ERF-NGC-European:
The blue touch paper lit, I decided to sit back and observe! As predicted we have thrifty or sometimes greedy hauliers, ‘luddite’ unions, established digs, stoic board-across-seat die-hards and tradition as our choice of elephants in the room on this one. There will be all sorts of factors that make up the mosaic on history on this. A contributory factor will be absence of legislation against sleeping in a wagon without a sleeper cab. This was, I believe, remedied first by Germany in (someone put me right here) the late '60s or maybe very early '70s. The knock-on effect of that will undoubtedly have had an eventual impact on UK wagons transiting Germany and mainland Europe in general. Only nine and a half pages to go to Xmas!Robert
All of those Robert and also many contradictions, but before discussing those let’s just look at the historical reasons. The earliest forays into Europe for British drivers mid=1950s, but a very tiny minority of drivers. At that time BRS ruled the roost in general haulage even though it was then competing with a growing private transport sector. Tramping BRS drivers parked for the night at another BRS depot, that arranged digs for that driver. BRS had a register of approved digs, several of them run by the wives of BRS employees as a side line. Many of the sizable private hauliers also had their own “digging” arrangements in towns and cities where they had plenty of regular traffic.
Every experienced tramper driver had his own notebook of addresses for digs (and sources of back loads) for wherever he might go. Like anything else there were good digs and bad digs. The better establishments were usually recommendations from other drivers. Transport digs got the driver away from his lorry and cab. He could go for a pint, or go to the cinema, or if in London for example, catch the bus or tube and take in the tourist sights if minded to do so.
Consider the union resistance to sleeper cabs. Were they safeguarding the welfare of their driver members? Well look at frequent threads on the Professional Drivers’ Forum. Regular complaints about lack of facilities for drivers in this day and age, parking in lay-bys stinking of urine, and, we see posts recommending union membership as a means of improving drivers’ conditions. So make your minds up about union resistance to sleeper cabs 40 plus years ago. I would argue that whatever the pros and cons of trade unions they cannot be blamed for opposing sleeper cabs. Seriously, is it healthy for a tramper away for several days to spend virtually every hour in each day in a lorry cab?
In pre-sleeper cab days the 15 hour spread over duty didn’t exist. Have sleeper cabs encouraged these maximum shifts to be worked? I will argue that the sleeper cab has done more harm than good to the working conditions of drivers.
There you are,this should fan the flames of a few more pages.