Recently there were some minor changes to the appearance of this site, mainly to the opening page with its changed method of getting us where we want to go, but nothing serious.
I think myself fortunate that the same techies did not get their hands on it who did get their hands on a very long lived UK forum dedicated to lorry drivers, from which I have quoted here from time to time.
It went into a slow decline, and I do mean slow, whatever we did was painfully slow, minutes for a post to appear. Then, all of a sudden it disappeared completely apart from some lone messages that it would soon be back. Promised dates came and went and we, the few of us who had email contact, feared it was the end. But then, over a month later, it was back but on a totally different platform. Much grumbling and thus much reduced membership. But a few of us soldiered on, in my case because the new look is similar but not exactly the same as this site, so I had a bit of a head start on how to find my way around.
One big difference is, the lack of censorship here, compared to not only that site but also to the similar American drivers’ site which I had migrated to as a refugee in the interim. It is bizarre, we are treated like kids and it is worth noting that here, where there appears to me to be no censorship , there is very little bad language used and when it is, it is only completely in context.
But the most ridiculous thing ever occurred a short time ago. In a thread about lorries, of course, and experiments in ways to allow trailers to be longer in the UK (and possibly the EU), various forms of steering axles are placed at the rear to allow them to turn and corner while taking up no more room than at present, in other words, no change to the laid down limits of the law. But one thing will be required still, the skill of the driver to operate them and in particular the outward swing of the tail of the trailer when turning a corner.
So to get to the point of this, I made a comment exactly about that, and related an experience I had many years ago in Bangor N. Wales. I was pulling a trailer which was 60 feet long but my load was steel beams 70 feet in length. Added to the natural overhang of the trailer behind its wheels that was considerable to put it mildly. I came to a T-junction with bollards (the plastic lit up kind) in the middle of the road. Normally I would have set myself up straddling the 2 lanes and then gone very wide for my left turn to the far side of the destination road, but in this case there were bollards in that road too. I knew it was touch and go but had to continue and the end of my beam just caught, and knocked over the 2 bollards. Leaving aside the possibility of exposed electrics and because I knew there was a council yard at the exit to the town, I made sure the bollards were laid down neatly and carried on.
The maintance people were not upset when I reported and set off to repair the damage while I stayed to wait for the police escort I was scheduled to meet there for the rest of my journey. My destination was Pwllheli, about another 50 odd miles on mainly, then, country roads but not too tight, In case you are wondering why I didn’t get the escort before Bangor, rather than after it, I was wondering myself. If I had had one I could have pulled over to the ‘wrong’ side of the road at the junction and had all the room in the world to turn without touching anything.
So I wrote this up in the forum and pressed ‘Send’ when to my amazement I saw that the word ‘escort’ had been blocked out. 
I expressed my surprise and outrage and a friend posted 'you have to write it with a space, like this, e scort, or esc ort, or any other combination you like, but not escort. 
Just in case any of you are interested in the ensuing journey, after all that I was looking forward to a relaxing time. Not a bit of it. The police used to hate escorting and would do anything to make you go faster and these 2 clowns were no different. Over 80 feet in length and I expect about 50 odd tons in weight, they had me following at over 60 mph. We rounded a slight bend to reveal a long straight stretch and I heaved a sigh of relief because, half way along it I saw a little coal lorry plodding along without a care in the world and I thought, in my innocence, thank goodness they’re going to have to slow down now.
Not likely, with sirens screaming and headlights and blue lights flashing, they overtook this poor bloke and forced him to a halt at the side of the road. I like Pwllheli, I have holidayed there, but I was never so glad to see it as on that day at the end of that nightmare ride. 
, but the new alternative to lead me up to Channel 4 News is Rick Stein and I have quite enough of cooking in this house thank you, so I did.
