully other then the odd cut no one seemed to be seriously hurt!!
Never found out what happened to the tractor driver, but I hope he got done for it!!
My worst one was when I was on agency, working for the dreaded MRS, and still a bit green on artics.
I had one of the regular night haul runs to Trafford Park then upto Preston to change trailers and back to Rushden, easy enough. Until one night we had high winds, now normally it wouldn’t bother me, but going over the Trafford Bridge on the 60 it got a bit hair raising. Empty curtainsider on a 15’6" trailer works well as a sail, and my arris started to eat the seat a bit as I could feel the wheels start to lift off the deck. Managed to get clear of there and started to head up the 61 towards Preston, when I hit the high bit the wind slammed into the side of the trailer once again and when I looked in the nearside mirror all 3 axles were 6" off the deck, so I backed it down to 45mph and they went back down. It was like that all the way up, with me absolutely bricking it and praying that she wouldn’t go over. Managed to get to Preston, and got told that I was lucky as one had gone over about 15mins after I got past the high spot on the 61 and not to worry that I had a loaded one to take back down.
Yeah loaded with 26 empty pallets that had to be returned on a PCV to Rushden. So I crawled it over the Thurwell with two tipper drivers, on the same firm, seeing I was uncomfortable in the seat as they got level with me. They got it along side me and literally gave me an ■■■■■■ over the bridge to stop the wind hitting me.
Needless to say I refused to go back to MRS under any circumstances, even when they offered me a full time position.
My scariest moment was back in the early 80’s, travelling up the M6 at 60mph in an empty Leyland Mastiff artic I got on to the bumps just before spagetti when there was an ear splitting bang and I was instantly blinded, coudn’t see the steering wheel, dashboard nothing. I knew the truck was still going at speed for a split second I had thought I was dead, I had to feel the n/side kerb on the hard shoulder with the wheels and brake hard, in another split second I could smell ether, my eyes and nose streaming I opened the window as I came to rest up against the wall. Yes the fitters had used it the day before and yes they had started it with easy start and thrown the can under the suspension seat !
Grayham:
Few years ago when I first started out I was doing skip work with an old P reg MAN skip loader. Coming down the B2110 Turners Hill into East Grinstead a little bit too fast on a wet day, pressed the brakes and it locked up, sliding across the road towards oncoming traffic
An empty tipper driver doing excactly that on catching traffic up as he rounded a left hand bend in the dark and rain almost completely took out my entire family 
This was on the A59 near Rufford in 1975.
My Father (driving a Triumph Dolomite we’d only had a few weeks) & Aunt were lucky to live. My Aunt (in the back) was unconscious for 2 - 3 days. Dad had life changing injuries, although thankfully not bad enough to prevent him leading a more or less normally active life. However the stress & trauma suffered was something else.
PLEASE DO NOT BRAKE LATE IN THE WET.
Driveroneuk:
Try this & see if it still does it:Don’t touch the selector until you’re ready to enter the RAB (as indeed ofcourse your shouldn’t, brakes are for slowing, gears are for going)[unless ofcourse you’ve needed to crawl upto the RAB due to traffic], then split it & knock the selector back for it to pick its own gear all in one move.
Tried everything…the biggest no-no is running in auto with the retarder on…the slightest touch on the brakes has the revs disappearing out through the floor as it looks for a gear…at top speed 
Merc’s reckon there is no fault as they cant get it to cut out (even though i e-mailed instructions ) The revs don’t just fade away, it’s like someone has reached in and turned it off at the key
Driving a DAF 2800 unit solo, returning from a service, around the St Albans by-pass A 414 North Orbital Road dual carriageway. Just accelerating away from London Colney Roundabout towards Hatfield, and overtaking a Ford hauling a sheeted load at about 40mph. I’m half way along his trailer when he suddenly veered towards me across the lane. I touched the brakes… and the back axle locked solid, and would not release for a couple of seconds. The unit skipped sideways, turning towards the curb. It just missed the back of his trailer, but came to rest, against the curb, on top of a motorcyclist who had broken down in front of the Ford. There was no way I could have seen him, or avoided him. His leg was trapped between my front steel bumper and the bikes’ split fuel tank. Petrol was soaking into his clothing. There was smoke. Managed to get the unit to back up a few inches to release him, before there was a fire.
When the unit was inspected, it was found that the rear axle brake load sensing valve had been ■■■■■■■ with chicken wire, possibly during brake testing. The bikers leg was smashed.
In the end I had to assume blame, otherwise the motorcyclist wouldn’t have got a full insurance pay-out.
The driver of the Ford artic, who could have stopped in that situation instead of carving me up, drove off.
Tone
jj72:
TheFan46:
you didn’t stop?Yeah, that’s the gist of it - not everywhere has a fair and even handed police and legal system like what we do
exactly, there was nothing I could have done to help the deceased but in a country where the norm for every policeman is utterly and thoroughly corrupt, I would have been up ■■■■ creek without a paddle, for something that wasn’t my fault nor would I have been able to help.
I remember a case years ago when romania wasn’t even close to being in the EU, an estonian driver ran over a dacia with 5 suicidal gypsies parked in a blind curve in the middle of the night with no lights on. he was sentenced to 15 years, released after only a year though.
I’ve had a few over the years but the one i remember most is the first one. I had just came up through Dundee and was on the A90 to Aberdeen and was trundelling up the hill at Claverhouse and coming towards me was a small rigid on the limit as he was heading south down the hill.
As we are about 300m from each other i could see that his load was a big drum of cable which he had lying on its side, then i saw the top part of the drum come off and land on the road running like a wheel, it hit the kerb on the offside and bounced over the crash barrier and was coming straight for me. it was still doing about 60mph and im on the brakes,it was still bouncing when it hit my nearside mirror pushing in the arm and breaking the glass.
Its feeling of being totally incapable of doing anything to influence the outcome thats terrifying
I’ll tell this tale as I think the driver who experienced it would have posted it up here if he could.
He was driving through Belfast. He pulled up at a red traffic light.
A machine gun started shooting right alongside his cab. He dived to the floor.
When the gun stopped he could hear car horns blaring behind him.
He cautiously lifted his head. The lights had turned green. Alongside his cab was a navvy digging a hole with a pneumatic drill.
RIP Colin Williams, who sadly died much later, still owing me £10!
Tone