Worried about my new T!

[scottyw33]

Imagine being transported in a cement mixer for hours at a time, over & over again. I would imagine it is an extremely similar experience.

I used to drive HGV's & have done many what are called trunk runs. These are nighttime runs between local delivery depots & regional hubs. Local parcels are collected & then sent to the hub. Each local truck delivers, then waits for all the parcels for your area to be sorted & loaded so you can return with tomorrows deliveries. In the UK a hub normally covers an area of about 4.5 hours driving in all direction. As here, 9 hours is the maximum that an HGV driver can drive for per day, (24 hour period.)

I have seen packages marked fragile used as a step. Or placed at the bottom of a big pile. I have seen trucks loaded floor to ceiling, with no order, or care, beyond fitting them all in. Now add in that as a night trunk driver your main job is to get a load to & from that depot within your legally allowed driving limit, regardless of things like fog, ice, roadworks, speed limits etc etc. And yes, some companies are slightly better than others. But all are very similar.

Ever ridden in a trailer? The suspension is not great. A truck driver has air suspension on his seat. Your T will have a bare floor & tons of other parcels around it. 4.5 hours at 58mph in a trailer is not a pleasant journey. As an HGV driver my role was to get the load there & back. Thus my driving was very different to when I did bus & coach work. Heavy breaking & pushing through corners is fine, as long as I get there & back in 4.5 hours & don't damage the truck. Now double that 4.5 hours for the return journey & then add the hours that the parcel spends in a van after being collected. Plus the hours in a van as it is delivered.

Now imagine the above whilst you are in a container with substrate constantly moving around you.

Jeeze yea, that’s not good! Glad that didn’t happen in my case. I’m sorry that happened to you and your wife.