#ThrowbackThursday; Where It All Began….

 #ThrowbackThursday - So if you’ve followed me for long you will already know I’ve had a rather ridiculous career working for every man and his dog, driving everything from vans to rigids to artics to drawbars to buses and coaches. I’m really proud of my bonkers career, it’s been absolutely amazing! But, my driving career didn’t start on the road, it started on a landfill, in a Moxy!

For pretty my whole childhood Dad was a mechanic who drove on the side. I used to spend lots of time with him, going away in lorries or spending the weekend with him in the workshop. One job he had was for a local plant hire company and this was one of the best as back in those days when no one really cared much about H&S, I got to drive and play with machines in the yard. It got to point where I could lift engines and axles etc with pinpoint precision with the mini digger, helping Pops. Can’t dig a hole to save my life tho! One day one of the bosses saw me gently lifting the engine back into a Moxy (the used Scania engines) and said ‘do you want a summer job?’……so I said yes thinking it would just mean being paid for what I already did, helping Dad in yard. But oh no, no no no it wasn’t that!

The job was driving a Moxy dump truck on Haverfordwest landfill. Go down with all the other drivers/operators in a van, nearly suffocating in a van where I was only non smoker, spend day having fun in mud, go home. I loved it, was great fun, even more so because I was 14! So yeah that was the start of my own long varied driving career. It’s nothing if not bonkers.

The reason it came to mind is I’ve  been writing a Health & Safety dcpc course. Was watching a video where a truck was stuck fast and it horrified me how people were casually ambling around a cable under huge pressure. DON'T DO IT! On this job bin lorries had to often be towed out of the rubbish by the compactor. I was stood watching one day when the cable snapped. It passed so close I could feel the air move. I remember the noise to this day. Chilling. It had capability to kill me dead. Cables and chains under huge strain can. Less so fabric straps but they can still cause damage. So two things I’m making a point of in my course is that and tyres. How many times have you seen people poking damaged tyres with a screwdriver or keys to see how deep it is. DONT. DO. THIS. EITHER. A truck tyre bursting next to you would probably kill you more often than not. Just look how much damage they do to trucks when they blow, ripping wings and panels off.

Anyway if you have any H&S topics I should put in course let me know. Stuff like that. Have a great rest of day all