There has been another accident involving a National Express coach seemingly going too fast (and driver reported to have been drink-driving), resulting in the vehicle overturning onto it’s offside, this time at Newport Pagnell services (southbound) on the M1.

Link (BBC):  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/6976710.stm

This weekend I…

Went bowling again but could not beat my score. Although 125 isn’t bad. I swear the lane was wonky.

Seen Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Very dark and quite funny.

Bought myself a new car entertainment unit (the term ‘radio’ doesn’t really fit) which replaces this one (on my old blog, scroll down a bit). It’s modern, it’s shiny, looks gorgeous, and it actually has NO CD player built in. I’ll explain with a few piccies in another entry.

Started to update my iTunes music collection. Upgrading all my tracks from 128 kbps AAC to 256 kbps AAC. So that’s a lot of re-ripping CDs to do over the next however-long-it-takes.

Worked nights. And played that usual game of Dodge The Pissheads in Manchester at Midnight. You’d think a 50 foot coach would be encouragement enough for them to get out of the way, but it’s usually the opposite. And the Prestonians are no better.

Tried the new orange flavoured Coca Cola. Wasn’t expecting much, but it was actually really nice! The taste combination was just about right. Good job it’s delicious because it was BOGOF at Morrisons on 6-packs so I have a dozen cans of the stuff.

It seems the Watford Gap vendetta against Stagecoach drivers is continuing. I swear they are picking on the wrong people; Stagecoach and Megabus have good links with National Express (same drivers in some places) and a lot of contracted work out to other companies, eventually word of this discrimination will spread far and wide.

Further to what I mentioned previously, I hear that allegedly a driver had sat down in the ‘restaurant’ (term used loosely) to eat and was asked to leave as he wasn’t welcome. No idea who it was, whether it was one of us innocent lot or an initial scheme abuser but it doesn’t matter, if the food was paid for (at least a tenner for simple halogen-heated meal and a drink) then the purchaser should be allowed to sit and eat it.

I must stress I’m still trying to find out what the story is, I went in for a coffee earlier and nobody said anything, although I did get it to take away so they wouldn’t have chance. But if anybody does to me or anyone near me, I’ll simply set my phone to voice-record, make sure they say it clearly(such as asking somebody who’s done nothing wrong to leave or whatever) then that’ll be it, I’ll have them by the theoreticals.

This discrimination must be illegal. If not it should be. Especially when it’s against innocent people, which is the majority of us.

Watford Gap and Roadchef obviously don’t want to be in business, as they’re discouraging coach drivers from bringing in hundreds of pounds of profit a day and turning away paying customers (does refusing a person permission to eat food he paid for count as theft?). If that’s what they want, it’ll probably happen. Maybe they’ll go the way Granada (remember them?) went. Us coach drivers will gladly help them go bankrupt if they ask us!

If this gets worse or doesn’t get resolved I’m pretty sure further action will be taken, us drivers are a close, strong group. If the rest of the professional drivers industry gets involved, it’ll be a big problem, service stations can’t rely on family cars and reps alone to keep them in business. Just a case of getting word around.

Had 20 minutes at Corley services earlier, on the way down from Manchester, as usual.

Went in, got a coffee, but didn’t get a voucher (a credit to spend on-site as mentioned in a previos post). The lady at the till said they’d ran out,as they are giving extras out generally. No big deal, that’s not the reason I stop there! She kept apologising and said I’d get one next time I’m in, I kept saying don’t worry about it, it’s fine.

I’m not fussed about receiving the voucher, I just like somewhere friendly to let my passengers off at and somewhere I can get a drink and maybe a snack without being ripped off. It’s the simple respectful treatment I received today that makes it worthwhile, and obviously encourage me to give them more business.

Some other service station operators and or locations might learn a thing or two here.

Apparently there has been some utterly terrible treatment towards our drivers at Watford Gap while I’ve been off. But I won’t discuss it yet until I found out exacly what happened and all that; I only speak out against people/companies where it’s really deserved!

Anyway, well done to Welcome Break at Corley for that bit of respect and friendly service. For that I’d encourage anybody to stop off there.