More than 18 months after an accident paralysed owner-driver Richard Dover from the waist down, he is set to return to the road thanks to Volvo Trucks.
Dover slipped off a bulk tanker trailer in January 2008, damaging his spinal cord and losing the use of his legs. After obtaining a grant to convert a truck for a paraplegic to drive, the Workington-based owner-driver, with 33 years experience in the business, spent a year trying to organise a truck to get himself back on the road.
Last week, Volvo Trucks set up a rolling, contract hire agreement for a second-hand 6x2 FH Globetrotter. "I had a smile on my face from ear to ear," says Dover, when he heard the news. "I was starting to give up; I was coming to the end of the road."
Volvo Trucks director of used trucks, Peter Groome, says: "He put forward a good business proposition and we were able to make a deal."
Dover has three companies willing to give him work. "All I needed was a truck," he says.
At the time of the accident, Dover was running two trucks with non-foods tanker trailers. "After my accident, everything [trucks and trailers] went back. I lost my self-respect. That is what I really want back," he adds.
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