i would ask him to provide a clean locked and not open to the non paying public shower area if its worth it il pay for a shower,the new service station at deeside chages 3 pound for a shower and last time i used it it was clean hot and powerfull,
but we need to stop some drivers spoiling it for others before we get what we want i hate to say it but sometimes the ones that spoil it for drivers are drivers,
i parked at bothwell the other week and got sausage and mash with the food voucher basicly it was smash 3 bangers and gravy that aint even bin mixed properly still had powder in it, shower looked like someone had just emptied a bucket of ■■■■■ in it and the whole place stank of ■■■■,
what,s wrong with the lot of you. while you lot are putting £25 in their pocket for for [shait] facilities they are not going to change a thing.you give your boss a £25 recipit for parking out of whitch you,ve had 80% off your meal. the only way to hurt them is don,t indicate left.
Full time shower cleaners.
You wouldn’t go to a hotel and expect to find a dirty shower !
My New years resolution will be to take pictures around our uk truckstops and publish them on the net to shame the buggers.
[/quote]
These consultants/designers just don`t get the truck driving community anyway, I can remember when M+S opened their place on the M40 @ Cherwell Valley, I put a visit in the first week of it opening, it was full of Truck drivers of all nationalities, all buying the food to go, all pretty nutrious stuff, all very healthy, and all these consultant types and M+S HQ bods were standing around mouth open, thinking “these are NOT the people we designed this place for”. PMSL
[/quote]
They tried BBQ 'ing everything at Cherwell Valley back in the spring! 
gogzy:
why dont they look at the european way of service stations,ok parking wont ever be free in the uk but make it cheaper…the autohofs in germany generally charge 5 euros a night to park.
also toilet facilites look at the sanifair toilets, self cleaning toilets after every use, their is a small charge usually to use them, 50 cents or so but they are clean.
Those sanifair toilets are something else, and you can use the voucher/reciept in the shop so their effectively free.
browncow2:
what,s wrong with the lot of you. while you lot are putting £25 in their pocket for for [shait] facilities they are not going to change a thing.you give your boss a £25 recipit for parking out of whitch you,ve had 80% off your meal. the only way to hurt them is don,t indicate left.
Would be intresting to do a poll to see how many of us do. In my 12 years driving I can count on one hand the amount of times vie paid for parking, even when working for companies that will pay I refuse to park in these crappy places.
Muckaway:
These consultants/designers just dont get the truck driving community anyway, I can remember when M+S opened their place on the M40 @ Cherwell Valley, I put a visit in the first week of it opening, it was full of Truck drivers of all nationalities, all buying the food to go, all pretty nutrious stuff, all very healthy, and all these consultant types and M+S HQ bods were standing around mouth open, thinking "these are NOT the people we designed this place for". PMSL [/quote] They tried BBQ 'ing everything at Cherwell Valley back in the spring! :smiley: [/quote] They tried to run before they could walk, Nandos was never going to work on there 
switchlogic:
browncow2:
what,s wrong with the lot of you. while you lot are putting £25 in their pocket for for [shait] facilities they are not going to change a thing.you give your boss a £25 recipit for parking out of whitch you,ve had 80% off your meal. the only way to hurt them is don,t indicate left.Would be intresting to do a poll to see how many of us do. In my 12 years driving I can count on one hand the amount of times vie paid for parking, even when working for companies that will pay I refuse to park in these crappy places.
x2
Stop charity muggers from bothering me everytime I walk through the door! I’ve driven for 4 and a half hours, done a half mile trek from the lorrypark to the main building in the pouring rain, dodging free-range truckers tizer only to hear a “good morning have you heard of save the (whatever).”
Affordable food, to go. Bin this ancient idea of walking along a food counter with a badly washed tray, bits of crusty food still stuck to the cheap plates, picking stuff that has been sat out under a hot lamp for 3-4 hours and people having been poking at.
I want to be able to buy a bottled drink, sandwich, bag of crisps for under a fiver. And fast.
Not having to fight through crowds of the proletariat, would be nice as well. I.e. exclusive drivers area, but this is a complete pipe dream.
More than 1 or 2 showers, pay per use (not a lot, just a token gesture) with regular checks by cleaners and security. Tired of seeing out or order or busted up shower cubicles.
Be nice to park somewhere that didn’t stink of ■■■■, and procedures in place to occasionally jet wash the truck park would be good. But I feel it’s a moot point, as the audience of this forum, nowhere near represents the outlook of your average truck driver, and until you start changing the attitude that its ok to ■■■■ up your tyre and throw your rubbish (including feces, yup i’ve seen and smelled it in motorway services, dirty sods) under the trailer, then we are still going to have the same problems.
As things stand I wouldn’t even entertain the idea of the spending the night in a motorway services, regardless of circumstances. Ignoring the ridiculous half a days wages prices for the moment. I want to be able to park somewhere that means I can have the window open without smelling ■■■■ when I go to sleep and wake up.
Anyone else make the leap from the bottom step, to try and get out of the parking box and make sure you are clear of it?
Yeah, thats a fun game, not.
Better food for a start and a lounge area for drivers which I would ask to be licensed. On my point about better food get rid of these burger king and make there outlets provide a healthy option, I may start parking on services if my points were followed. Then again I can always dream. 
They used to have a Drivers only area on the Medway services but it went a long time ago. They could reinstate them in all services areas but this time with showers that you pay for!!
Looking at the posts most would pay for a ‘Decent’ shower, but the overiding thing is that this is just , once again just a publicity excercise, the sooner Roadchef get taken over by Tosco M&S or any other supermarket the better. These people really do value the customer.
Just a thing about the showers yes they are frequently broken or u/s and yes what a surprise it’s drivers who have broke them well it’s only drivers that use them and that’s 24/7!!! So they will get busted as they are used far far more than the one in your house.
Will, enjoy your free lunch because thats all it will be, you have been in the Industry a long time and you know as well as the other Drivers on here it’s a load of Bollox!!! Because NOTHING will be done. It looks like ‘Lets Tart it up and Sell it’…■■
newmercman:
Ask him he’s wasting your time, with what amounts to a PR exercise and a chance to get out for a lunch on expenses?He’ll come out with a load of bollox about how his dad/uncle/grandad was a lorry driver and he’s aware of the problems we face blah blah blah, then he’ll shoot off for his next interview with Coach and Driver magazine and tell them that he’s doing his best to ban lorries from MSAs and that he values the coach business as his dad/uncle/grandad was a coach driver
Every year the MSAs make millions of pounds by charging for overnight parking, even though all they provide is a ■■■■ soaked piece of tarmac, will they eat into those profits to make lorry driver’s lives a little better by offering decent facilities that will cost them money? No, I don’t think so
This^
Don’t bother wasting your time folks. Nothing will change except parking prices will go up.
As another poster mentioned, power wash the lorry park now & again.
Seperate shower & toilet block near Lorry Park.
Properly laid, concreted parking area instead of soft tarmac that trucks sink into in hot weather creating ruts & holes which then fill up with pee & rain water.
In nigh on 20 yrs of part time driving often doing nights out, I think I’ve parked in MSA’s 3 times.
I never buy food or hot drinks, except for in franchised food outlets, because its just far too expensive.
For those who do buy meals etc. there, just remember you’re like as not spending over an hours pay in 2 minutes.
As for drivers vandalising showers: easy remedy take name & licence no. from d. license. Do not return truck keys until shower inspected.
£3 ridiculous. £1 is more than enough. At £3 they should be providing soft fluffy clean towels!
As someone else mentioned, those of us savvy enough to have been interested & smart enough to learn how to use a pc/the net, are not typically representative of the lorry driving community - unfortunalety!
Why do you make £2 profit on a packet of ■■■■?
gogzy:
also toilet facilites look at the sanifair toilets, self cleaning toilets after every use, their is a small charge usually to use them, 50 cents or so but they are clean.
And for that 50c you get a coupon you can use in any participating services. So you go to the toilet four times and you have free coffe (as it’s up to 5 coupons on transaction or so).
Most of the above, plus:
- redesign these MSA’s where there is a “give way” to the road coming from sharp left. How on earh I can see if someone is coming from there from the right seat of my RHD van/truck?
- van parking bays. This is annoying. I can’t use car park, as my van is too big for it, and even if I take two places, there are always some idiots parking their cars next to me and then I am ■■■■■■, as due to the size of most of these car parks, I can make turn wide enough to avoid them (how good is that most of the people do not stay there longer that necessary). I can’t use coach bays, as I will be ticketed for it, and I am not really keen to use truck park, as it’s not enough spaces for truck already, without me taking the whole parking lot with a sprinter
WildGoose:
Affordable food, to go. Bin this ancient idea of walking along a food counter with a badly washed tray, bits of crusty food still stuck to the cheap plates, picking stuff that has been sat out under a hot lamp for 3-4 hours and people having been poking at.I want to be able to buy a bottled drink, sandwich, bag of crisps for under a fiver. And fast.
Not having to fight through crowds of the proletariat, would be nice as well. I.e. exclusive drivers area, but this is a complete pipe dream.
More than 1 or 2 showers, pay per use (not a lot, just a token gesture) with regular checks by cleaners and security. Tired of seeing out or order or busted up shower cubicles.
Be nice to park somewhere that didn’t stink of ■■■■, and procedures in place to occasionally jet wash the truck park would be good. But I feel it’s a moot point, as the audience of this forum, nowhere near represents the outlook of your average truck driver, and until you start changing the attitude that its ok to ■■■■ up your tyre and throw your rubbish (including feces, yup i’ve seen and smelled it in motorway services, dirty sods) under the trailer, then we are still going to have the same problems.
As things stand I wouldn’t even entertain the idea of the spending the night in a motorway services, regardless of circumstances. Ignoring the ridiculous half a days wages prices for the moment. I want to be able to park somewhere that means I can have the window open without smelling ■■■■ when I go to sleep and wake up.
Anyone else make the leap from the bottom step, to try and get out of the parking box and make sure you are clear of it?
Yeah, thats a fun game, not.
Well said that man/goose…
Your dead right about this forum and its representation, there are thousands out there, who have never heard of this site, have never read a magazine about our industry, and, there are some, I kid you not, who could`nt tell an Eddie from a Norbert. 
The “■■■■ up the tyre” brigade [on the services] dont really care about anyone or anything, a bit like those who leave a drive in MaccyDs looking like a landfill site, because they cant be bothered to get out of their car, and put their mess in the MANY bins that are provided very near to where they are parked 
Food to go is essential, clean and working showers, security whilst you are having a shower or buying your scran, and affordable prices PLEASE 
Deepinvet:
They used to have a Drivers only area on the Medway services but it went a long time ago. They could reinstate them in all services areas but this time with showers that you pay for!!
Looking at the posts most would pay for a ‘Decent’ shower, but the overiding thing is that this is just , once again just a publicity excercise, the sooner Roadchef get taken over by Tosco M&S or any other supermarket the better. These people really do value the customer.Just a thing about the showers yes they are frequently broken or u/s and yes what a surprise it’s drivers who have broke them well it’s only drivers that use them and that’s 24/7!!! So they will get busted as they are used far far more than the one in your house.
Will, enjoy your free lunch because thats all it will be, you have been in the Industry a long time and you know as well as the other Drivers on here it’s a load of Bollox!!! Because NOTHING will be done. It looks like ‘Lets Tart it up and Sell it’…■■
That`s an idea and a half mate, regarding Tosco or M+S or Morrisons taking over a service area or two, they get a captive market, they gets the fuel sales, we get customer service
Tosco certainly have the cash to finance this venture 
- how much are roadchef making from the macdonalds deal ? as one of our fellow drivers has already worked out over a yearly income for us to park (nice little earner) i must say. 2) they are going to install " modern hot food counters" so there taking out the old cocroach infested ones, to put new ones in well were the lucky one’s .No because none of what they are planning to up date will have the slightest frigg to do with us driver’s
.mr simon turl" me thinks" can’t wait for the free ride he’s getting out of truck & driver.When any msa can sit you down in a nice comfy seat 
relaxed area and have someone come over take your order,then go give that order to a" CHEF" and cook good" FRESH FOOD".then mr turl might get the results the roadchef group are looking for.why must the british driver alway’s come second-best