Apart from getting a truck licence in the Forces and driving military vehicles quite some years ago, is this a stable industry to be in? Secure job? If you are made redundant, it’s likely you’ll find work relatively easily?
With all the negatives of the job now made very public, it’s a wonder why so many people do it, if drivers are treat like this?
I’m still a year on ( covid kind of made me stay where I am) considering going into LGV driving.
Again, been stuck on 11 odd pound an hour for years and to be honest the pay on the buses ain’t cutting it anymore. Taking home £350 a week and really want to earn more. Bus driving outside London, the pay isn’t too great.
Personally I’ve never been out of work. There’s been times where its lean so I’ve sat tight but theres also other times where its drivers choice a bit like now.
Bottom line is stuff always needs moving and most stuff moves on a truck at some point.
What area are you in?
There’s plenty of work at the moment but the elephant in the room when talking about “a job for life” is autonomous vehicles. Some folk say they will never happen, I personally think they won’t happen in my working lifetime and maybe not in my lifetime lifetime but if you are under 40 then it is something looming on your horizon.
You get out of lorry driving what you put into it and much depends if you’re a glass half full cheerful soul or a glass half empty personality who carries around a grey cloud of doom above his head like a permabrolly.
For myself 4 decades on artics and still at it, still enjoy my job where i’m well paid and looked after and seemingly respected (to my ugly mug anyway) and in return i do my best taking a pride in my work which gives me job satisfaction as well as making my job as secure as anyones.
There’s many bad aspects about the job, so what you do if you have any sense (and potential operators who do the sort of work you like in your area) is find a type of work and operation where the downsides don’t affect you.
I don’t do nights out, i don’t rush around like my arse is one fire, i don’t have to deliver to hellish RDC’s or do multi drops or pallet type work because i don’t want any of those things, i work an average of 43 hours a week, i deliver to regular places using routes of my own choosing which no one has ever questioned and know most of the storemen etc by name as they do me.
Yes you can do this job all of your life if you want to, most unlikely you’ll work at one place till you hang up your keys for the last time, but the same goes for most of us.
Its a broad industry and the secret in my opinion to a happy working life on the lorries is to find the industry sector that you enjoy working in, if it pays well that a win win all round.
Harry and i disagree on automation of lorries, they can’t get the bloody cameras to work for more than a few days or weeks at best let alone the mutitude of sensors 'puters solenoids and drives that will all have to work in conjuction with each other perfectly and fautlessly to get an autonomous vehicle to negotiate Britains increasingly ruined increasingly third world road network reliably and safely.
.
When it comes to autonomous vehicles the best thing I’ve heard anyone say is this- if you’re a lorry driver in your 40’s or older you’ll almost certainly have a full career. But someone starting out at 18? Unlikely. I agree.
You may not have a job for life. If you keep your licence clean and generally give a good account of your self, you will be a very employable commodity. Do lots of agency gigs to start with ,possibly go full time in a job that suits you. I watch a you tube channel, Scotty Kilmer he talks cars mainly. He says another self driving Tesla has crashed into a stationary police car. The self driving malarky has been just around the corner for a hundred years. Cant see it happening any time soon.
switchlogic:
When it comes to autonomous vehicles the best thing I’ve heard anyone say is this- if you’re a lorry driver in your 40’s or older you’ll almost certainly have a full career. But someone starting out at 18? Unlikely. I agree.
Can’t see it Luke. Admittedly I’m at the wrong end of my career, but if I was a keen 18 year old I’d jump in feet first. As Juddian alludes to correctly the tech will not be at an acceptable level for a few generations at least. Once I can get a full DAB signal just south of Tebay or from Carlisle to Lesmahagow I may start worrying.
switchlogic:
When it comes to autonomous vehicles the best thing I’ve heard anyone say is this- if you’re a lorry driver in your 40’s or older you’ll almost certainly have a full career. But someone starting out at 18? Unlikely. I agree.
Totally agree.
Autonomous vehicles are coming. This is something you should consider if you are under 40.
All HGV work will never be fully autonomous though.
But trunking work a lot of supermarket work will be made autonomous. Which will cut down the number of available jobs in the industry.
Before any of this happens though it will be fully autonomous with the requirement of a driver at the wheel. So it will not be a sudden thing.
the maoster:
switchlogic:
When it comes to autonomous vehicles the best thing I’ve heard anyone say is this- if you’re a lorry driver in your 40’s or older you’ll almost certainly have a full career. But someone starting out at 18? Unlikely. I agree.Can’t see it Luke. Admittedly I’m at the wrong end of my career, but if I was a keen 18 year old I’d jump in feet first. As Juddian alludes to correctly the tech will not be at an acceptable level for a few generations at least. Once I can get a full DAB signal just south of Tebay or from Carlisle to Lesmahagow I may start worrying.
That’s not to say they shouldn’t do it. But just be aware. I drove that Volvo Dual Clutch 540 to Italy 3 years ago for a magazine review and it entirely changed my opinion on this subject. It was a demo direct from Volvo so it came fully loaded with tech, most trucks we drive dont come close. That effectively drove itself to Italy, all I did was steer most of time. It went over the Alps and I touched the pedals once or twice I think. Up and down. The technology is getting close. An 18 year old is nearly 50 years from retirement. Think how far we’ve come in 50 and you’ll realise anything is possible.
alamcculloch:
If you keep your licence clean and generally give a good account of your self, you will be a very employable commodity.
That’s me ■■■■■■ then
With regards to autonomous trucks, the whole road infrastructure would have to be changed this would take decades, just look how long motorway works take these days and then you have the legal/moral side of the problem, who goes to court when one of these things wipes out an innocent pedestrian and who in their right mind would pass a law allowing a Scania to decide if it should swerve into an old granny to avoid a heavily pregnant mother and her toddler?
I agree the technology is available. But nah not going to happen!
With the government’s and operators’ crusade towards minimising truck journeys in terms of distance it’s more likely that the driving side of the job, v ‘other duties’, will reach the point where the question of if autonomous trucks happen or not will be moot.
The job is about to be turned into a multi role, generally anything but driving, ‘logistics’ role. Which will cover everything from goods in checker to order picker to forklift driver and general warehouse duties in which you’ll probably cover almost as many miles driving a forklift and pushing a pallet truck or even handballing boxes stacking and breaking down pallets, as driving a truck a few miles up the road.
If I was starting out I’d be asking a lot of questions regarding duties required present or future.With a watertight job description making it very clear that I’m here to drive not to be a warehouse operative/yard labourer etc etc.
If I had an out of town bus driving job I’d probably stay on it even at 100 quid a week less.
Or might as well train for a higher paid factory etc type job, minding a CNC machine, doing 2 or 3 days a week to make it tolerable.
switchlogic:
That’s not to say they shouldn’t do it. But just be aware. I drove that Volvo Dual Clutch 540 to Italy 3 years ago for a magazine review and it entirely changed my opinion on this subject. It was a demo direct from Volvo so it came fully loaded with tech, most trucks we drive dont come close. That effectively drove itself to Italy, all I did was steer most of time. It went over the Alps and I touched the pedals once or twice I think. Up and down. The technology is getting close. An 18 year old is nearly 50 years from retirement. Think how far we’ve come in 50 and you’ll realise anything is possible.
I absolutely agree that the tech has come on vast amounts in recent years. I’ve driven vehicles equipped with terrain mapping and concede that all they require is minimal input, namely steering. But, and it’s a big but, would you trust it to drive unaided through a busy town centre or a busy, and ever changing motorway scenario? I wouldn’t, and I don’t believe for a second that without total autonomous vehicle traffic that it’s do able
the maoster:
switchlogic:
That’s not to say they shouldn’t do it. But just be aware. I drove that Volvo Dual Clutch 540 to Italy 3 years ago for a magazine review and it entirely changed my opinion on this subject. It was a demo direct from Volvo so it came fully loaded with tech, most trucks we drive dont come close. That effectively drove itself to Italy, all I did was steer most of time. It went over the Alps and I touched the pedals once or twice I think. Up and down. The technology is getting close. An 18 year old is nearly 50 years from retirement. Think how far we’ve come in 50 and you’ll realise anything is possible.I absolutely agree that the tech has come on vast amounts in recent years. I’ve driven vehicles equipped with terrain mapping and concede that all they require is minimal input, namely steering. But, and it’s a big but, would you trust it to drive unaided through a busy town centre or a busy, and ever changing motorway scenario? I wouldn’t, and I don’t believe for a second that without total autonomous vehicle traffic that it’s do able
Put it this way, our first motorway is just over 60 years old. The road network is going to change dramatically to adapt. And yes likely be exclusive autonomous roads, humans can’t be trusted to drive with them on the same roads. 64 years ago we didn’t have a motorway. Now look
A secure job, but sadly lacking behind the pay of other transport vehicle operators - Rail and Air, but still above “Coach and Bus”…
Retired now after being “on the road” in some capacity for 50 years starting as a van boy /mate at 15
Made redundant 3 times from places but never out of work for a day. Might not have had good jobs all the time but as long as they paid well or more than my last job I was OK chase the money was my motto.
Carryfast:
The job is about to be turned into a multi role, generally anything but driving, ‘logistics’ role. Which will cover everything from goods in checker to order picker to forklift driver and general warehouse duties in which you’ll probably cover almost as many miles driving a forklift and pushing a pallet truck or even handballing boxes stacking and breaking down pallets, as driving a truck a few miles up the road.
If I was starting out I’d be asking a lot of questions regarding duties required present or future.
And lo, the logistics expert speaks.
Automation is fine till you get to a delivery yard with pallets and other objects left lying around.
It will still require someone to be able to think outside the box.
(Cab) and move the ■■■■■ left by others
Fully automated cars and trucks will ever happen. Even the likes of Musk are starting to accept it now.
The issue with AI, despite all its progression, is it’s all very narrow. It can do a single task well, such as operate peddles, but struggles with everything else.
As mentioned above, the very highest spec trucks of the near future still require you to steer… Quite an important part of the whole driving lark…
Having worked in tech previously, I am fully aware of how carried away and unrealistic the entire industry is. Go back just a decade and see what we should have had by now. Go back a little further and the techies of the past would have had you believe we would all driving flying cars, living across the galaxy and have robot butlers.
There’s life left in this industry for drivers, and will befor quite some time.
Peter C:
Automation is fine till you get to a delivery yard with pallets and other objects left lying around.
It will still require someone to be able to think outside the box.
(Cab) and move the [zb] left by others
The gaffer of the yard will move those pallets, if the alternative is paying £200 a day for a driver.
It’s the public road that remains the final frontier. Despite all the hype and the billions already thrown at the problem, vehicles cannot drive themselves on public roads at a standard approaching human drivers.
And roads are not tarmac railways - the space must cater to a wide variety of road users (and misusers), behaviours, and transport modes, which involves almost constant negotiation using the human faculties of those road users.
So like you I’m not holding my breath.