Socketset:
paul_c2:
alamcculloch:
Does Uniloads still exist? They give you an assessment, meaning you do a days work for them and you never hear from them again. Great business model.Yes, but they rebranded as VMoves.
Well, that clears up something for me - VM were somebody else I responded to and it was away all week tramping about hoping that you had a unit at night for a bunk just like Uniload back in the day. I seem to remember them having a bloke on for them who carried a one man tent about with him - he just used to find a hedge and bivvy down for the night
Again thanks but no thanks.
And this just in…no.
Different trade plate companies have slightly different ways of working. I can speak mainly for the cars (since I’d talk to a bunch of drivers of different companies) and VMoves heavies (the lights would occasionally work with them too). VMoves was “away all week, get nightout £50-60 out of which came your accommodation and any parking”. BCA would try to get the driver home, this sometimes meant an early start to do a 9am delivery eg 250 miles away. You’d get home, but you’d be up early and put in “inefficient” hours. Some companies had a higher rate but didn’t price in the travel between drives, some companies had a way of pricing this in, and some fully refunded you it. One man tent sounds too much like “economy drive”, there’s plenty of Airbnb, cheap Travelodge, etc so you never need to do that. And of course you could try to get home on a nightout job if you wanted to (the job only paid the direct mileage though, not the via home amount).
Its rough, some drivers made it work, mainly by driving 12-14 hours and doing any job that came their way so eventually they got onto the “favoured” list (there is definitely a list). But then, if the work is quiet or not in that area, being on the list didn’t really help anyway. I got the impression there would be a run of a few good weeks followed by weeks/months of sparse work. Net pay (ie hourly rate) is terrible compared to a normal full time driving job though.