2014 - will there be a LGV driver shortage? (Poll & views)

What does everyone else think?

My personal view…
There are a few things that may make this a yes

The most obvious one for those already driving LGVs is THE PERIODIC (ongoing) DRIVER CPC where many drivers are looking to finish a year or two earlier so they don’t have to do it.

At the other end there are the potential newbies of which most will have to do THE INITIAL DRIVER CPC which involved extra tests and more money on top of the usual theory and practical training & tests.
They also know that they will have to do the PERIODIC for the rest of their career!!

Whatever the views on the Driver CPC, I believe this will have a significant effect.

Many may say that we will get more LGV drivers from other EU countries coming here but they too are faced with the same problems - Poland, for example, has a 280 hour initial driver cpc - no, that’s not a misprint !!

There are many more rules these days for LGV drivers than there used to be such as the Working Time Directive (RT(WTD)R regs for LGV drivers) along with more roadside checks to ensure those rules are being kept to (not necessarily a bad thing)

Pressure on drivers with on-time deliveries and some TMs pushing drivers hard to get more done in less time at reduced costs and often putting the driver in a position where they may have to choose between staying legal or risk losing their job.

Apart from those who have a real passion to drive trucks, who will want to choose being a LGV driver as a career?

I would not say that the medicals are an issue as many regard them as a good idea in order to get a regular health check and most can be got for under £50 - £49 MEDICALS and cheap medical places around the UK

Well, that’s my view for what it’s worth.

Yes i think there will be a big driver shortage Rog and i think it will come before 2014 as their isnt really a lot of people coming into the industry now because it costs so much to obtain an LGV driving licence in the first place and there isnt really any jobs to get at the minute and with the introduction of the driver CPC this will make the situation worse.
This job has to be one of the most over legislatated in the country with so many rules and regs to comply with and to many people waited to ‘do’ you for the slightest bit thing,police,vosa etc etc.
I am 37 and have been in the transport industry since leaving school and have been a driver since i was 19,starting out on a 7.5 ton flatbed doing distance work and working my way up to class 1 work and i still enjoy the job,but there are days when i think there must be something better than this.
I start my driver CPC training tomorrow (6-1-10) through my current employers…so that will have a fun day…NOT… :unamused:

a lot of drivers who been made redundant over the recent recession have found new careers or trades and now a good percentage are quite content with their new lives, some ofcourse will come back and as mentioned training is a big issue not just in cost but the complex legislation to go with it! :confused:

I agree drivers will be in short supply by then - but I think another big factor is that the Poles (etc) may well have
all returned home by then as we might assume things would have got better for them in their own country - they
would have been in the EC 10 years by then!

K

You could have asked the same question when vehicles switched from burning coal to diesel,when the log book was introduced,when the tacho came along the list is endless but our industry keeps rolling along.As for the CPC expect it will be buried eventually much like that useless ISO thingy every company undertook or they wouldn’t get any work,£6000 down the drain.2034 someone will ask the very same question and probably get all the same answers.At the mo drivers are ten a penny,good time to buy some I would have thought.

How many times over the last 40 years have I heard of a future driver shortage. From 1968 when Barbara Castle introduced “The spy in the cab” to 2006 when the WTD was going to make us all quit.

What will happen is that, as soon as the shortage becomes real, the government will throw some money at it to get the unemployed into the cab. You can bet too that the examiners will be told to not be too tough on them (If they get their name and address right they passed).

It may push wages up temporarily but they will soon come back down. In my working life I have, on average, earned a little under the national average wage (currently around £550 a week). When wages go up more lads want to be truck drivers, and vice versa.

Always remember that it is perfectly possible to turn a car driver into a truck driver in less than 6 weeks.

There wont be a Truck driver shortage, but i think there will be a Train driver shortage!

If I have my way the country will be short of this one. Can’t wait to get away from the place. Soon as the daughters Uni is done…

My personal opinion is NO, I have seen this over many years, plus a driver shortage in this country has never resulted in the wage increases that should come with such a resposible job even considering that there is or would be a shortage of drivers.

A driver in this country will always be “just a driver” whether it’s a van/bus/truck or car, it is seen as something anyone can do with just a bit of training and is not seen as a professional career, if you worked in a bank or an office and just picked your @rse all day and the most responsible thing you had to do was to make sure the photocopier wasn’t jammed then you are labelled an office professional with a good salary and sensible hours.

The only people who see truck drivers as professionals are other drivers, as for the wages - I am now 53 and can remember paying my drivers over £450 a week in the mid nineties, the wages have gone backwards and we all know that this is due to crap rates and people undercutting the rate just to get the work, the glory days of trucking are long gone.

Driver shortage = agency = low wages for the driver and high returns for the agency office professional

will there be a driver shortage? … hang on let me have a look

I say a resounding no, there are far too many trucks on the road, so that must also mean there are far too many drivers already.

Although it may upset a few, driving is still a low skilled job albeit using expensive equipment to do it. There should be a rethink about the just in time mentality as the warehouses come to the end of their useful lives. Look at B&Q for instance. I can think of 5 RDC warehouses within 90 minutes drive of my house. Supermarkets have warehouses to resupply warehouses.

The roads are almost gridlocked at rush hour, there are far too many homes with 3 or 4 cars in the drive and the public transport system in the UK has failed. Companies will rush to put trains or coaches on profitable routes, but the country bumkins will be left standing at the shelter as another firm pull out of the area. This situation against various countries in Eastern Europe who have a workable tram system in towns and a good bus service in the countryside.

every time there is a major change to the industry, the shout goes up that it will cause a driver shortage
Hasn’t done so far and I can’t see 2014 being any different.
just a thought before the usual calls for us all to band together , like the French, and stop this going through.
The French have on numerous occaissions stood up to authority and have received lots of publicity about their protests but does anyone actually know that when the fuss has died down , have they achieved anything?

I hope so, so i can get a job easier when the time comes :wink:

In 2014 when I finish it will take about five new drivers to replace me

No there wont be its a job that requires one week or less training to be fully qualified (not experianced but qualified).

The slightest thought that there arent enough drivers will either bring people rolling in from this country or other countries to do the job and as usual proabably for a lower wage than the ones that arent doing it any more.

This job will NEVER have a shortage its far too easy a job, most skilled labouring jobsnever have a shortage of workforce!.

Maybe…

CPC will kill off some of the older boys who might do a couple of days here and there on agency… They won’t want to fork out the cash for it for no return etc. Also reckon it’d put more people off learning…

I hardly ever see lads my age driving, i’ve fallen lucky with my job so i’m not too bothered. but most guys on the roads seem to be in there fifties, when these lot retire i don’t see who’s going to be there to replace them. (apart from the people who are currently out of work!)

IMHO i don’t think there’s going to be a problem cos a lot of driver need to take refresher courses for there job now I.E. ADR 7 hours can be use for your PDCPC hiab as now being accepted as well some are offering 14 hours for that and Forklift Truck Basic Operation as also been approved for 7 hours, most training tickets have a life expectancy of 5 years

so if you work as a driver and have to pay for your training to refresh your tickets any way the beast thing to do is do them with an approved trainer

look at it this way if you have a training ticket that’s needed for you job now look here drivercpc-periodictraining.o … s-courses/ and see if there some training company proving the course

and that way you will not have to pay twice

philmots:
Maybe…

I hardly ever see lads my age driving, most guys on the roads seem to be in there fifties, when these lot retire i don’t see who’s going to be there to replace them. (apart from the people who are currently out of work!)

Actually they aren’t that old - they just look it.

I retired at 55, four years ago decided to use the HGV licence I obtained in 1979. As soon as I left work I started applying for driving jobs ( I had done some casual work for about five years so wasn’t totally a novice.) It took over three years and 60+ applications to get some work, two days a week and a 50 mile return drive to work each day. I do it because I enjoy it, compared with my last job in a prison, there is job satisfaction as well.

This was at the time (2005) when the WTD was being introduced and there was going to be an 80,000 driver shortfall, according to the Daily Mirror.

As has been said before, this question is asked with monotonous regularity and the result is always the same.

According to todays paper we only have eight days supply of gas left, but we will probably never run out, likewise HGV drivers.

We keep hearing about this impending Driver shortage, they keep saying that many drivers are nearing retirement and there aren’t the young drivers out there to replace them. But then unless they a real truck nut why would they want to do this job, :confused: then many that do start in haulage but leave it having had enough of the long hours for low pay and status and then you’re about as welcome as a muslim with a racksack whenever you turn up somewhere.

There also aren’t so many of the traditional routes for getting a licence, such as from the Forces or Companies doing in house training and paying for it yourself is becoming increasingly more expensive as they add more things to do to get the licence.
They have trained some long term unemployed but from what I’ve seen frm some of them, they’d drop any job that involved them applying themselves and 15 hour days and early starts they’d be off at the first oppertunity. So that won’t help it just help massage the figures.

So logically there sould be a shortage of drivers and pay should go up, but this doesn’t seem to happen. And when the economy picks up again, there will be a brief period of time where haulage companies make a big deal about not enough driver,(but the truth is not enough drivers willing to put up with the job for the wages they’re willing to pay :imp: ) then they’ll pressure the Government and they’ll find the cheapest option. Even if the Polish driver don’t come back. there is always a pool of workers somewhere in the World, Goverments will ease regulations, so they can come over and a few weeks training and off they go.

Saying that if you a good driver with a good reputation for getting the job done then you should normally find work, just don’t ever expect to be rich doing it.