When did the 'old days' end?

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
41

When the 10hr driving, 11hr duty, spread over a 12 & half hour day finished. Oh!!..and they stopped making horse hair seats. :open_mouth:

Dave

42

nowtelse2do:
When the 10hr driving, 11hr duty, spread over a 12 & half hour day finished. Oh!!..and they stopped making horse hair seats. :open_mouth: Dave

AKA 1984 :grimacing:

43

when analogues went out,technical equipment came in,thats when it happened,thats when real lorry driving went out the window,modern trucks are nice but I watched an episode of the Sweeney today and in the episode was a 18 tonne ford d series,i thought look at that a real motor

44

Muckaway:
Generally speaking when the large family firms were taken over by logistics companies.
To me personally, when trackers were fitted, EPIC cards were required, the wearing of hi viz from head to foot, requirement to wear safety glasses to walk to a weighbridge, not being allowed to climb on your tipper or trailer, and fellow drivers just dying to grass you up for not sheeting etc.

+1

45

truckman020:
when analogues went out,technical equipment came in,thats when it happened,thats when real lorry driving went out the window,modern trucks are nice but I watched an episode of the Sweeney today and in the episode was a 18 tonne ford d series,i thought look at that a real motor

Probably a 16 ton in the old days. :laughing:

46

The “good aul days” ended for me when I left High School and had to work for a living!!!

47

Tips being ■■■■ about having stuff sorted

“We’ll have to charge for that load, there’s a barrowfull of soil in that ■■■■■■■■.”
“No topsoil allowed in the muck, the grass seeds in it give off methane.”
“Tree roots (as thick as shoelaces) in that, can’t tip here, no green waste.”
“No waste code on your ticket, Drive.”
Having to put full site address, postcode, digger drivers inside leg measurements etc on muck tickets. This nonsense only benefits the tip operators sales department so they can nick your work. Unless of course you put somewhere random (or made up) in the town your working so it sounds plausible. :wink:
Thankfully, we find farmers for free tips for our screener rejects. They never turn down a free lad of ■■■■■■■■. :wink:

48

ok so having spent most of my childhood in a truck with my old man in the 80’s before driving them from the 90’s, I would say that the end of the 90’s became the start of the death of what I would class as the old days.

too much pressure now with what time are you going to be there, or even worse just looked at your tracker and why are you stopped etc.

technology has allowed us to become one of the most spied on industries in the uk ( driver facing cams/forward facing cams/trackers etc.) which due to the fact you couldn’t get drivers at a single depot to stick together yet alone as a country will only become worse.

yes the cabs are bigger/more powerful/easier to drive but by god give me a twin split or a fuller and a bit of freedom to think and plan my own day over any super mega high cube xxl topline auto any day.

49

I am still in the olden days every time I get in my wagon it’s so old :laughing:

50

Well it certainly finished before 1985 when I started driving.
Listening to my older colleagues making a delivery from Derby to Birmingham start at 6 three hours in Oakamore café then deliver load bricks then all meet back at Oakamore back to yard reload for next day finished at 4.Proper days work.

51

When they stopped using drivers log books and introduced tachographs. You couldn’t hide a second tachograph on the vehicle, nor learn the creative accounting that was part of using log books.

52

All the older drivers talked about the good old days. Blokes were talking about the good old days when I started in the late 1960’s.
Every generation get nostalgic about the good old days. Most remember the good times, but forget the bad times. You could get a driving job, just about anywhere in the late 60’s, and it was graft, because it was handball, with roping and sheeting. No mobile phones, if you broke down, a long walk to a phone box, or hitch a lift with another driver to get to the phone.
The young drivers of today will reminisce about the good old days in 50 years time. :laughing:

53

Kenny1975:
when you see younger generation especially a bunch of them sitting in a pub no one talking everyone staring at a phone screen.

They’re all talking to each other


Weird thing I’ve found is ‘best friends’ of the younger generation don’t even have each others phone numbers, they rely on Facebook to get hold of each other.
My daughter was in the car the other day and was stressing because someone she has known, and knocks about with daily wasn’t answering her messages so I naturally said “Phone her ffs
”
“Not got her number”

Turns out nobody phones anymore, if you’re not available on Facebook then you’re sleeping, busy, in trouble with the parents/police etc or dead (I can count over 20 of my daughters friends that have died over the last 10 years :S).

54

Like Dave the Renegade said; it was graft because it was handball with roping and sheeting with no mobiles, trackers,etc. But there was less traffic, less pressure, no 12 year old telling you how to do your job, no court of enquiry by said 12 year old because you’d dropped a clanger somewhere, just a bollocking from a bloke that had been there, done that. Power steering, air conditioning, what’s that. I’m not sure when those days ended because I was out here by then and driving things like the old tonka toy volvo and sometimes a dodge with a sodding great v8 petrol engine. You normally started off in the biggest old banger they could find. If you could drive that, you could drive anything. I’d go back to those days, including the hard times, and coming out here was like stepping back in time, so I’ve got the drop on you lot. :slight_smile:

55

I’ve heard a lot of old hands say they’d go back to the old days, but like my boss said, if I gave you an f10, the nostalgia will be nice for 10 minutes, but you’ll turn around at the 127 :wink:

56

OVLOV JAY:
I’ve heard a lot of old hands say they’d go back to the old days, but like my boss said, if I gave you an f10, the nostalgia will be nice for 10 minutes, but you’ll turn around at the 127 :wink:

It’s what we were brought up on. Gardner 180’s and 240’s, some with clutches that you had to stand on, underpowered Leylands throwing con rods out through the side, supposedly hgv’s with air or vacuum over hydraulic, draughts all over the place, heater if you was lucky, ropes and sheets or chains and dogs. Handballing on and off with 8,000 bricks or boxes of welding rods etc.

I’m under no illusion about what I call the old days, but the world was a nicer place. No mobiles, no trackers, no pimply yoof planning (read disrupting) your day, no tacho’s, no speed limiters, no one getting on your back because you’ve pulled over for a cuppa because you’re at one minute before your break. Nah, with all it’s drawbacks, I’d still go back
 if I was still young and fit. :slight_smile:

57

when the 12 and an half spreadover went

58

peterm:

OVLOV JAY:
I’ve heard a lot of old hands say they’d go back to the old days, but like my boss said, if I gave you an f10, the nostalgia will be nice for 10 minutes, but you’ll turn around at the 127 :wink:

It’s what we were brought up on. Gardner 180’s and 240’s, some with clutches that you had to stand on, underpowered Leylands throwing con rods out through the side, supposedly hgv’s with air or vacuum over hydraulic, draughts all over the place, heater if you was lucky, ropes and sheets or chains and dogs. Handballing on and off with 8,000 bricks or boxes of welding rods etc.

I’m under no illusion about what I call the old days, but the world was a nicer place. No mobiles, no trackers, no pimply yoof planning (read disrupting) your day, no tacho’s, no speed limiters, no one getting on your back because you’ve pulled over for a cuppa because you’re at one minute before your break. Nah, with all it’s drawbacks, I’d still go back
 if I was still young and fit. :slight_smile:

Yup, and we all survived without a hivis between us.

I’d give me eye teeth for a proper lorry again to see me time out in, so long as it was British, had a 14 litre ■■■■■■■■ Jacob Brake, an Eaton Fuller box and a Rockwell axle, bliss.

59

The good old days ended when we became micro managed by people with limited knowledge and experience in the industry unfortunately its only going to get worse ! were all doomed as frazer might say

60

When there was less traffic on the roads and potholes weren’t so commonplace. Oh, and when white lines/markings were white lines and not ghostly images