What 64Pacific and his fellow trucker have experienced with those hills is so true. My dad has finally returned from Spain, after being on a trip for more than a month.
So, I have a story to tell, this time a funny one
Germany. Autobahn. The forest behind a fence all the way along the highway. You can barely find a place to stop the truck. Okay, my dad and his co-driver find one and stop. Then, as is casual in those districts, police appears from nowhere. So, having looked a side for a couple of seconds and then return his sight to the initial state, he saw police car already checking out some other vehicle. Okay, it was fine. My dad and his co-driver stepped out of the truck and were about to leave that place for while. The police noticed them and beckoned them. You really must not lie when they ask you questions there. For example, police asked whether they had any cigarettes. The reply was positive since the co-driver does smoke. But the trouble was, no more than 2 blocks of cigarettes could be on hands. So, they confescated the rest and took some 20 EUR as a fine. Then they did their job, asking documents and so on.
After my dad finished with them, he went looking for a toilet,
handing the co-drivers documents (including Pase) into his own hands so that he showed them to the police while dad was away. After dad has returned, he asked whether all was okay, the co-driver replied positively. And so they continued their trip. My dad took the wheel.
While driving the highway, dad noticed police to his left as if peeping who was driving the truck and as if looking for someone. The sight of their eyes was connected for about 1 or so seconds. Then police headed faster straight forward. Dad thinking what that might mean has suddenly asked the co-driver:
Dad: "Where is your Pase!?!"
Co-driver: "You were supposed to have it"
Dad: "What tha?!? I handed that to you when I was leaving to search for a toilet!"
Co-driver: "o_O";
Dad: "S*** !!!";
That was some 3 or so KMs away from the police location. They could do nothing but stop. So they stopped and my dad told the co-driver to go back by feet and that dad would find a parking place somewhere ahead, and so that once he took his pase back, he went back looking for the truck. As has already been mentioned, there's not a lot of options to stop on a highway. So having driven ahead for
33 KMs he found some decent going right and a small parking place. Another problem arose - the co-driver would never find him there. Besides, it was late and dark. One thing which could help them was a small radio working within a 3-5 KM distance which the co-driver took with him.
My dad was forced to unhook the trailer leaving it unattended, and drive back to pick the negligent co-driver up. As been discovered later, the co-driver found the police and took his pase, and then police was driving with him looking for the truck with my dad! Obviously, after an unsuccessful attempt, they returned the co-driver to the same location where they picked him up but on the
other side of the road. The co-driver did not even realize he was returned to the same location!
So then, my dad, driving slowly and using his radio to track down the co-driver finally heard his voice and so they found each other. And they went back to hook the trailer up again.
Needless to say, all of this took 3 hours to acomplish and litres of fuel were spent in vain.
My dad's personal truck for those of you curious:
It's a brand new (0 miles ... well, recently was) DAF XF105 (EURO 5)
Cheers,
Oleg