Am I a real Trucker?

[robroy]

Bino10:

AndrewG:

Bino10:
I can’t never understand all the bs that comes with night out and I avoid them.

Got to ask…what is this bs you speak about re nights out? All pretty normal run of the mill stuff really

Lack of parking, no one wants you around, being clamped in lay bays, crap services, curtain slashers, many companies unwilling to pay for parking, late finish and not being able to get a space, a lot of places paying 22 for night out, gassing…oh I’ll stop here.

Although it’s pretty bad, maybe not as bad as you paint it mate.
As long as you park sensibly with a bit of common, 9.5 times out of 10 it’s fine, trust me…don’t believe the hype.

[charlie78]

What’s forgotten is that that the haulage industry is just progression from the canals.
Trampers of today are the water gypsies of yesteryear.
It will always be a life choice. A way of life that suits the individual.

[franglais]

charlie78:
What’s forgotten is that that the haulage industry is just progression from the canals.
Trampers of today are the water gypsies of yesteryear.
It will always be a life choice. A way of life that suits the individual.

In-comers. Waterways are putting traditional carters out if work.

Sent from my GT-S7275R using Tapatalk

[juddian]

The transport industry is a broad church and there is the work out there to suit everyone.

No such thing as a trucker in the UK, we’re lorry drivers of varying wants needs desires weaknesses and competences, just like in any other field of work.

Does any of it matter? well yes up to a point it does, because companies the length and breadth of the country are dumbing down the job to allow the cheapest fool they can get to do the job, the latest wheeze being in the driver facing camera which is their answer to the results of employing idiots whilst simultaneously alienating the better staff by micro managing people who have been doing the job for years without any issues, in effect insulting their work ethic and skills.

It is annoying for lorry drivers who still stubbornly take a pride in doing their work well to be assumed to be at the same skill/commitment level as the incompetents that now infest the job, to have to take out the damaged filthy wreckage the incompetents leave behind is demoralising, its nothing to do with rows of lights or bling, its the one size fits all and lowest common denominator ethos that now infects our industry.
Good lorry drivers don’t need to be spoon fed, in one place i temped if you had a double decker and the official route was closed for some reason the driver had to ask the office for an alternative, a more perfect example of lowest common denominator i’ve yet to come across, every single driver assumed to be as stupid as those who drive 16ft trailers straight through 15ft bridges.

Then there’s the never ending spying equipment fitted to almost every fleet lorry out there, proper lorry driver don’t need to be spied on and monitored, idiots do, but in dumb it down Britain everyone is assumed to be an idiot, so these companies ■■■■ hundreds of thousands of £££ up the wall on every more intrusive spying equipment, each time alienating another layer of driver that never needed monitoring in the first place.
This un-management of transport is a self destructive circle, the more you dumb things down and the more you watch people who never needed watching in the first place, the more likely you are to see those who never needed watching leave for pastures new, so to replace those you employ more dumb arses who need watching 24/7 so you need the next layer of monitoring, and on its goes.
Watching a half wit demolish £thousands of equipment/other vehicles on the in cab camera won’t provide any answers, nor will it miraculously make a good driver out of a bad one simply because he’s being watched.
One could wonder just how much all this garbage costs the companies, when the answer was staring them in the face all along, pay well, employ the right people, treat them well, respect them, don’t just assume they are idiots like the ones who cost you £££ in damage, and you’ll find you don’t need all this ■■■■■■■■ nor half the pointy shoes you need to keep the spreadsheets and provide power point presentations for the board.

This all started going wrong when they removed the gearstick and replaced it with a switch, and thats’s been supplemented constantly with other electronic aids designed to stop those who should never have allowed anywhere near a lorry in the first place from doing their worse.

The real lorry driver doesn’t need of of this tat, and is quite capable of not only controlling their vehicle, but also of finding their way about all by their own self, by planning their own routes and sensibly using modern tech to inform them of road delays and closures and getting around them by using the grey matter they were born with.

Nights out and all the other side issues don’t really make any odds, there are as many real lorry drivers doing nights out as there are doing shifts and as many incompetents in both sectors, some are being paid well some arn’t, some paid on days/salary are doing well out of it some arn’t, some take a pride in their work part of which is looking after their equipment (and the customer), some don’t, some take a pride in their driving and try to improve it some don’t.

Those that do the positive things could arguably be called lorry drivers.

[lolipop]

Professional Drivers when they leave a job they usually go onto another driving job either better paid or better conditions but still remaining in transport.
I get the impression you will move on at a whim to any sort of job going if the monies and hours are better

[fernando]

I’m kind of similar to the op. I do the job to the best of my abilities, ie I don’t damage the truck or load, keep to the law in relation to the tacho and the highway code etc. I’m a day driver and share the truck with a night driver who has adorned the cab with ornaments and tapestries of wolves howling at the moon and has his nick name permanently fixed to the grill on a number plate. Pictures of his family and more air fresheners than Halfords.
Quite frankly I find it all a bit embarrassing, I imagine he thinks he’s an interstate trucker in a big rig but it’s only a rigid doing local trips.
I know my face doesn’t really fit but I’m polite to everyone and try to hold conversations.
I was told I’m too posh to drive a truck as I wash my high vis and clean my hands before eating lol.

[toddy2]

Juddian:
The transport industry is a broad church and there is the work out there to suit everyone.

No such thing as a trucker in the UK, we’re lorry drivers of varying wants needs desires weaknesses and competences, just like in any other field of work.

Does any of it matter? well yes up to a point it does, because companies the length and breadth of the country are dumbing down the job to allow the cheapest fool they can get to do the job, the latest wheeze being in the driver facing camera which is their answer to the results of employing idiots whilst simultaneously alienating the better staff by micro managing people who have been doing the job for years without any issues, in effect insulting their work ethic and skills.

It is annoying for lorry drivers who still stubbornly take a pride in doing their work well to be assumed to be at the same skill/commitment level as the incompetents that now infest the job, to have to take out the damaged filthy wreckage the incompetents leave behind is demoralising, its nothing to do with rows of lights or bling, its the one size fits all and lowest common denominator ethos that now infects our industry.
Good lorry drivers don’t need to be spoon fed, in one place i temped if you had a double decker and the official route was closed for some reason the driver had to ask the office for an alternative, a more perfect example of lowest common denominator i’ve yet to come across, every single driver assumed to be as stupid as those who drive 16ft trailers straight through 15ft bridges.

Then there’s the never ending spying equipment fitted to almost every fleet lorry out there, proper lorry driver don’t need to be spied on and monitored, idiots do, but in dumb it down Britain everyone is assumed to be an idiot, so these companies ■■■■ hundreds of thousands of £££ up the wall on every more intrusive spying equipment, each time alienating another layer of driver that never needed monitoring in the first place.
This un-management of transport is a self destructive circle, the more you dumb things down and the more you watch people who never needed watching in the first place, the more likely you are to see those who never needed watching leave for pastures new, so to replace those you employ more dumb arses who need watching 24/7 so you need the next layer of monitoring, and on its goes.
Watching a half wit demolish £thousands of equipment/other vehicles on the in cab camera won’t provide any answers, nor will it miraculously make a good driver out of a bad one simply because he’s being watched.
One could wonder just how much all this garbage costs the companies, when the answer was staring them in the face all along, pay well, employ the right people, treat them well, respect them, don’t just assume they are idiots like the ones who cost you £££ in damage, and you’ll find you don’t need all this ■■■■■■■■ nor half the pointy shoes you need to keep the spreadsheets and provide power point presentations for the board.

This all started going wrong when they removed the gearstick and replaced it with a switch, and thats’s been supplemented constantly with other electronic aids designed to stop those who should never have allowed anywhere near a lorry in the first place from doing their worse.

The real lorry driver doesn’t need of of this tat, and is quite capable of not only controlling their vehicle, but also of finding their way about all by their own self, by planning their own routes and sensibly using modern tech to inform them of road delays and closures and getting around them by using the grey matter they were born with.

Nights out and all the other side issues don’t really make any odds, there are as many real lorry drivers doing nights out as there are doing shifts and as many incompetents in both sectors, some are being paid well some arn’t, some paid on days/salary are doing well out of it some arn’t, some take a pride in their work part of which is looking after their equipment (and the customer), some don’t, some take a pride in their driving and try to improve it some don’t.

Those that do the positive things could arguably be called lorry drivers.

Very well put

[juddian]

lolipop:
Professional Drivers when they leave a job they usually go onto another driving job either better paid or better conditions but still remaining in transport.
I get the impression you will move on at a whim to any sort of job going if the monies and hours are better

Sometimes they get driven out when the previously good job brings in the one final spying/monitoring/dumbing-down straw that breaks the camel’s back, these things often follow in due course after new pointy shoes join intent on making a name for themselves, no they don’t last either but just as incompetent lorry licence holders can leave a trail of destruction in their wake, so can this new breed of manager.

thanks Toddy

[knight2]

I’m not a real trucker, in fact I’m not a trucker at all any more, I’m a gentleman of leisure, am I a real gentleman ? sod it who cares

[vid]

Juddian:

lolipop:
Professional Drivers when they leave a job they usually go onto another driving job either better paid or better conditions but still remaining in transport.
I get the impression you will move on at a whim to any sort of job going if the monies and hours are better

Sometimes they get driven out when the previously good job brings in the one final spying/monitoring/dumbing-down straw that breaks the camel’s back, these things often follow in due course after new pointy shoes join intent on making a name for themselves, no they don’t last either but just as incompetent lorry licence holders can leave a trail of destruction in their wake, so can this new breed of manager.

thanks Toddy

Those ‘new pointy shoes’ are employed and instructed by someone further up the food chain. Those even further distant from the job that needs to be done and the people (on the whole) trying to do it.

[truckyboy]

I can agree with most of the real truckers on here, even if they really are Lorry Drivers, a word i rarely use, just to show the younger generation i am street wise …anyway, you never mentioned Flags …now a real trucker has flags in the window…much better in the olden days mate, when we had two…the F89 had 2, so did my 2600 Daf…so i was lucky in that i had 2 sets of flags. I also had a piece of rag to clean my mirrors whilst i drove the highways and byways…and i had a name plate…that worked a treat, as wherever i went, i would be called by my name, and not Drive now move along a few years over 50 to be precise from when i first started in this game ( and im still learning something new ) i dont take the abuse anymore, if they dont want my load they ordered, i attempt to pull out of their yard, and go and dump it..its not my fault i arrived at an inconvenient time to them..9/10, they stop me at the gate..and i return to a different attitude. I also dont work for peanuts..£10 minimum an hour suits me fine, if its higher..fair enough..but thats for weekdays, i dont do weekends ( even though it £17 an hour minimum down south ) I am prepared to do most things, except to tip a full load on my own..if its on pallets thats a different reason..but i still want paying for it..a per rate an hour doesnt give them the right to abuse me as a driver..if on an interview, they tell me theres some hand ball..i politely tell them to give it to a more experienced driver other than myself..however , if i was on £20 an hour, i might consider it now and again. I also dont work 15 hour days..mine is limited to 12..with the occasional 13 ( just as it was in the olden days ) YOu see, i am whats called retired..but still work, and go abroad to earn some pocket money to spend when im in my other home which happens to be abroad too…but after 53 years in this industry i have earned that right…btw, i dont do 12 spotlights…and lights on the mirrors, and up the back of the cab, i like an airhorn though…but if a driver wants to spend his money on someone elses truck, that means he takes pride…and i dont blame him for that, for as we did in 70s - 80s we spent money on our own bling…flags, michelin men…spanish bullfighter spears… airhorns…name badges, stickers over the side glass ( yes trucks/lorries had side windows ) but that was back in the olden days… keep on trucking…has a ring to it doesnt it…cant say…Keep on Lorrying can ya…dont sound right.

[robroy]

I see a few have an issue with the trucker v lorry driver thing.
When I hear ‘Lorry driver’ it kinda conjures up an image of a guy from the 50s sat in his Thames Trader wearing a bib and brace overall clogs and an army greatcoat as a heater.
A bit like a young Truckyboy in fact …only joking mate.

When I started as a young kid, I was attracted by US films, Smokey and the bandit, and Convoy…(Btw I quickly discovered they had no bearing on reality while driving down to London in my TK Bedford )
Those guys were ‘‘Truckers’’ .
I still reckon I have more in common with them than Joe Smith from the 50s in his Thames Trader.

[harry_monk]

“LORRY IS the weak-chinned word we use in Britain: looks like “worry”, sounds like “sorry”. Size does not mitigate - on the contrary, the bigger the worse: “heavy lorry”, we sniff, as in “heavy cold”. The proper word, of course, is an emphatic riposte, a defiant clenching of teeth, sounds like something else altogether. So let’s get it said straight away, in all its Anglo-Saxon uncouthness: TRUCK!”

(Graham Coster, A Thousand Miles From Nowhere).

[truckyboy]

Cheers Rob…no offence taken, but absolutely true…you forget the ex surplus army boots complete with studs…thank god we didnt have laminate floors in the olden days…just Lino

[reef]

Juddian:
Then there’s the never ending spying equipment fitted to almost every fleet lorry out there, proper lorry driver don’t need to be spied on and monitored, idiots do, but in dumb it down Britain everyone is assumed to be an idiot, so these companies ■■■■ hundreds of thousands of £££ up the wall on every more intrusive spying equipment, each time alienating another layer of driver that never needed monitoring in the first place.
This un-management of transport is a self destructive circle, the more you dumb things down and the more you watch people who never needed watching in the first place, the more likely you are to see those who never needed watching leave for pastures new, so to replace those you employ more dumb arses who need watching 24/7 so you need the next layer of monitoring, and on its goes.
Watching a half wit demolish £thousands of equipment/other vehicles on the in cab camera won’t provide any answers, nor will it miraculously make a good driver out of a bad one simply because he’s being watched.
One could wonder just how much all this garbage costs the companies, when the answer was staring them in the face all along, pay well, employ the right people, treat them well, respect them, don’t just assume they are idiots like the ones who cost you £££ in damage, and you’ll find you don’t need all this ■■■■■■■■ nor half the pointy shoes you need to keep the spreadsheets and provide power point presentations for the board.

It’s only going to get worse too mate, just seen this advert for a vendor at the upcoming CV Show, soon appearing in a fleet truck near you…

.

[juddian]

^^^ Jesus wept, you can just see the pointy shoe gell haired greasy pole climbers foaming at the mouth at the anticipation of firing up that ■■■■■■■■

You know what? my Mrs is right on the money, they won’t be satisfied till we’ve got chips inserted under our skin ever more intrusive with each modification till eventually our very thoughts will be monitored.

I’ll go back to a one man band on skips/tippers before i work under this sort of surveillance, they can stick it where the sun don’t ever shine.

[manalishi]

fernando:
I’m kind of similar to the op. I do the job to the best of my abilities, ie I don’t damage the truck or load, keep to the law in relation to the tacho and the highway code etc. I’m a day driver and share the truck with a night driver who has adorned the cab with ornaments and tapestries of wolves howling at the moon and has his nick name permanently fixed to the grill on a number plate. Pictures of his family and more air fresheners than Halfords.
Quite frankly I find it all a bit embarrassing, I imagine he thinks he’s an interstate trucker in a big rig but it’s only a rigid doing local trips.
I know my face doesn’t really fit but I’m polite to everyone and try to hold conversations.
I was told I’m too posh to drive a truck as I wash my high vis and clean my hands before eating lol.

a very piquant pastiche you’ve painted.Brilliant.