madtrucker

Why is it that I always have "good intentions" to make use of any free time I get and never seem to be able to follow through on them ??

Foe example, I had good intentions to get out and about this morning and do some shopping and look at some cars as I have been thinking of buying a new one. These good intentions turned into waking up at 3am and not being able to get back to sleep. ( 3am is my normal wake up time for work) This was followed by surfing the net for a while so at least I managed to look at some cars .. then I thought I would have a "sit" on the sofa and watch the rubiish morning TV .. the sun was shinning through the window and it was going to be a nice morning to be out

The "sit" turned into a sleep and morning into afternoon and the sunshine into rain and hail and all plans and intentions went out the window.. Guess I am what they call more an "ideas " type than the action type..lol..lol I often wish someone would put me up for one of those home make over shows so that all the great ideas I have would one day get done around here..lol..lol

Well there is always another day and more " great intentions " to come up with and you never know tomorrow might be the day I actually follow through on one or two

One of the worst things about my job is that I have to be up very early most mornings ( around 3 or 4am ) so find it almost impossible to not wake up early at the weekends the curse of the early morning worker lol..

I am not a massive sports fan, I have no interest in football, but I do love to watch Rugby and motorsport, mainly F1, so this weekend has been taken up with watching the final games of the Six Nations Rugby and a bonus to not being able to lay in at the weekend I watched the F1 race from Oz this morning in real time

It was great to see England turn up for the game against Ireland, shame they did not do the same last weekend against Scotland and well done to Wales beating France and winning the title and the Grandslam !! England played very poorly this year only really playing the game we know they have against France and Ireland but Wales were head and shoulders above the rest and have a deserved title win.

Big thanks go out to the F1 organisers for taking aways some of the toys the drivers have enjoyed over recent years such as traction control and made the drivers have to work for a living to race the cars instead of just being there to steer the car around the track

For those unsure of what I speak about, over the past years technoligy has taken over many of the skills the old time race drivers had to have. The modern cars had traction control to make it easier to use the massive power of the cars without losing control and launch controls to make getting the car off the start line without spinning the wheels and many other driver aids to make the drivers job so much easier and making the car more the star than the driver in it in my opinion.

So what for the rest of Sunday ??? well a singl mans work is never done lol. so I have laundry and cleaning to do ( yes men can do such things on their own ) and as the weather is rubbish I will be happy to be inside for the day and can even watch the replay of the Grand Prix later hope Lewis Hamilton wins again lol..lol

Hello again Blogland !!

I have no idea what to say most of the time as you might have noticed with the lack of blogs !!

There is so much going on around me in this world of ours that I get so mad and then do not know where to start.

I have had a very very long week at work ( almost 70 hours )and it would seem "care in the community" for the mentally ill does extend to the roads of our fair country lol..lol I am still amazed daily at just how bad the standards of driving is and believe me its getting worse !!! Driving a truck for a living is bad enough with the amount of hassle we get from the job without other road user's seemingly not able to see us or using us for target practise. I could have written off at least 20 cars/vans this week sending their drivers to hospital or worse had I not taken avoiding actions such as slamming my brakes on which is not an easy or safe thing to do in a 44 ton truck.

No wonder that HGV truck driving is in the top 3 most stressed jobs in the UK.

Then we have our wonderful government having their budget statement on Wednesday.

Once again hammering the common folk and handing all the good things in live to those with the money which seem's increasingly to be those in our government with daily outing of our politions and the way they are stealing money from us using their " expense's" to feather their nests. Now we find out that they can claim not only for a second home but for everything they put in that "second" home !! such as £10,000 for a kitchen and having to penny pinch with mere £300 for a rug, each that is !!! You know I think its the least we can do for these poor people that we force into becoming politions, hey !! maybe we should extend this process to all workers that have to commute to work I am sure I could find a place in whatever home I have for a £750 TV or £750 music system such as our beloved polititions can claim for.

As for the budget, well lets see what our party of the common people did for us all. Beer and wine etc up in tax, smoking up in tax, nice cars up in tax, holiday flights up in tax in fact all the things we work hard for as working class people is being put further and further out of our reach and that does not include all the high prices we have now on food and home energy stuff such as gas and electricity.

So its no longer worth working your socks off to get that nice big car of your dreams as you might be able to buy it some day but you will not be able to afford to run it afterwards unless you are one to the rich that support the government with their money and get tax breaks for doing so and are not effected by fuel and road tax increases. The same goes for all the other things fun in life like a good night out and maybe a nice holiday. So who are those in parliment really looking out for as its not the common man as we are the one's being hammered by one tax after another on the every day things we need just to live.

You know I would not mind if we saw something back for all the money that is being ripped from our pay packets and pockets other than reading how those doing it are living the high life claiming massive amounts of our money for themselves for a job the asked to do !! now we know why as they have to do very little whilst making a fortune and then when they are finished doing that they get a pension that would support half a dozen pensioners and all for maybe 5 years in parliment.

I have been reminded again this week of just how lazy we all are here in the UK when it comes to other languages.

We all love our holiday's and chatting to people around the globe on the net as long as we can do it and still speak English !! ( No talking louder and slowly in English does not count as another language ) and of course we expect on the whole to have "British " food and drink to hand.

I think we owe alot of our laziness to history, the "British Empire" etc where we used to "rule" half the world or maybe other parts of history like the two World Wars where the bad guys spoke German and the good guys largely English ( yes American counts as English ) The rest I would put down to TV !! most of the good TV programmes around the world are in English so there is a good incentive for the kids to learn and I think learning from your favorite TV programme has to be better than the French lesson's I had a school.

Cyclists !! ("every truck driver should have one to aim at") There was a radio programme this week with some moron of a cyclist say that truck drivers should have lesson on a bike as part of their driving test to make them more aware of cyclists problems on our roads.

Let see here. As a class one truck driver I had to sit a car driving test, a class two truck driving test and finally a class one driving test to get to where I am now. Every company I have driven for I have had to take a driving test both written and on the road to be able to drive for that company. The last time I looked all I had to do was buy a bike to become a cyclist ??

Lets look at this another way.

The truck I drive is nearly 9 feet wide and 14 feet high and pulls a 45 foot trailer behind it. It has lights and even flashing things called "indicators" to let other road users know what it wants to do, so I think you will agree its a bit hard to miss when its out on the road.

A cyclist is what, between 4 and 6 feet high ? maybe a couple of feet wide, sometimes has lights on it and requires you to be a mind reader most of the time to stand any chance of knowing what they will do next !!

So who do you think is easier to see ?? the trucks on the roads or the cyclists ?? and who is the easier to avoid ??? Enough said I think .. if you can clearly see something that can easily kill you why would you want to mess with it by riding up its blind side or trying to "slip" past it as it tries to turn left ??