Should I go for class 1

Hi all
I am looking for some help and advice.

I live south of Middlesborough, so any advice on the hgv job market here would be appreciated.

I passed my class 2 last Feb on my third attempt with 14 minors.

Since then I have applied for quite a few jobs but had no luck.

I have noticed that the majority of agency jobs advertised are for class 1.

Another thing is the same agencys advertise again and again for class 1 drivers on a very regular basis.

Also unlike almost every class2 job posted, they often dont ask for experience in job adverts .

Does this mean that I would be more likely to get a agency job as a new pass with a class1 licence?

Or is it just as hard to get class 1 work in the teeside north east region as I am finding with class 2?

If agencys keep advertising again and again for licenced C+E holders it does kind of imply a shortage of class 1 drivers to me

am I right ■■?

Any help much appreciated.

Hi - and welcome to the forum.

Sorry, I cant answer any of your questions specifically. But, in general terms, it’s a good idea to go for class 1 (CE) as it will often open more doors.

Please don’t go into debt for this unless you can repay from current income.

You would do very well to take a look at the Christmas Offer at the top of the threads.

All the best, Pete

You might find if you have a Class 1 licence, many places wanting Class 2 with experience might give you a chance on Class 2 - even with no experience.

That’s what I found anyway - when I got my Class 1, suddenly the whole 2 year experience requirement thing for Class 2 jobs flew out the window - I can’t comment what the job situation is like up there though

I think I’d keep looking for a class 2 job for now and think about class 1 in the spring. Agency work drops through the floor for experienced drivers in January and is usually thin until April/May even June! My other concern would be whether or not you’re suited to driving for a living. If you have no experience of working as a driver I’d hold off spending any more until you can get some time on the road as a driver. It doesn’t matter what you drive, if you don’t get on with driving for a living there’s little point stepping up.

TiredAndEmotional:
I think I’d keep looking for a class 2 job for now and think about class 1 in the spring. Agency work drops through the floor for experienced drivers in January and is usually thin until April/May even June! My other concern would be whether or not you’re suited to driving for a living. If you have no experience of working as a driver I’d hold off spending any more until you can get some time on the road as a driver. It doesn’t matter what you drive, if you don’t get on with driving for a living there’s little point stepping up.

^^^^^^^^ spot on nowt more to add

You will come up against the experience problem with class one, I had to sit on mine for 2 years after I passed. Good luck with whatever you decide

Thanks for the advice everyone much appreciated.

I will probably just continue to look for class 2 work. As tired and emotional pointed out its a lot more money to get a class 1 (I doubt I would pass first time)
only to find I hated truck driving.

Think about it seriously. How are you going to feel when you’ve done 3 15hr shifts in a row. Which means you have 9 hours off, take out of that your travel time to work and back and any time you will want to spend with family. So, imagine it’s Wednesday, you have just completed 3 15hr shifts on 4 hrs sleep a night. Now you have Thursday and Friday to go, you can be sure that they will want to max those hours as well.

Then it’s the weekend, they may or may not want you to put in a full shift on a Saturday. Don’t plan on spending any quality time with the family on the weekend, you will be too knackerd. All you will do is sleep and then you get to do it all over again next week. Ad infinitum

I won’t go into the other six thousand problems a driver faces, that’s quite enough to be mulling over at this stage.

If you’re so sure it’s for you, I wish you all the best. I came off the road after only a few years, it was destroying my life and my marriage. I now work regular hours as a shunter, much better money, treated much better and none of the stress or politics that go with being a driver.

I don’t know what the future holds for me, I have my class 1 to fall back on if things go wrong, but I don’t see myself going back on the road. I am doing my CPCS telehandler license soon which will lead to a job on regular days at around 16 quid an hour with none of the routing stress and no sleeping in a tin box in the most stupid, inappropriate places because everywhere decent to sleep filled up by 6 and the office wanted to squeeze every last minute out of me, so at 9 at night, I had to find the spot that everyone else didn’t want.

Sorry, going off on a bit of a tangent there. If you feel it’s for you, go for it! But think it through first, talk to the drivers on here and go into it with your eyes open. Yes, you get to travel the country and get paid for it and meet new people. But traveling the country soon gets old, it all looks the same. Meet new people? Hope to god that the new people ain’t vosa with a 600 quid fine for you for piffling little “offenses “ the new people you will meet are mainly forkies who will want you gone ASAP (if you are lucky enough to find one who speaks English) and as for get paid for it? 80 hours at crap rate is still crap rate. It will seem worth it while you still have your rose coloured specs on, but after a while you will realise that for what you’re doing, the rate is rubbish and the overtime rates (if you get anything above standard rate for overtime) isn’t much better.

Agencies will tell you lies, simple fact. I got a start as a class 2 driver by finding a couple of companies in my area that had gone bust, and I lied that I had worked for them as a 7.5 driver. Instant experience

jbaz73:
Think about it seriously. How are you going to feel when you’ve done 3 15hr shifts in a row. Which means you have 9 hours off, take out of that your travel time to work and back and any time you will want to spend with family. So, imagine it’s Wednesday, you have just completed 3 15hr shifts on 4 hrs sleep a night. Now you have Thursday and Friday to go, you can be sure that they will want to max those hours as well.

Then it’s the weekend, they may or may not want you to put in a full shift on a Saturday. Don’t plan on spending any quality time with the family on the weekend, you will be too knackerd. All you will do is sleep and then you get to do it all over again next week. Ad infinitum

I won’t go into the other six thousand problems a driver faces, that’s quite enough to be mulling over at this stage.

If you’re so sure it’s for you, I wish you all the best. I came off the road after only a few years, it was destroying my life and my marriage. I now work regular hours as a shunter, much better money, treated much better and none of the stress or politics that go with being a driver.

I don’t know what the future holds for me, I have my class 1 to fall back on if things go wrong, but I don’t see myself going back on the road. I am doing my CPCS telehandler license soon which will lead to a job on regular days at around 16 quid an hour with none of the routing stress and no sleeping in a tin box in the most stupid, inappropriate places because everywhere decent to sleep filled up by 6 and the office wanted to squeeze every last minute out of me, so at 9 at night, I had to find the spot that everyone else didn’t want.

Sorry, going off on a bit of a tangent there. If you feel it’s for you, go for it! But think it through first, talk to the drivers on here and go into it with your eyes open. Yes, you get to travel the country and get paid for it and meet new people. But traveling the country soon gets old, it all looks the same. Meet new people? Hope to god that the new people ain’t vosa with a 600 quid fine for you for piffling little “offenses “ the new people you will meet are mainly forkies who will want you gone ASAP (if you are lucky enough to find one who speaks English) and as for get paid for it? 80 hours at crap rate is still crap rate. It will seem worth it while you still have your rose coloured specs on, but after a while you will realise that for what you’re doing, the rate is rubbish and the overtime rates (if you get anything above standard rate for overtime) isn’t much better.

And they wonder why theres a shortage .

Is there a shortage ■■?

Thanks for the truth.

jbaz73:
Think about it seriously. How are you going to feel when you’ve done 3 15hr shifts in a row. Which means you have 9 hours off, take out of that your travel time to work and back and any time you will want to spend with family. So, imagine it’s Wednesday, you have just completed 3 15hr shifts on 4 hrs sleep a night. Now you have Thursday and Friday to go, you can be sure that they will want to max those hours as well.

The fact I live 30 miles away from where I would be working doesn’t exactly help.

It would be a case of drive home head on my pillow and lights out.

In the morning so long as I had time for a [zb] I should be alright lol (at least for a while).

Everyone has their horror stories. But work it out. It’s such a lousy job that hundreds of thousands of people turn up to do it day after day. Are we really implying that all these folk are so spineless they haven’t made a change? Hardly. Yes, the job can be grim from time to time - so can many jobs. But it doesn’t make it all bad. There a plenty of reasonably well paid truck driving jobs out there; it’s a matter of finding what suits you and what doesn’t.

I’ll give you an example. 1984, when I started the school, I signed up with an agency in order to eat. I let them know in good time that I didn’t want to work Christmas Eve as had last minute shopping to do and jobs at home. So the phone rang whilst I was shopping early on 24th, was the agency needing urgent cover for a job at NFT. Just a short one to Malton, load and return. About 4 hours work supposedly. During the day I was asked to take it to Crick, some considerable distance further than the original Alfreton tip. Had to agree really as it could all be done in 8 hours which was the agreed minimum shift. At Malton, they ran out of product so I was parked up for a good while. Then the fridge wouldn’t start. Had to wait for a Thermo King fitter. In the end, I clocked in through security at Alfreton just before midnight. 15 hour shift on Christmas Eve.

That wasn’t good. But it doesn’t make the whole job awful. It was just one of those things which is really annoying at the time but really isn’t terminal. I have other similar stories but, compared to all the good days, they are neither here nor there.

Pete

Tseal:

jbaz73:
Think about it seriously. How are you going to feel when you’ve done 3 15hr shifts in a row. Which means you have 9 hours off, take out of that your travel time to work and back and any time you will want to spend with family. So, imagine it’s Wednesday, you have just completed 3 15hr shifts on 4 hrs sleep a night. Now you have Thursday and Friday to go, you can be sure that they will want to max those hours as well.

The fact I live 30 miles away from where I would be working doesn’t exactly help.

It would be a case of drive home head on my pillow and lights out.

In the morning so long as I had time for a [zb] I should be alright lol (at least for a while).

Don’t get me wrong, Pete has a point, you do get good days, but in recent years they are fewer and further apart. Traffic these days is insane, and companies are trying to squeeze more and more work into the working day.

You asked about the shortage? No there is no shortage for permanent work. Yes there is a shortage for agencies work. Not all agencies force you to eat a ■■■■ sandwich, but the majority are snakes.

I am now a shunter, I’ve done with the road. I work 6-3 and not a minute longer, I now have time for family life. I generally don’t discuss money, but in this case, to give you some idea of how a on road/off road compares: I now get 13.63 per hr with a t+.5 ot rate. The best I got for being on the road was 12 per hour flat rate and no holiday pay which I now get.

I guess I am a little bitter and twisted with it, years ago driving suited my lifestyle and it was the best thing since sliced bread. Now my life has changed and I want regular hours for better money. I am retraining to get my CPCS card, then I doubt I will ever drive another wagon.

You only get treated the way jbaz describes if you allow it to happen. Nobody is forcing you to work for an employer who treats staff like that.
Admittedly as newbie you’ll essentially have to take what you get but most had to do the same. It’s the same with any career you’re unlikely to get a brilliant job straight away.
Where you live and the type of work that’s on offer and what you’re willing to do also plays a part. But as rule avoid the big plc firms and avoid general haulage.

Thanks for the advice everyone it is helpful.

The reasons I want to get into Lgv driving are 1 I do like driving and 2 there appears to be a great deal of work out there.

If I type in Lgv driver into a job search engine lots of jobs are advertised on a daily basis.

I like the idea of agency driving as it sounds like there is lot of flexibility in when you work and when you want time off.
Maybe not full time work but I am not too bothered by that.

Also there seems to be less chance of getting stuck with a firm you hate working for (or people you hate working with).

At the moment I am completely stuck in a job I hate and getting another is proving very hard .

I wouldn’t mind be a shunter but why would they give me a job with not experience.

I wouldn’t mind being a van driver but again lots of experienced drivers to compete against in getting a job (loads and loads of people with car licences out there).

With Lgv driving I get the feeling they are desperate for agency drivers (even through they want experienced ones) so I probably could get my foot in door.

I don’t know how accurate the above is but you have to take into account I am a naïve newby.

Hi mate,

Have you tried david fox transport? They are a decent enough company and have a couple of 18t ridgid wagons doing collection and delivery of pallets.

There’s also Armstrong Richardson in stokesley have a drive up and go and see the transport staff they take new drivers as I know a lad who worked there. Not sure if they are but they will in the future failing that.

Don’t give up it’s hard at first.
The jobs what you make it take no notice of the negative comments you get it in every job.
Been driving just over a year and love it.

mikeycass87:
Hi mate,

Have you tried david fox transport? They are a decent enough company and have a couple of 18t ridgid wagons doing collection and delivery of pallets.

There’s also Armstrong Richardson in stokesley have a drive up and go and see the transport staff they take new drivers as I know a lad who worked there. Not sure if they are but they will in the future failing that.

Don’t give up it’s hard at first.
The jobs what you make it take no notice of the negative comments you get it in every job.
Been driving just over a year and love it.

Your help is much appreciated M8 .

I may well contact those firms. It is disheartening not getting a job as a new pass but maybe I just need to try harder.

One thing that puts me off is the distances I would have to travel for work. Tramping may well solve that problem but it tends to be mainly class 1 where that is an option.

There are not loads of jobs just all the agency posting for the same job

Have you tried Stillers in Newton Aycliff maybe a bit far but they do have most vehicles unto class 1 ( some are night trunks which are easy ) they also have vans take on new drivers as well

Have you got any of the food service companies nearby? Brakes, bidfood, blakemores all consider new passes.

I’m not sure it’s worth the cost of getting your class 1. You’ll still have the lack of experience and the pay isn’t significantly more than class 2.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

IronEddie:
Have you got any of the food service companies nearby? Brakes, bidfood, blakemores all consider new passes.

I’m not sure it’s worth the cost of getting your class 1. You’ll still have the lack of experience and the pay isn’t significantly more than class 2.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

Depends where you are for that. There are areas in the NW that pay min wage for class 2 and areas down south that pay £16+ ph. As class one driver I take home £4 an hour more than my class 2 colleagues which equates to £40 minium per shift I’ll take home more than them.

Then there’s the types of work each classes do. Would you rather do multi drop, 20+ deliveries in a shift all handball or do a single trunk that’s no handball?

With regards to experience there’s pretty much somebody that will always take on a class 1 driver fresh out of training. I’ve had my license for a month and could have a new job every week if I wanted.