Carryfast:
The justified complaint was actually referring to too much time spent going nowehere waiting for loads to be tipped and loaded at ‘RDC’s’.
By definition that’s all POA and reduced daily rest is there to cater for.
And since multi drop/pick-up is not RDC work…
We can ignore this post.
Mazzer2:
The RHA are happy for overseas drivers to be brought over to work but not happy for overseas lorries to do the work
Exactly. As far as the RHA are concerned, eastern Europeans are welcome and anyone who says otherwise is “a racist”, right up to the point where they rock up in eastern European trucks and then all of a sudden the RHA throw their crayons across the classroom because “it’s not fair”. 
> Carryfast:
> If you mean international trunking then I’m in.
No Chance CF, they have these signs about you in every transport office all over Europe:
Tieni la morte lontana dalle strade
Gardez la mort hors des routes
Halte den Tod von den Straßen fern
will they be running about with full tanks of fuel and pay no road tax again…mugs of europe ne the world
switchlogic:
Carryfast:
switchlogic:
When worlds collideMr White there basically employs drivers to do your dream job. Well, mostly, often a few drops in destination country but nearly always one collection and often drop and turn when back
If you mean international trunking then I’m in.
You won’t need the licence to be yard shunter.Indeedy. Tho I fear you’d be more trouble than you’re worth when you’re refusing to help tip a couple of pallets at an Italian butcher.
I’m good I’m dropping the trailer loaded with the 20 pallets for the 10 butchers, at an RDC 200 miles further down the road and then running solo to pick up the loaded trailer from the RDC 50 miles further down the road from there to bring back to be dropped at the RDC in the Midlands.
Take a loaded trailer from there up to Glasgow drop that one then a trailer loaded with Scotch beef back to the RDC near Naples.
Carryfast:
toonsy:
Why unlimited? Why not just match thd EU and lift it from two to three operations so they can do “a bit” more but also lowers the risk of the domestic haulage scene having their eyeballs ripped out for thd next six months or so.The government says there is overcapacity in the UK haulage industry.
Then it says there is insufficient capacity when it suits it.
I think what they’re actually saying is that there are too many operators and too few drivers, and that part of the reason for having too few drivers is because there are too many bottom-feeding operators destroying the ability of the sector to recruit and retain a workforce.
Then it says it intends to take freight off the road and put it on rail with the infrastructure being put in place to do it.
The government’s obvious intention is to rip the eyeballs out of the industry.
Oh this old anti-rail rant again. The Tories have been consistent with the haulage sector: they need to improve training and retention, improve pay and conditions, and improve management attitudes and rest facilities.
Opening the floodgates to foreign operators for a few months will not only chastise the RHA for their anti-Brexit agitation and causing the fuel panic, but it might actually purge the operator overcapacity by inducing many bankruptcies. Bankrupting (or forcing the consolidation of) the majority of operators will make it easier for those left standing to raise wages and rationalise the sector.
It may also not have any significant downward effect on drivers wages for now, as the primary purpose (at least, so they say…) is to relieve mounting backlogs, and to get work done that would otherwise not be done under the current circumstances (as the sector seems to be becoming increasingly short of wagon capacity, not just drivers for the wagons).
Obviously, if they continue to allow cabotage in the long term, once the accumulated backlog is cleared, that will force wages down for settled workers. But then they’d also be back to square one, of having a haulage sector unduly dependent on foreign carpetbaggers working under extreme conditions, and unable to attract and retain settled workers.
So unless pro-EU liberals regain the upper hand, then the government is likely to keep up the pressure on the operators to improve things for drivers.
Carryfast:
switchlogic:
Carryfast:
switchlogic:
When worlds collideIf you mean international trunking then I’m in.
You won’t need the licence to be yard shunter.Indeedy. Tho I fear you’d be more trouble than you’re worth when you’re refusing to help tip a couple of pallets at an Italian butcher.
I’m good I’m dropping the trailer loaded with the 20 pallets for the 10 butchers, at an RDC 200 miles further down the road and then running solo to pick up the loaded trailer from the RDC 50 miles further down the road from there to bring back to be dropped at the RDC in the Midlands.
Take a loaded trailer from there up to Glasgow drop that one then a trailer loaded with Scotch beef back to the RDC near Naples.
You really do have no idea how most of the industry works do you. Sort of charmingly innocent really. Your dream job doesn’t actually exist and certainly not pulling fridges
switchlogic:
You really do have no idea how most of the industry works do you.
It’s ‘how’ it works which is the problem.
‘Drivers’ being paid up to around 5 hours per shift to ‘drive’ nowhere.
While sitting parked up with trailers in the ware housing process and which are designed to be quickly inter changed to solve exactly that issue and fuel taxation taking most of the profit from the job even when they are actually moving anything anywhere.
So ‘how’ else are semi trailers and demounts meant to be used combined with the RDC system.
The truth is that actually moving stuff by road is so unprofitable after fuel and depreciation costs that it’s moot whether or not the driver is actually paid to sit parked up on POA going nowhere.
Bonus points if the driver can be utilised within the warehousing process combined with the money saved in fuel and mileage costs of the parked unit.
Rjan:
Carryfast:
The government says there is overcapacity in the UK haulage industry.
Then it says there is insufficient capacity when it suits it.I think what they’re actually saying is that there are too many UK operators and too few drivers, and that part of the reason for having too few drivers is because there are too many bottom-feeding operators destroying the ability of the sector to recruit and retain a workforce.
Then it says it intends to take freight off the road and put it on rail with the infrastructure being put in place to do it.
The government’s obvious intention is to rip the eyeballs out of the industry.Oh this old anti-rail rant again. The Tories have been consistent with the haulage sector: they need to improve training and retention, improve pay and conditions, and improve management attitudes and rest facilities.
Opening the floodgates to foreign operators for a few months will not only chastise the RHA for their anti-Brexit agitation and causing the fuel panic, but it might actually purge the operator overcapacity by inducing many bankruptcies. Bankrupting (or forcing the consolidation of) the majority of operators will make it easier for those left standing to raise wages and rationalise the sector.
It may also not have any significant downward effect on drivers wages for now, as the primary purpose (at least, so they say…) is to relieve mounting backlogs, and to get work done that would otherwise not be done under the current circumstances (as the sector seems to be becoming increasingly short of wagon capacity, not just drivers for the wagons).
Obviously, if they continue to allow cabotage in the long term, once the accumulated backlog is cleared, that will force wages down for settled workers. But then they’d also be back to square one, of having a haulage sector unduly dependent on foreign carpetbaggers working under extreme conditions, and unable to attract and retain settled workers.
So unless pro-EU liberals regain the upper hand, then the government is likely to keep up the pressure on the operators to improve things for drivers.
So you’re saying that there’s too many UK operators ( operations ), operating too few trucks and drivers.
But if we open up the uk transport market to unrestricted cabotage that will mean less UK operators ( operations ), operating more UK based trucks and increased demand for more UK drivers .
You’re trying to sell a laughable oxymoron.
The Tories have been and are ‘consistent’ with the policy of taking freight off the road and putting it on rail.It’s all here ‘‘The plan for rail’’.
It’s obvious what Boris’ plan is all about he’s going to use unrestricted cabotage to finish off the road transport industry as we know it and send it back to where it was in the 1930’s in the form of a local delivery/colection service for the rail freight sector.
Then they’ll do the same to the European road transport industry.
He knows and you know that the cabotage operations in question won’t be here to work in the local distribution sector.
The only winners in this scam will be the successful elite of the resulting train driver recruitment campaign.
No one with any sense will want to drive a truck in this nightmare utopia.Contrary to your ideas it’s the already excessive distribution orientated changes in the industry with laughable pecking orders applied to any remaining decent work which is putting new drivers off of taking on the job.
Who wants to work in an industry which the government has always viewed as a pariah and is treated as such.
switchlogic:
You really do have no idea how most of the industry works do you.
Edit to add describe the exact circumstances in which you somehow came to be pulling a UPS trailer when employed by a sub contractor.
Franglais:
Carryfast:
While the idea of using artics for multi drop and/or sitting waiting while the same trailer is tipped/loaded, totally defeats the object of what they are designed for.
Basically artic operations should be just be a trailer switching operation whether loaded or empty.That might suit you, but wouldn
t suit everyone, nor every operation. You are arguing for the simplifing of driving and haulage. **Why pay for local van drivers to group and warehouse small collections when one vehicle can do it all?** Not every driver would choose it, were all different, but just trunking would bore me to death. I enjoy winding around small collection points, and engaging my brain a little. Every bit as cost effective, and more tracable as employing vans and warehouse staff too.
You dont want to do multi drop or collection with an artic? Fine. Dont tell me not to though.
.
The job is being dumbed down enough without taking even more interesting bits out.
This is one of the important issues which answers the question why is the lorry so unpopular? The pallet delivery companies mostly use rigids for collection and delivery work but the rest of the haulage industry is fixated upon the artic. Many sectors consolidate their collections into trailer loads at their yards…just like the pallet delivery companies do. However instead, the rest of the haulage industry sends out artics to collect half a dozen pallets from premises which involve access using roads which are entirely unsuitable for such unwieldy vehicles. If the Government really is set upon forcing the haulage industry to adopt more considerate working practices then it needs to make local councils introduce length limits on unsuitable roads which do not allow access only get - outs.
cav551:
Franglais:
Carryfast:
While the idea of using artics for multi drop and/or sitting waiting while the same trailer is tipped/loaded, totally defeats the object of what they are designed for.
Basically artic operations should be just be a trailer switching operation whether loaded or empty.That might suit you, but wouldn
t suit everyone, nor every operation. You are arguing for the simplifing of driving and haulage. **Why pay for local van drivers to group and warehouse small collections when one vehicle can do it all?** Not every driver would choose it, were all different, but just trunking would bore me to death. I enjoy winding around small collection points, and engaging my brain a little. Every bit as cost effective, and more tracable as employing vans and warehouse staff too.
You dont want to do multi drop or collection with an artic? Fine. Dont tell me not to though.
.
The job is being dumbed down enough without taking even more interesting bits out.This is one of the important issues which answers the question why is the lorry so unpopular? The pallet delivery companies mostly use rigids for collection and delivery work but the rest of the haulage industry is fixated upon the artic. Many sectors consolidate their collections into trailer loads at their yards…just like the pallet delivery companies do. However instead, the rest of the haulage industry sends out artics to collect half a dozen pallets from premises which involve access using roads which are entirely unsuitable for such unwieldy vehicles. If the Government really is set upon forcing the haulage industry to adopt more considerate working practices then it needs to make local councils introduce length limits on unsuitable roads which do not allow access only get - outs.
I don’t think we trucks are unpopular where we work. The locals mostly are employed in the agricultural businesses we serve, and they recognise we are parts of the same machine as them.
Us collecting their produce gets the revenue in, profit made, and wages paid.
Local councils in our collection areas generally arrange things to keep trucks serving the agro-industry smoothly. It is working countryside, not a city workers dormitory, with very little local complaint.
That is certainly not the same here. Yes there are some locals employed by these agri-businesses but in the main they employ east european labour living several to each mobile home or caravan, in what is virtually a village. This labour is transported around narrow lanes to various other sites in fleets of dilapidated buses and coaches. These packhouses are fed year-round with numerous artics from Spain and Poland to complement the vast acreage of polytunnels, and also by UK vehicles with various supplies. The output then has to be collected, frequently by different UK hauliers each loading often far less than a full trailer load. Every vehicle in along these narrow and twisty lanes has the potential to meet one coming out, which is frequently exactly what happens causing either hold ups and damage to the road edges when two artics cannot pass. We do not have to go back too far to recall that UK hauliers used to collect using rigid vehicles which caused far fewer difficulties.
The basic problem is that these ‘farms’ have outgrown their premises, but have been allowed to build large packhouses on the back of assurance at planning hearings that: “access to the UK supermarkets is being provided to local small growers, but this provision is unsustainable without the ability to import and pack foreign produce”. The reality is that these are not farms in the true sense but primarily packhouses which should be located on an industrial estate.
Go to one of these sites and it is like Basil Faulty trying to communicate with Manuel.
lanes
cav551:
Franglais:
Carryfast:
While the idea of using artics for multi drop and/or sitting waiting while the same trailer is tipped/loaded, totally defeats the object of what they are designed for.
Basically artic operations should be just be a trailer switching operation whether loaded or empty.That might suit you, but wouldn
t suit everyone, nor every operation. You are arguing for the simplifing of driving and haulage. **Why pay for local van drivers to group and warehouse small collections when one vehicle can do it all?** Not every driver would choose it, were all different, but just trunking would bore me to death. I enjoy winding around small collection points, and engaging my brain a little. Every bit as cost effective, and more tracable as employing vans and warehouse staff too.
You dont want to do multi drop or collection with an artic? Fine. Dont tell me not to though.
.
The job is being dumbed down enough without taking even more interesting bits out.This is one of the important issues which answers the question why is the lorry so unpopular? The pallet delivery companies mostly use rigids for collection and delivery work but the rest of the haulage industry is fixated upon the artic. Many sectors consolidate their collections into trailer loads at their yards…just like the pallet delivery companies do. However instead, the rest of the haulage industry sends out artics to collect half a dozen pallets from premises which involve access using roads which are entirely unsuitable for such unwieldy vehicles. If the Government really is set upon forcing the haulage industry to adopt more considerate working practices then it needs to make local councils introduce length limits on unsuitable roads which do not allow access only get - outs.
The issue was clearly about the situation of drivers and tractor units sitting idle while trailers are off the road as part of the RDC warehousing regime in whatever form.
It totally defeats the object of the design just as would be the case with demount boxes.
Or for that matter the RDC principle not applying in all cases both for final delivery and collection.
A shortage of drivers and trucks because they are all sitting parked up waiting for trailers to be tipped and/or loaded.
The 44 tonner combined with semi trailer or demount interchangeability was never designed to be used for distribution.
Nor the oxymoron of downtime and lost productivety caused by tying a tractor unit to a semi trailer during all the time that trailer is sitting going nowhere during the warehousing process.
Carryfast:
Nor the oxymoron of downtime and lost productivety caused by tying a tractor unit to a semi trailer during all the time that trailer is sitting going nowhere during the warehousing process.
I think the entire problem is you’re only real world reference point is UPS. A huge chunk of the industry can’t afford to have trailers sat all over the place so drivers can simply swap. Many can and do and just as many can’t and don’t.
switchlogic:
Carryfast:
Nor the oxymoron of downtime and lost productivety caused by tying a tractor unit to a semi trailer during all the time that trailer is sitting going nowhere during the warehousing process.I think the entire problem is you’re only real world reference point is UPS. A huge chunk of the industry can’t afford to have trailers sat all over the place so drivers can simply swap. Many can and do and just as many can’t and don’t.
The trailers are sat there doing nothing regardless.
The point being made is that too many drivers and units are wasting hours every shift needlessly tied to parked trailers within the warehouse system going nowhere.
In total contradiction of the design aim just like the design aim of demount rigids.
Then the government uses that as a pretext to open up the industry to full on unrestricted cabotage added to the injury of third country operations.
You didn’t answer the question as to the exact circumstances of that sub contract job you were involved with, providing traction for UPS international trunking work.
In what way didn’t it match the type of scenario which I described.
So you’ve now changed your narrative from a type of operation that supposedly doesn’t exist to one that in ‘many’ cases clearly does.
The fact is it’s exactly the type of operation which artics and demounts and RDC’s are there to provide for within the logistics industry.
The truth is if it was used correctly and efficiently, which would obviously include the use of LHV’s and removal of road fuel taxation, it would decimate the government’s pro rail agenda and would have the rail freight industry running crying to their tame ministers to stop it.
This is clearly all about sabotage ( of the UK road transport industry ) not cabotage.
All to meet the government’s pro rail agenda with the ultimate aim of turning the industry into a distribution only operation not a trunking one.
As shown by Rjan’s laughable oxymoron in the excuse of supposed over capacity of operators somehow resulting in supposed under capacity of trucks and drivers.
So surely then Rjan would want to remove as many obstacles and incentives to increase truck capacity in the form of fuel taxation and gross weight limits and load deck space as possible.Bearing in mind that by definition every truck on the road requires an ‘Operator’ to O licence it.
Not call in Russian trucks to move the stuff.
Carryfast:
The trailers are sat there doing nothing regardless.
For the work I’ve done and small and some medium sized operators they aren’t, that was my point, huge part of the industry can’t afford a vast trailer fleet.
Carryfast:
You didn’t answer the question as to the exact circumstances of that sub contract job you were involved with, providing traction for UPS international trunking work.
Wasn’t traction, we used our own trailers, I only pulled a UPS one once because of a ■■■■ up. Generally we would go into Tamworth, drop trailer on bay, have daily rest and pick it up again.
You’re biggest problem is you think there’s a one size fits all solution. If you’d had a wider experience you’d know the industry is far too big, too complicated and too varied for that.
switchlogic:
Wasn’t traction, we used our own trailers, I only pulled a UPS one once because of a ■■■■ up. Generally we would go into Tamworth, drop trailer on bay , have daily rest and pick it up again.You’re biggest problem is you think there’s a one size fits all solution. If you’d had a wider experience you’d know the industry is far too big, too complicated and too varied for that.
As opposed to what whitewhite etc was complaining about.
He obviously meant time and miles lost while sitting coupled to what is effectively a warehouse on wheels while it’s on the dock, on POA, not booking a daily rest period.
By definition booking a daily rest period between runs while a trailer is being tipped/loaded/tipped/loaded effectively means no lost time at all.
Just like switching trailers doen’t.
You were clearly doing traction work while you were pulling a UPS trailer regardless of the reason for pulling it.
So exactly what were you doing/did you do, during the time it was being loaded and after you had dropped it.I’m guessing you weren’t booking POA with a unit earning nothing during those periods.It’s a UPS trailer so by definition it’s traction.
Does anyone notice how the beginning of any story on this subject particularly by the BBC will have the RHA mentioned in the first sentence they (the RHA) have now taken to parking a truck outside the houses of parliament to bolster their cause with the government RE: the driver shortage.
This is likely to be as successful as the temporary driver visas, this is a political move by the government who are led by a very skilful politician (if you think he’s a buffoon you are mistaken) Im glad that after all the lobbying by the RHA the government has effectively told them to **** off.
Im certain that the majority of hauliers from Europe will already have pre arranged backloads and, I may be wrong but I doubt this will have a serious impact on freight within the UK, why would anyone bother themselves with the poor rates and all the grief involved a day lost from a schedule for maybe a net profit of £100 the same vehicle and driver would be expected back to his base for the next load out.
The RHA are a disgrace instead of going cap in hand to the government they should be dealing with the root cause of the problem, a problem of which they have played their part.
mike68:
The RHA are a disgrace instead of going cap in hand to the government they should be dealing with the root cause of the problem, a problem of which they have played their part.
But in most cases ‘the problem’ is directly caused by the government’s anti road pro rail transport policies having openly stated a policy of taking freight off the road and putting it on rail.Which obviously includes the black hole on the balance sheet caused by fuel taxes.
In addition to low gross weights and load capacity making it unviable to move large amounts of freight over long distances.
The only thing the RHA can be blamed for is its complicity instead of resistance.
The truth is no one with any sense wants to bet their future employment prospects on a perceived pariah industry, which is willingly going to the slaughter, with at best only the lowest quality type of localised/multi drop work remaining in most cases.