That driver did a sterling job. Skipton is a part of two local HGV test routes and was chosen specifically for its narrow roads and tight bends. I passed my class 2 and class 1 there.
Well said 01mogwai I'd love to meet some of these road planners myself face-to-face!!! And I only have a bike and car licence....but like you say, the roads, poxy blobs of paint for roundabouts, traffic light postitioning, street "furniture" is ALL BOLLOCKS!!
I ended up here yesterday cos the black signs directing HGVs to Engine Shed Lane fail to mention the 13 foot bridge that I can't get under, this driver did a great job getting out, I bottled it and went up another road and spun round, hats off to him I say. Call me stupid all you like I've been in the game 25 years driving all over the UK and Western Europe, and I've heard it all. I still get into situations I wish I hadn't as experienced as I am I'm not afraid to admit it!!
A market town in Yorkshire on a weekday = use the bypass that was built for larger vehicles. I would suggest that there is nowhere in the town where he was delivering and his satnav took him on this route as the "shortest route". Shame he didn't demolish the stupid roundabout, it annoys me everyday and I drive something considerably smaller.
As a lorry driver myself,i think he did a great job getting round there. If the roads arent able to take hgv traffic,there should be signs saying so,then this would be easily avoided. Truth is,this happens everyday in every town,city and vilage. Thats how you get food on the shelf in your supermarkets,settees in your furniture stores,widescreen tv in your electrical shops.FACT.
Well, this video has shown me one thing: when I go on my working holiday to the UK next year, I will not consider truck driving for work. Australian cities are bad enough; that looks like a bloody nightmare. Definitely a round of applause for the driver though! I'll stick with my road-trains, thanks!
@alleymog have to agree , good driving to get that through . Must have been the most exciting thing to have happened in that town for years or something !
I am on the side of the truck driver here. Skipton is a beautiful but very old town. It was not built for today's transport. The driver did pretty well so far as I can see. I think he did a good job and is getting criticism from a completely unknowlegeable bunch of people who have never driven a lorry in their lives.
My fella is a truck driver, he takes me out with him most weeks, I can't see anything wrong here. Skipton is a very old and historic market town that most of the commentators won't have ever heard of or been to. Narrow streets going back to medieval times still exist. The driver did well to negotiate round.
I drive an 18 wheeler in the US. Looked to me like he did a great job getting through a very tight and small space with out hitting anything. Despite the impatient people that wouldn't get out of his way! Where was this at, city and country?
I can sympathise with the driver. not every delivery is just off a motorway junction- and times like this is where you earn your money and why its not "Just sat there steering" like many think it is.
As someone who has a licence to drive trucks of different sizes all I can say is that I am glad I do nto have to drive in these sort of towns, with very narrow streets and streets that have not been planned properly for delivery trucks.
I'm a class 1 driver of 20 years experience and I can say that this driver should have known if he would make the turn just by looking at the situation in hand. Why couldn't he find a suitable turning place ?
Skipton little market town in Yorkshire, England , pain in the arse to get around in anything bigger than a car with all weight limits and tight turns and very rarely anyone lets you out
Councils love putting in these high kerbed mini roundabouts in everywhere, but the driver still didn't damage it, so fairplay to him, but can you count how many helpfull skipton town folk offered to help him
I know Skipton very well, I am also a wagon driver, and Skipton is used by almost every local hgv instructor because of its tight turns, so credit to the driver, and not the prat who doesn't. Know what there looking at
I have been a long haul truck driver for 32 years ( artic ) , i fail to see what he / she has done wrong .......it got round did it not ? People who can not drive an HGV have got no idea how much room this kind of truck needs .. 7.5 tons weight limit or not , you can use this road in artic for access / delivery . I deliver to shops in places like this so i know what kind of shit we have to put up with from the public, so why , why can the public not give us truckers a break ...
@cpmisalive ,I agree 100% with you. Excellent piece of driving . Daft mini roundabouts and model villages with tiny little lanes and not a thought for the HGV Driver who has to try and put up if wan**rs like town planners and councillors and there endless dodo ideas and then listen to them whinging when those vital deliveries are not on time in Supermarkets and electrical stores and garden centres and the bloody rest of them . Yep i'm another driver who feels we are not given any credit!
Dam right George. I been driving class 1's for 6 years and it bugs me how low people think of us. 14 hour days no social life and trying to negotiate some really awkward drops with poeple tooting thier horn up your rear end. Good speech mate now go tell Boris Johnson haha.
Put the mutant that's behind the camera behind the wheel of the truck!!!! See how they fair then??? They won't be so quick to take the piss then, will they? The driver of the truck, just by watching, I reckon may be an instructor?? He (or she for that matter) is an awesome driver, so hats off & respect! Whoever you are!
Have any of you ever driven one of these...you have to have a physical sense of the total rig and continue to plan and manuver these beasts on the roads and small streets...yes sometimes you have to get it where others say no...but delivery schedule says yes...your job is to deliver and make it happen...without accidents. Hoping the other stupid car drivers do make your life a hell. I dare any one of you to try driving a big vehicle like this...It takes years of learning to do well.
I drive abroad as well as over here and any one who wants to have a go at lorry drivers should first get behind the wheel of one and see how they get on lorry driving isn't an art that you are born with you have to learn it and most of the time its the hard way
He did well to get around the corner with out hitting anything, Town centres are getting worse to negate with trucks. Probably the town Bobby recording this
Don`t understand why this lorry driver is titled as being stupid. It`s a standard narrow town centre situation where turning off with an Arctic is a nightmare.
I was really impressed with his driving, its easy to avoid a tight situation when u know about it in advance, no damge no injury and well handled. have to agree with 1triplock
what i love about my life - I live in a town which is full of people who's exciting days activities is watching a truck reverse. Skipton should not exist.
i agree with the driving instuctor if the div with the camera had been put in the hotseat his arse would have been making buttons this was skilfull driving i am an artic driver and have had similar expierience of these situations it's all in a days work to us so unless you are a driver of artics or any large truck and see this remember we are proffesional drivers who can deal with our lot not some clown who hasn't a scooby like the author of this film
imagine what it's like for those drivers who drive lorries used on fairgrounds with two or three different combinations of trailer.some happen to be huge. some of Danters loads are huge. iv'e seen most of them myself at various fairs in the west country. big up to the truck drivers. they are part and parcel of this country and will remain so. they are part of this country's economy. all the people who are slagging them off don't because one day you'll regret it.
I know agency drivers that would have turned it off and rang the agency, not even the operator and then walked off the job lol..... this dude took it like a man, and coaxed the beast around the stupid corner designed for cars and small rigids.
Skipton is not the best place for long trailers. People are usually unaware of how much skill is involved in doing anything other than driving something this size in a straight line. I always allow room and time for lorries to turn. Sadly a lot of others don't.Good on him for a job done well. There isn't really much you can do anyway once you've committed. I'm surprised there isn't a huge queue of cars behind him, with no space for anyone to manouver.
Aww man that class 1 driver did brilliant!!! Beeing a pcv driver on coaches and buses ive been stuck in something like that ,whoever bad mouths these guys alt to try driving these large vehicles see if they do better
@bryruncorn ok point taken but you want to try driving a .H.G.V. in some towns not made for big trucks but we have to somtimes years ago trucks were much smaller in size !!
@marcr69r It would have helped if the public had brains & cleared the pavements. my dad had to negotiate a roundabout like this not only with an artic but with his LWB Heavy recovery ERF E14 dragging it round. Flashing amber lights on the roof & a train horn seemed to clear the pavements for him thoe.
iv'e seen worse. like the same kinda lorry making a sharp right angled bend in a town center. mind you it was a main road, and it would be the first time. the drivers tend to miscalculate the angle a it is so tight, but i have seen one driver do it properly, which was weird.
You think that living 5 days in cab and not seeing family is horrible? Than you should listen how eastern European drivers live...most of them work in west-Europe,more than 2000 km away from home and family doing "circle tours" about 1.5 mounth and more. All this time you must live only in your cab,not hotels or home. Finally when you return home,company gives you 2 weeks for rest. For us job like yours - 5 days in a week work,2 days(holidays) be at home, is almost a dream work! Think about it!
yes got that 1 correct , it's always the car drivers that call us blind . if all the lorry drivers went on strike , we could bring the uk to it's knees !
He's stupid (not the word I'd have used, I'd have perhaps said he didn't check the map or have a TomTom) because you can go left off that roundabout he was struggling with and not straight over, you then go around a much bigger one and can go back that way, in about 20% of the time he took to annoy so many locals trying to quickly take a small (not-so-very) short cut. What do you (Lorry Drivers) all think about Jeremy Clarkson then now?
Shitty ornamental roundabouts! This guy *can* drive. The town planners should think about trucks when they sit down and say "wouldn't it be nice to stick a tree in the middle of the road" put a damn trucker on the road design panel and a lot of these problems wouldn't occur. Its a different story when foreign truckers, taking shortcuts, get stuck and cause mayhem. Maybe that is what the poster of this vid was alluding to?
This driver isn't a stupid driver at all. Infact, he's a very good driver. I'd like to see you drive that truck around the corner without causing any damage, I bet you couldn't. I have a lot of miles under my belt, and even I wouldn't be able to get around there. So, don't take the piss, as he did a great job!:)
Yes mate i totally agree, the person who filmed this should do the job before criticising people that can...!! The only stupid thing about this film is the guy filming..!!
@embsay....do you hold a valid hgv class 1 or 2 licence??? i doubt it as you would of realised the skill involved and the not to mention you need excellent obsvervation skills also. He was clearly taking it easy as there where loads of people on the pavement. its not just a case of looking forward you have to watch your lenth width and high. if there had been a passer by with an hgv licence walking past im sure he would of helped him out and been his eyes on the floor.
good skillfull driver....he didnt hit anything , considering fucking knob heads park where they shouldnt park and bad roundabouts.Granted, the town was not built for artics but he did a cracking job there.
truck driver makes a very tight manoeuvre and showing his professionalism and obvious driving skills gets the truck round with no damage, now go film in a car park and see what a hash people make of a simple thing like parking a small car, now theres stupid !
i love the way noobs that have driven nothing bigger than a car call wagon drivers stupid id like to see you get that round there in one bit mate !!!!!!!!!!!!
haha car drivers are not proffesionals. i drive hgv and coaches for a living for the last 23yrs and my claim to proffesionalism is not having ANY bumps.people think its an easy job negotiating things without damaging anything....thats where proffesionalism comes into it. well done that driver.
That roundabout did,nt look too tight , think I may of been round it myself , albeit several years ago. Bloke was probally in a strange town , looking for signs, looking for twats running his inside & did,nt line up properly for the turn. Shit happens. Some people really need to put some miles in a truck before posting vids about "stupid" truck drivers.
@bryruncorn your wrong sat nav you can now buy for trucks get your facts right its called snooper truckmate read it expensive but very good for us truck drivers
Did I miss anything? Looks like the driver did excellent to me. Didn't see a wreck or anyone hurt. That's a good thing last I checked. Once he got in a position he was clear he got the heck on down the road so only a idiot would even try to disrespect that. I know the on complaining couldn't drive anywhere as good as that.
this roundabout used to be part of the test route for hgv's.but they stopped using it because you had to clip the roundabout.Dear embsay if you don't know what your talking about.KEEP YOUR GOB SHUT !!!!!!!!
How is he a "STUPID WAGON DRIVER" he got it round the corner, i could see the point if he got stuck or ended up in a shop front then the title would have been ok but not for getting a hugh truck round a tight bend, it should be called "EXCELLENT WAGON DRIVER SKILLS"
@zzzzz31a No worries mate, referring back to the bloke that posted this clip, I'm sure we've both met plenty of yard men and car drivers who think they can do a better job, I'd hand my keys to any of them and let them try it :-)
ha ha whitbyjet was hating truckers back i 2008 but claims he dosent have a problem with hgvs laughable well done driver did a good job getting all 55 ft 44 ton of truck round that stupid roundabout
No idea what the fuss is about, he made it, yeah maybe not in one go, but he made it, most of you drivers can't even drive a car without hitting a wing mirror. I use to drive Limo's and know how hard they are to get round corners.
