Compare the UK trucking to Canadian

Do apologize, I’ve just opened another Canada topic, but the previous ones seems to me a bit “abandoned”.

Just spend a short holiday in Cuba, where I met an ex pat trucker; he told me that, he would never do the UK trucking again, as he can afford a higher life standard there, while his job is more enjoyable. So, I’d like to ask guys, who moved to Canada from the UK about their opinions, making some comparisons between the every day life of the two countries.
I’d really appreciate some kind of information about the legal paperwork, and the first steps, like accommodation, driver licence issues, etc. Even about food, health care, other experiences, whatever. :slight_smile:
I’m a British Citizen myself, 5 years experience (Class 1), clean licence, no criminal records
Thank you. :slight_smile:

Wouldn’t entertain moving back and driving for a living the traffic stress would kill me now

russjp:
Wouldn’t entertain moving back and driving for a living the traffic stress would kill me now

Yeah, the traffic is a pain in the ■■■ in the UK. And the ■■■■■■’ roadworks everywhere… :smiley:

We’ve been here 3 years now and even with the decent jobs we had in England we couldn’t afford half of what we have now

russjp:
We’ve been here 3 years now and even with the decent jobs we had in England we couldn’t afford half of what we have now

That’s actually everyone says…

russjp, if you have time, any time, pls give me some details (first steps over there, costs of every day life, etc.), would really apprecciate that. :sunglasses:

Any advice you need can be found in this forum, it’s not about money though that’s the one mistake a lot of people make its about enhancing your life and that’s not always a financial issue, I’m sure any of the expats on here will tell you the same if money is your motivation then you’ll be unhappy trucking here

No… Not the money. I know, it sounds a bit childish, but a new challenge, new experiences are my motivation. Discovering something different, I know only from the telly.
I love driving, never ever been complaining about long shifts, etc. So I’m sure, I’d love that job, but have to think twice, before act, that’s all.

If you’re a single guy who likes a challenge then go for it, if you have a wife and kids then I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it but be prepared to struggle for a couple of years while you get on your feet

russjp:
If you’re a single guy who likes a challenge then go for it, if you have a wife and kids then I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it but be prepared to struggle for a couple of years while you get on your feet

Married, two kids, but the elder one is 24 already, does not count as kid any more. :smiley:
However, I never thought that, it’s just a joyride. I will think about everything, before I make my decision.
Thank you for being realistic, hope, one day we will meet in a truckstop and have a coffee. :sunglasses:

never moved till awe was 48 …wish tae hell I had done it earlier…arrived in 08 ye wouldny get me back tae the uk unless I was in a box!
drove a wagon frae 1981 so seen the good times in the uk and apart from bringing in the e logs in a couple o years time tae Canada …use a paper log book at the moment :wink: things are good.
more autos coming intae use now but most are still 13sp/18 eaton fullers wae a few 10sp spicers around,the motors do the job but they aint no euro motor. the cvsa /dot are not in vosa league but there are some real truck haters in the ranks :laughing:
At least for a Canadian firm you can visit the usa unload and then have to load back to Canada

Sorry to sound pessimistic, but opportunities are thin on the ground here right now, you’ll be extremely lucky to get a job offer and the associated paperwork required for a work permit. Now that isn’t to say it’s impossible, but it will be difficult.

Having said that, he who dares wins and all that, so assuming you get sorted in that respect, what’s Canada like? That is really like asking how long is a piece of string, there are huge differences depending on where in the country you are, on the whole though it’s a nice place to be, people are laid back and friendly for the most part.

The weather is mental, you have to experience the extremes to fully understand them, but temperatures jump between minus 40c in winter to plus 40c in summer. The amount of snow that comes down in a single storm would probably equal every bit of snow the average Brit has ever seen in their lifetime and once that storm finishes, another one hits a few days later, like I said, it’s mental and if you venture into the USA you have tropical storms, hurricanes and tornadoes to add to the mix. They’re not everyday occurrences, but be in the wrong place at the wrong time and it could get messy.

Living costs are dependant on w here you go, but you can get a much bigger place on lorry driver wages here than you can in Britain. The same goes for cars. Groceries are pretty expensive, but again, you can still live better than you could in Britain. Eating out is on par, but you really need to develop a love for plastic cheese as they like to put it on everything and the portion sizes are much bigger, so you get a lot of plastic cheese!

The job is harder, no doubt about that, you’re away longer, you drive further, up to 700miles a day and you have the extreme conditions to endure, the roads are in a shocking state, if you ever drove in the commie bloc you will know what to expect over here. The truckstops have good facilities, except the plastic cheese mad restaurants! Free very good clean showers though.

The driving standards of fellow truck drivers is shocking, you will often shake your head and ask yourself WTF, the car drivers are even worse, but there is a lot of space out here, so unless you’re in a big city, it’s easy running, even a 700mile day can pass quickly and without incident.

One big factor that makes Canada very attractive at the moment is the exchange rate, it’s almost two dollars to the pound at the moment, that is a very good deal if you have a chunk of change to bring over.

Its quite common for me to earn more on a good 4 day week, than it is on a regular 5 day week or even a 6 day. I’m probably in one of the best paying driving jobs in New Brunswick over all, especially when factoring in home time and over all treatment. My base rate is .43cpm with $20 for each pick and drop and $2.50 for every empty rack I bring back when delivering plants/flowers etc.
I do a mix of our own account plant (plant as in flowers) work and general freight so my weekly mileage varies a lot. One week I may only do 2000 miles, but do 20 or more picks and drops and with all the extras I’ll take home in the bank in excess of $1000 for a 5 day week. Some weeks it could be in the 800s or 900s. Other weeks I’ll be doing general freight and still be away 5 days, possibly 6 and I may do 3000 - 3700 miles but only do 2 picks and drops. Recently I banked $1150 for six days out. However I also have shockingly bad weeks where I’ll take home a lot less. Due to my relatively high mileage rate I’m usually in the $700+ per week take home even on a bad week, though recently I did have one at about $650.
Due to the nature of my job and that for about 6 months of the year when added together, I’m doing our own plant deliveries which tend to be in New England I do less mileage than most drivers in Canada who are considered long haul. Last year I did something like 104,000 miles and grossed $150 short of $60k. When my gross wage is divided by my miles for the year my mileage rate then worked out at .57.6cpm with all the add ons etc. I also get 5 additional paid bank holidays per year above and beyond the legal requirement.

My experiences and the way I’m treated in this job are unfortunately not the industry standard though, especially for New Brunswick and probably for Canada as a whole. I have plenty of friends working for long haul firms, firms which are usually pretty decent outfits (for earnings at least) but due to the economic climate at the moment with the exchange rate the way it is with the US dollar and the resulting consequences for US exports to Canada being in shorter supply, they often sit for days at a time on no pay at all.
I do miss the long haul trips and the like but at the moment I’m working Monday to Friday 95% of the time with Saturday and Sundays at home and I’m earning more money than many of my mates who are subject to the volatile nature of mileage only pay for a Canadian general freight long haul firm. A few weeks back I finished one of my multi-drop plant runs in Ohio, they looked for a reload for a few hours, couldn’t find anything so brought be all the way back to New Brunswick empty to be in place for the next week’s run. Any of the previous firms I’d worked for would have sat my there for days without batting an eyelid.

I think its far easier to find a good job in the UK you can be comfortable in and settle down because wages don’t differ so drastically from day to day and week to week as an employed driver in the UK. Here they do but a family man obviously has constant outgoings so life with one of the bottom dwelling ■■■■ roach firms will be a roller coaster ride of financial stress and woe at the best of times unless you’ve sold a house in the UK you owned and come across with so much money you don’t mind bumming around, which to be fair is quite common with many Brits here. Much more difficult if you’re coming across with very little money and a family to support from the word go and start out with a feast and famine firm, with a heavy bias towards famine.

In the UK you can be the worst driver in the world and all you have to do is merely turn up for work and do a bit and you’ll be getting your guaranteed hourly rate or day rate, the same as the man next to you, regardless of how much you’ve done or he’s done. Here you’ll be working a ■■■■ sight harder and longer but if all things line up you’ll eventually have a batter quality of life here, or you’ll at least have more things, bigger hours etc. Quality of life will depend on each individual and what they want out of life, Canada isn’t for everyone, nor is Britain etc.

As NMM says, it’ll be harder now because LMIAs are not being thrown around like snow balls like they were when most of us came across so its not possible to pick and choose firms in the way it once was. I came across 7 years ago as a single 25 year old with no ties so I had nothing to lose by giving it a go and seeing how it went. I’m now married to a Canadian with a 9 month old baby and despite saving a shed load of money here in my first two years when I lived a grim life in the cab of a truck and last year bringing over a considerable amount from the UK at the very advantageous exchange rate, life isn’t easy, I earn very well for this part of Canada but we’re only living off my wage at the moment due to the baby and its bloody hard making any head way at all and the thought of having these sorts of expenses as a new arrival in Canada, earning the sort of money I did in my first few jobs makes me shudder. I’m pretty tight compared to most, I don’t like spending money on myself on any thing, I’ve never bought anything extravagant in Canada since being here. I’m a saving today and planning for the future type of guy, and even then its hard. In light of that, its no wonder I’ve seen so many Brits come over and head back practically bankrupt within a year or two because most of them come here on a dizzy high and splurge out on all sorts of toys, cars, houses etc and then later find they can’t afford it and start to slowly sink week by week as the wages don’t match the out goings or they have one great week of mileage or two crap ones but still can’t keep that boat afloat.

So to sum up my opinion after all this rambling, it would be that if back in 2009 I had a wife and a baby and was thinking of starting from scratch in Canada, I wouldn’t bother because I doubt I could afford to do so. If I were older and had a paid for house in the UK I could sell and then convert that huge amount of money in to Canadian dollars, then yes, might as well and if you’re a single chap looking for a bit of an adventure, which was my case back then, then why not, give it a shot if you can get an LMIA.
Its taken me a long time to get to where I am in Canada now and I’ve only being able to do so because for much of it I only had to provide for myself. Had I had a wife and child from the start, I can’t see how I’d possibly have survived those first few dark years in anything other than dank squalor in a shanty house in town which would have been so far below my standard of living in England, I’d never have bothered. Those that come here with money from a house sale in the UK definitely have a huge advantage here.

I like my life in Canada now on the most part and I’m almost certainly here for good now due to my ties here, but if my wife were interested in ever moving to England, I would give it very strong consideration at the very least. I think I like living here more, but I do feel burnt out from the job of endlessly having to chase the mile to bank the dollar. If I did ever move back to England I think it would mainly be for the work and the more predictable wage, which is something I do crave a lot.

I came here in ‘07’ and very thankful I did then, when jobs (LMO’s & TWP’s) were plentiful.
Before that, I lived month to month in the UK and had nothing because of previous circumstances beyond my control.
I couldn’t get ahead at all and when the opportunity to come over here to work, I grabbed it.
I spent 3 1/2yrs living in the truck, got married my first year here, got me and wife’s PR and wife moved here and am now a Citizen.
We had 2 houses built in Thailand and are buying a decent sized house here and a newish car in the garage.
I still live mth to mth but have a hell of a lot more now than I ever did.
I now do a local run, mon-fri, 4 times 108km round trip loads, of water into a bottling plant, a day, anywhere between 11- 14 hrs & home every night.
I get a good hourly rate and time & 1/2 over 8hrs & gross $1600+/week.
I hated mileage pay with bonuses for this and that, never new what I was going to make week to week.
The way things stand over here now, in regards to LMIA’s & TWP’s, if you have a half decent job in the UK, I would stick to it and maybe in the not too distant future, with this new Govt, things could change again.
Take in what has been said by NMM & Robinhood above about moving here with family.
Anyone alone, get’s a chance, I would say go for it.

Excellent posts there guys VERY interesting
reading!!!

Rather than start another Canada thread I’ll ask here, if you find a company employing that have lmia’s do they have people that will help you sort everything out to get out there and get the licence or do they basically say sort x y and z out yourself and be in the yard on this date to start?

neilg14:
I spent 3 1/2yrs living in the truck,

What did you do for an address for the time you where living in the truck?

MGR1610:
Rather than start another Canada thread I’ll ask here, if you find a company employing that have lmia’s do they have people that will help you sort everything out to get out there and get the licence or do they basically say sort x y and z out yourself and be in the yard on this date to start?

What did you do for an address for the time you where living in the truck?

It all depends on the company. Some do it all for you, some point you in the right direction to do most of it yourself and others want you to do everything and come back once its done.

The company I came across with charged us something like $3000 each and for that we got accommodation provided and unlimited use of a truck and trailer to practice on for the test, plus they paid for all the tests etc. They also let us use the workshop pickup to get around in without restriction. This worked great for me as I came across alone as a bit of an adventure and didn’t want to outlay even more money on an apartment, furniture, a car etc until I knew if I was going to stay or not, so whilst the initial fee they charged seemed a bit steep, it was cheaper than it would otherwise have cost me to do it all independently, especially if you factor in paying a driving school to get you through the test etc, which would be several hundred if not a thousand or so in itself.

I also lived in my truck for the best part of two years and I used the companies address, so all my mail just got put in my drivers box. Some companies don’t let you do this, some do.

robinhood_1984:

MGR1610:
Rather than start another Canada thread I’ll ask here, if you find a company employing that have lmia’s do they have people that will help you sort everything out to get out there and get the licence or do they basically say sort x y and z out yourself and be in the yard on this date to start?

What did you do for an address for the time you where living in the truck?

It all depends on the company. Some do it all for you, some point you in the right direction to do most of it yourself and others want you to do everything and come back once its done.

The company I came across with charged us something like $3000 each and for that we got accommodation provided and unlimited use of a truck and trailer to practice on for the test, plus they paid for all the tests etc. They also let us use the workshop pickup to get around in without restriction. This worked great for me as I came across alone as a bit of an adventure and didn’t want to outlay even more money on an apartment, furniture, a car etc until I knew if I was going to stay or not, so whilst the initial fee they charged seemed a bit steep, it was cheaper than it would otherwise have cost me to do it all independently, especially if you factor in paying a driving school to get you through the test etc, which would be several hundred if not a thousand or so in itself.

I also lived in my truck for the best part of two years and I used the companies address, so all my mail just got put in my drivers box. Some companies don’t let you do this, some do.

Something like that would be ideal for me because I would be coming over alone aswell and spending $3000 is nothing really compared to what your getting and will be saving if you live in the truck. I’m not 25 for another 2 years so hopefully by then more company’s will be employing with lmia’s.

What’s the test like aswell please?

the test POP to be honest…multi choice class1 and air brake. for learners licence. On the test day ,a pre trip inspection, a practical air brake test (you could learn both parrot fashion) then if you have passed the previous a straight reverse into a bay then a 20ish drive a couple o left /turns right turns a traffic light or two then back to test centre . used to be able to do a brake adjustment exam but that’s now gone. NB this is for Manitoba.

look at mpi.mb.driver quizzes for an idea on things.

JIMBO47:
the test POP to be honest…multi choice class1 and air brake. for learners licence. On the test day ,a pre trip inspection, a practical air brake test (you could learn both parrot fashion) then if you have passed the previous a straight reverse into a bay then a 20ish drive a couple o left /turns right turns a traffic light or two then back to test centre . used to be able to do a brake adjustment exam but that’s now gone. NB this is for Manitoba.

Reverse into a bay ? Jeez you had it tough we had to turn left out out a junction reverse straight back and turn left into the street we came out of !! Test is a joke