As rightly cited it was completely different times, the foreign traffic police took a while to work it out and when they did it was the done thing to pay them coffee money or a box of Marlboro, Camel or Ducados cigarettes from the duty free bought on the ferry.
Yep they were as bent as the drivers.
The Eastern European companies and their drivers decimated the international haulage industry, they cut the job up, it forced European drivers to end up loosing their jobs for the EE drivers to take home about 600 to 800 euros per month compared to a Spanish driver that was on 2200 euros or more per month.
My former company expected me to be shipping out via Dieppe and to be in Lisbon in one day and a half, this was impossible to do legally, the normal time would be about 4 days due to the poor road infrastructure in a poor country.
Hence the crucifix’s on the side of the road for dead drivers that fell asleep at the wheel.
PC Angus Nairn was a poacher turned gamekeeper as a former owner driver who knew all the tricks drivers pulled.
You may remember the large company called Willi Betz, a substantial and very large fleet with approximately thousands of lorries on the roads of UK, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, North Africa and anywhere else they would be operating to.
Then came along a big company from Hungary called Waberers.
Follow the sun face on the rear of their trailer doors.
I once took out the paper disc analogue tacho and drove for about 3 hours without it, got a tug or a pull by the Gendarmerie, the court deposit was about £50 for the offence of not having one as they could not prove the excess driving time as there was no evidence of that.
On another confession, I didn’t put one in departing Cherbourg but did put one in later on, the missing mileage issue, got a tug in the Basque Country, the traffic cop was adamant that something didn’t add up as he did the same journey in his caravan, I pretended not to have any money to pay him as before he pulled me I threw some broken glass in the passenger footwell to make out some thief had broken in and stolen my cash, by smashing the passenger window,the fuse for the electric window was removed beforehand.
Imaginative excuses for failure, from a workshy young Carryfast are not relevant in modern times. You have never done a job where creative accounting with driving hours was a thing. All you ever did was basic, sleep in your own bed, repetitive set run work.
But you found the time to have lunch with the mayors daughter
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Must have been pretty late in Europe driving, i remember early 90s and they hadn’t a clue how to read a tachograph
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Ahhhhh ! of course yeah. 
I’m usually on the ball.
Welcome back Tobes.
You are right, they didn’t know, some used a plastic tool that was round with a slider in it.
The Mayor’s daughter is up the duff with a bun in the oven.
Just do the ‘Shaggy’ thing Tobes (very apt btw. )
‘‘It wussnt me’’.
I just do a Manuel from Fawlty Towers and say “Que, I am from Barcelona!”
Or blame the milkman who delivers more than milk.
Obviously all of those, don’t want the job drivers, that the topic is referring to, agree with me not you.You might have missed it but it ain’t about me.
I actually battled with the ‘experience’ issue and did the job and stuck at it for decades.
Decades?
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7.5t 1977-80, class 2 ( when it meant class 2 not 3 ) ‘80-85’, class 1 '85-99 is decades.
I didn’t run away whingeing about the hours or the money within the first week.As I said 1 hour working inside was like 2 or 3 when watching the clock every 5 minutes waiting for lunch time and hometime.
So deduct the time spent in Tonka toys and your left with less than a decade and a half. Nonetheless, you never progressed past basic, out and back, go home to bed, type work. Your range of experience is extremely limited.
Most drivers who wanted to broaden their experience and extend their range do so by five years. Your failure to move up from the bottom rung speaks volumes.
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