Be realistic, you are going to get hammered, and be wary of some lawyer telling you they can get your penalties reduced due to circs, i know someone who got the full weight of what the magistrates could offer and a 4 figure bill for nothing of any use at all for the lawyer who pretended to be surprised his charms hadn't swayed the court.

Pay your fine, do the community service, but mainly kick yourself every day for the next 18 months or two years whilst you struggle to get around, the punishments are meant to hurt so you don't come back again for a 5+ year ban and a spell in chokey.

I hate to tell you this but everyone will find out, these things get about and its going to be obvious because you're on shank's pony or a push bike or the bus, so it might be an idea to be up front about it, tell your friends what you've done so the gossips can enjoy the highlight of their utterly boring week, better coming from you than the nudge nudge grapevine.

I drive a HGV so as you can imagine I am religious about drinking and driving, and for me if you intend to drive and be up to the standards set by professional drivers then you only drink when you know you are not going to drive for 24 hours, even if you are not legally over the limit. ( that chat is for another time )

Oh please, don't come the holier than thou perfect expert because you drive HGV's for a living, a vocation rapidly becoming discredited as it's dumbed down.

Hospitals/mortuaries are busy far too often handling the injuries/remains of the victims of those who call themselves professionals.

In just one recent incident almost a whole minibus full of people wiped out in a horrendous crash because the drunk bod attending the steering wheel of an artic had to stop for a stupor sleep, unfortunately the kip was on the inside lane (parked beside the open hard shoulder) of the M1 near Newport Pagnell in the early hours of the morning, and another artic rammed the now stationary minibus into said stopped artic.

It must be hellish for the emergency services to have to attend scenes like that and have to dig the crushed screaming injured out past the bodies of their now dead loved ones, the two HGV drivers involved in that episode are as far from professional drivers as one could imagine, a disgrace to the job, sadly they are not alone and those drivers out there who still try to perform the vocation well are all tarred by such events by the general public.

Edited by gordonbennet on 14/10/2019 at 08:27

Many years ago I worked for a car transporter company, working in the traffic office in Yeovil.

We worked for the same outfit Stackman, though if many years ago it might have been under its original name AH, my time was under the big W.

You are undervaluing the skills of many of those drivers you describe if i may say so, thankfully in other well remunerated specialised parts of the industry those skills are recognised for what they are, and several of us have been welcomed with open arms into better jobs (with better and easier earned pay) as a result of those hard worked years, no drivers in the industry worked harder for their admittedly good pay than at the very company concerned.

No one with an ounce of sense in lorry world drinks and drives, that DR on the licence relegates you to the scrapings of the barrel and rightly so.

Edited by gordonbennet on 15/10/2019 at 14:40