Ask the vast majority of lorry drivers and owner operators if the year has been kind to them, and they’ll most likely laugh. Spiralling fuel costs, extra legislation and low emission zones have made the life of the road haulage driver even more stressful than before. So when looking through the haulage news stories of the last 12 months, it would be very easy to focus on the negatives outlined above, but instead I have chosen to look at those news articles which make you do a double take – ones which are a little off the wall.

So without further ado, here are 5 of my favourite unusual lorry news stories of 2008:

Lorry Driver Wasn’t Using Mobile for Calls While Driving

The recent laws preventing motorists and haulage workers from using their mobile phone while driving have caught many an inattentive driver, but one German lorry driver managed to escape punishment with an unlikely explanation. When Walter Klein was pulled over by police with his mobile phone to his ear, he claimed he was not making a call, but using it as an ear warmer to ease his ear ache. Whether you believe this unlikely explanation or not, the court did – when he produced his telephone bill which showed he had not been making a call when he was pulled over!

Sceptics reckon that he might have been either calling his voice mail (which leaves no trace on some phone bills) or in the process of dialling, but Klein’s explanation was accepted: "I had an earache and it was being made worse because the cab had not heated up yet – it takes a while on a big rig. So I grabbed the phone that had been on charge and put it to my ear, and that was when I was stopped by police."

Truckers’ Revenge on Clarkson

Jeremy Clarkson has managed to anger a few people in his many years on the television, but lorry drivers were left angry after a feature on Top Gear where he jokingly implied that all road haulage drivers murdered prostitutes and had an easy job. The controversial presenter was taking part in a lorry driving task when he said: "It’s a hard job: change gear, change gear, check mirror, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, murder. That’s a lot of effort in a day."

But perhaps truckers had the last laugh when T-Enterprise developed a computer game entitled Run Clarkson Run, where players control a cartoon version of the Top Gear presenter as he is chased by angry lorry drivers and owner operators. To win points, the player must help Clarkson dodge the trucks and grab piles of BBC licence payer’s money. The Managing Director of T Enterprise commented that "the whole family can spend hours playing the game, running over and killing Jeremy Clarkson just for fun."

For God’s Sake, Use a Map!

Many of us have learned the hard way that it’s best not to put too much faith in your SatNav when driving a lorry, but clearly one Syrian road haulage worker was not party to this advice when he went on a 1,600 mile detour! Necdet Bakimci was taking luxury cars from Turkey to Gibraltar, but his SatNav sent him and his 32 tonne lorry down a narrow lane in Skegness towards the North Sea.

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