It may be different now, with different roads and bigger trucks, but I doubt if there's a real fundamental change from my youth forty-plus years ago when I did a lot of hitching and travelled in many trucks.
Of course the drivers were very varied. Many were taciturn. Anyway much conversation was tiring because the noise level was high. Nearly to a man though - they were all men I'm afraid Pat - they had a responsible attitude to their work and other road users and were careful, canny, often quite rapid drivers. Some in fact were downright sporting (freewheeling well over the governed maximum of their steeds).
There are so many vehicles of every sort these days, it must be a bit different. Lorries must be a lot more user-friendly too, quiet and with power steering and potentially quite fast. But no employer with half a brain is going to put n grand's worth of truck with their name on it and n grand's worth of cargo in the hands of some dodgy twerp. Stands to reason squire dunnit?
My life, and certainly my car were saved once on the A34 by the quick thinking and amazing awareness of what was coming at him from behind far too fast in the rain and darkness (I freely admit although it was an honest mistake on my part rather than sheer recklessness) by aborting his emergence from a layby and bounding his heavily loaded truck over the high bumpy verge, I saw out of the corner of my eye, and heard, as I squeezed past braking as heavily as I dared... Wanted to stop and thank him, but thought better not.
I posted this story on HJ once and Zero under one of his multifarious aliases argued that the lorry driver had nearly caused the accident. But he hadn't. It was me and the A34 evening eager beaver commuters going even faster than me, between us. The man saved my bum and I thank him again.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Fri 19 Mar 10 at 01:44
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