Extended hours for HGV drivers -good idea?

[James1979]

I have to say, I’ve worked with some fantastic foreign drivers and some not so. Same as the British and any other culture. With good drivers there will always be bad.

Yes every now and then I see some drivers are on their phones, and even rarer I see a laptop on the dash (3times I think in the last 6 years) for the percentage of foreign drivers on their phones I bet the same is matched or close for British ones.

I have worked with dozens of nationalities. Good and bad in all. The bad are usually really bad. Especially in my old industry, shipping. I’ve not noticed any real trait about any of them really.

Apart from Brits I’ve worked with at sea or abroad. They seem to do the most moaning and whining and always seem to be stuck
In a phone or trying to work out how to avoid doing what they’re actually being paid to do!

 

[mtt.tr]

I don't think fatigue sets in as badly with a driver that's on local drops or plant/machine moving, there is plenty of variation and leg stretching in that type of work. My worry is extending hours for those trunking, some of those lads/lasses are on a motorway all day every day, that has to be a fatigue sandwich

Bob

I get drowsy driving 2 hrs its bloody dull, can't wait for driverless cars

 

[mtt.tr]

not really surprised to be honest

shelf stacking is boring and what they dont tell you is your expected to clear so many pallets or better known as double height trolleys milk trolleys as a reference to you and me

as goes for the van driving well they dont tell you is its multi drop and you have 40/60 drops a day or more

Not Tesco, I did in my youth easy job not bad social life either.

 

[James1979]

I get drowsy driving 2 hrs its bloody dull, can't wait for driverless cars

Depends what sort of person you are. I enjoy driving. Especially distances. But I do let my mind wander if it’s not very ‘technical’ ie just trunking up an autobahn for hundreds of miles. I try not to though!
That’s why you don’t get many crashes on German autobahn but when you do they’re mega.

 

[James1979]

Not Tesco, I did in my youth easy job not bad social life either.

We used to just mess about. It was a joke really. They had no control of us on our section. There were 5 of us. All at college together and all played rugby together. They had no chance.

But we got the work done and done well. So they left us alone.

 

[mtt.tr]

We used to just mess about. It was a joke really. They had no control of us on our section. There were 5 of us. All at college together and all played rugby together. They had no chance.

But we got the work done and done well. So they left us alone.

That's how it was for me was good fun.

Managers eventually ruined the job, arguably I wouldn't want to to do it as a career I have skills suited elsewhere

 

[James1979]

That's how it was for me was good fun.

Managers eventually ruined the job, arguably I wouldn't want to to do it as a career I have skills suited elsewhere

Ditto.

The general manager was a tosser. I got a written warning for being ‘inappropriate in my phrasing’ to him. Never got sacked though. Can’t remember anyone who did!!!

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

not really surprised to be honest

shelf stacking is boring and what they dont tell you is your expected to clear so many pallets or better known as double height trolleys milk trolleys as a reference to you and me

as goes for the van driving well they dont tell you is its multi drop and you have 40/60 drops a day or more

40-60 drops a day. What's your source.

Vans aren't huge. A normal home delivery is gonna be 6 to 10 trays for a family weeks shop. Not enough time in the day for so many return trips to depot.

 

[zeppelin builder]

the people who propsed this have been educated at the best schools in britain supposedly , i would like to see there coding papers!
they should have studied a bit more then they could have been welders

 

[MattF]

It's not that the rule changers are stupid, it's just that few, if any, of them have ever done hard graft in their life, so they have no clue regarding the reality.

 

[premmington]

It's not that the rule changers are stupid, it's just that few, if any, of them have ever done hard graft in their life, so they have no clue regarding the reality.

My local MP is a nice chap from a privileged family - he does have a social conscience - he is also well educated.

But I don't think he has ever really had a job. He told me once he did some "bar work" at collage - to earn free drinks! This is hardly - 60hrs a week - week in week out - on low wages - putting food on the table and a roof over a familes head.

I also don't think he really knows what a lorry driver does or have to put up with.

As nice as he is - if you tell him - unless he did it - how would he understand...

 

[Agrismith]

I have worked with dozens of nationalities. Good and bad in all. The bad are usually really bad. Especially in my old industry, shipping. I’ve not noticed any real trait about any of them really.

Apart from Brits I’ve worked with at sea or abroad. They seem to do the most moaning and whining and always seem to be stuck
In a phone or trying to work out how to avoid doing what they’re actually being paid to do!

I find that what people forget is that you will generally only meet hard working eastern Europeans over here as the lazys ones will be to lazy to have left there own country. Whereas hard working Brits will have worked there way up meaning the general labour pool does make it look like eastern Europeans are hard working and Brits are lazy as you are looking at a small proportion of them

 

[James1979]

I have a theory

To leave ‘home’, move abroad and start again you have to be a certain sort of person. Not so much what you can do but your character.

You need a bit of get up and go and the ability to turn your hand to whatever and I suppose a bit of a chancer. My brother moved to Sweden and he is a bit like that. He worked in sales before and did very well at it although he isn’t keen. It’s that sort of personality that seems to succeed abroad wherever ‘abroad’ is.

Just what I have kind of observed

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

I have a theory

To leave ‘home’, move abroad and start again you have to be a certain sort of person. Not so much what you can do but your character.

You need a bit of get up and go and the ability to turn your hand to whatever and I suppose a bit of a chancer. My brother moved to Sweden and he is a bit like that. He worked in sales before and did very well at it although he isn’t keen. It’s that sort of personality that seems to succeed abroad wherever ‘abroad’ is.

Just what I have kind of observed

24 years old. Struggling with addiction. Packed up my life into a Bergen and what I could hang off it and got on a plane.
9 years later I came back with a trade and my head screwed on to an unknown corner of the country.

Still trying to talk the wife into packing up and heading to NZ

 

[James1979]

24 years old. Struggling with addiction. Packed up my life into a Bergen and what I could hang off it and got on a plane.
9 years later I came back with a trade and my head screwed on to an unknown corner of the country.

Still trying to talk the wife into packing up and heading to NZ

We would be in NZ in a shot

Too old, wrong trades, not enough money to offset the above! Hope you get back out there.

 

[4String.]

I also don't think he really knows what a lorry driver does or have to put up with.

I think that goes for most of the population of this country.

Until now, when the shortage of drivers is starting to affect the average "man in the street", most people seem to have very little comprehension of the fact that by and large most of what they possess was in a lorry at some stage, or as the bumper sticker beloved of the Americans proclaims- If you bought it a truck brought it. Society as a whole seems to be so far removed from reality that it's fair to say that a large percentage of the population have little or no idea how everything from the food on the supermarket shelves to the petrol at the filling station got there in the first place, and the sad thing is I don't think they care either. Like many aspects of society, few people care about how or why it works until it doesn't.

For many years the road haulage industry has been neglected by the powers that be and that's why the country is now suffering from empty shelves and increased prices. Driver facilities have been declining steadily for decades to the point where if a driver who is out overnight isn't parked up by about 5 or 6 o'clock he or she will struggle to find somewhere safe. Most of the motorway service areas haven't changed since they were built back in the 70's but lorries have got bigger and there's many more of them. Most of the old school transport cafes are long gone putting even more pressure on the remaining parking places, which leaves drivers having to park in laybys at the side of the road with high speed traffic passing by within a few feet of them while they're trying to get to sleep or parking in industrial estates and risking having their diesel stolen.

There's also the demographic to consider. The average age of a lorry driver in the UK is 58 which means that most of them are close to retirement but there are very few younger drivers replacing them. When I first started work over 40 years ago it was obvious when it was school holidays because many young lads went out in the wagon with their dads, but the ludicrous health and safety rear end covering culture that's rife in the country has put a stop to that as well. Covid and Brexit aren't to blame either, they're both factors which have contributed to this state of affairs but the blame doesn't lie solely with them.

I don't know what the answer is to the present situation and I certainly don't think there's some "magic bullet" quick fix to it all, but I can foresee it getting worse before it gets better, if it ever does...

 

[brightspark]

I was in one of the main Tescos in Swansea earlier. The night manager told me there were 10 vacancies for night shelf stackers and 15 for van drivers. Can't get anyone to do it. They had a few sent by the local job centre. None lasted more than a week!

because they can get more benefits on the dole

 

[fizzy]

I think that goes for most of the population of this country.

Until now, when the shortage of drivers is starting to affect the average "man in the street", most people seem to have very little comprehension of the fact that by and large most of what they possess was in a lorry at some stage, or as the bumper sticker beloved of the Americans proclaims- If you bought it a truck brought it. Society as a whole seems to be so far removed from reality that it's fair to say that a large percentage of the population have little or no idea how everything from the food on the supermarket shelves to the petrol at the filling station got there in the first place, and the sad thing is I don't think they care either. Like many aspects of society, few people care about how or why it works until it doesn't.

For many years the road haulage industry has been neglected by the powers that be and that's why the country is now suffering from empty shelves and increased prices. Driver facilities have been declining steadily for decades to the point where if a driver who is out overnight isn't parked up by about 5 or 6 o'clock he or she will struggle to find somewhere safe. Most of the motorway service areas haven't changed since they were built back in the 70's but lorries have got bigger and there's many more of them. Most of the old school transport cafes are long gone putting even more pressure on the remaining parking places, which leaves drivers having to park in laybys at the side of the road with high speed traffic passing by within a few feet of them while they're trying to get to sleep or parking in industrial estates and risking having their diesel stolen.

There's also the demographic to consider. The average age of a lorry driver in the UK is 58 which means that most of them are close to retirement but there are very few younger drivers replacing them. When I first started work over 40 years ago it was obvious when it was school holidays because many young lads went out in the wagon with their dads, but the ludicrous health and safety rear end covering culture that's rife in the country has put a stop to that as well. Covid and Brexit aren't to blame either, they're both factors which have contributed to this state of affairs but the blame doesn't lie solely with them.

I don't know what the answer is to the present situation and I certainly don't think there's some "magic bullet" quick fix to it all, but I can foresee it getting worse before it gets better,

I encouraged a mate into getting his class 1 about 18 months ago. Also persuaded another mate to give him a job. He asked how old is he. 48. Oh a youngster then he said. He wasn't joking either

 

[fizzy]

because they can get more benefits on the dole

Popped in again tonight.

 

[fizzy]

bet all the imigrants wont be in any rush to fill the posts

Not allowed to that's why!
Most of them would give anything to have the chance to work.