Just lately as I have been sat in mess rooms/waiting areas of various RDC’s etc i have noticed how such a lot of drivers seem to be in their 50’s like me.
Are no younger people taking up truck driving if not why not?, poor pay?, too expensive to train?, the no experience no job lunacy? it’s going to be a sad industry in a few years manned by poles trained in a transit van.
i’m not there yet,coffin dodging but getting close(44),but have 3 sons who have no desire to join the OLD man in haulage,pity really as mine was and i followed, all be it a few yrs later.
long hours,
crap roads
rdc’s etc
pay
away most of week?
Very rare to see a youngster come into the industry nowadays… I am 50 as well and I reckon in 15 years time (if the industry isn’t already dead by then) there is going to be a seriously major shortage of drivers as we all retire
IM 22 and trying to get the break into industry but no companys seem to wanna touch younger peeps with out the 2yr expereience etc but buggered if u know how you get experience when can’t get a break.
So lookin like i have to years on agency gettin work hear and there when suits them to give me some work
Well, I’m 26 and have been going four years but there aren’t that many more coming through. I think it’s hard to get into financially. The training is expensive as it is but the flamin’ Theory Test nearly did for me. It took 4 goes. That was 40odd quid a-time. When you add in the cost of practical training and maybe a test fail or two your looking at at least 1000. Then you have the cost of doing class1 (which I haven’t).
I think what we need is an extra qualification, costing ANOTHER thousand quid, like a sort of CPC for drivers…NOT!
TheBear:
Very rare to see a youngster come into the industry nowadays… I am 50 as well and I reckon in 15 years time (if the industry isn’t already dead by then) there is going to be a seriously major shortage of drivers as we all retire
And that’'ll be great for one of two reasons
we may get a pay rise then when they realise theres no one left to do the job (yeah right 
)
Or it will be a bloody good laugh watching all these transport office bods learning polish 
Edward Teller:
Just lately as I have been sat in mess rooms/waiting areas of various RDC’s etc i have noticed how such a lot of drivers seem to be in their 50’s like me.Are no younger people taking up truck driving if not why not?, poor pay?, too expensive to train?, the no experience no job lunacy? it’s going to be a sad industry in a few years manned by poles trained in a transit van.
RHA said a few years ago that the average age of a trucker was 53.
Why aren’t young uns taking it up?
Edward Teller:
too expensive to train?, the no experience no job lunacy?
Nail and head.
I am 31 now, And it’s an uphill battle to get the funding to even look.
So I shell out a grand for my Class 2,
The job hunt went something like
“Sorry, need 2 years experiance” How can i get experiance if nobody will take me on 
Luckily a guy I worked with years ago hunted me down knowing i was available on a Bosman and took me on,
easy enough job based 5 mins from home, wages not the best but hey ho, cant have everything and i rarely do 10 hours a day.
So now i just need to find that other grand or so after paying the bills, car and bike insurance etc 
Only to have my Class 1 sat there for 2 years because I have no experiance,
By that time the wages wil probably be dire as the Poles are doing it for minimum wage
conar wrote :WTF wants to work more than 40 hrs a week?
mine complain at 37 hrs a week,
the youngest wanted to start at 12 finish at 1 and have a hour for lunch 
startes at 08.45 done by 17.30 
so half day then.
Conor:
Edward Teller:
Just lately as I have been sat in mess rooms/waiting areas of various RDC’s etc i have noticed how such a lot of drivers seem to be in their 50’s like me.Are no younger people taking up truck driving if not why not?, poor pay?, too expensive to train?, the no experience no job lunacy? it’s going to be a sad industry in a few years manned by poles trained in a transit van.
RHA said a few years ago that the average age of a trucker was 53.
Why aren’t young uns taking it up?
1) They’re brainwashed into thinking they all should be businessmen, IT consultants, doctors etc.
2) You earn more at 17 stacking shelves in Tesco
3) WTF wants to work more than 40 hrs a week?
[/quote]The man is spot on , i recon a whole generation has been lost to th “I.T. jobs” ,
as previously sayed who wants to be away from home ,for average wages ? who wants to constantly have people phoning wanting a ETA?
never mind the parking problems/poor quality RDC ets , the list goes on and on ,
when you think about we all need or head looked at !
Late 30’s here and to be honest I have had enough of driving artics. I have done most jobs driving related. The wages have to be the biggest thing that stops people coming into this game. You can look thorough the local paper and see jobs advertised that pay little more than they did 5 years ago, why should you have to do 48 hrs + to earn a decent wage ?.
The poles will do to driving what they have done to the hotel and building game, cutting wages back to little over the minimum wage.
It is a bit rubbish that we have to drive these things for shelf stacking money…but when I see passers by watching me unload with the crane or reverse into a tight spot and make it look easy (not very often I make it look easy) I know they wouldn’t be looking at me stacking baked beans.
There are people who realise that we do a job that they need us to do so they can have the things they want and need and that it’s not an easy job.
Especially when a customer says to me…“you did well to get in there” or “you make that crane look easy”.
I doubt they’d be saying…“you did well to get that mop in those nooks and crannies” or “you make putting out more cucumbers look easy”.
■■■■ it I’m quite proud I can do my job, I’m far from the best at it either and I never will be.
So yeah…money and rubbish days aside I’m happy to be one of the few younger drivers on the road (26).
Andyroo:
It is a bit rubbish that we have to drive these things for shelf stacking money…but when I see passers by watching me unload with the crane or reverse into a tight spot and make it look easy (not very often I make it look easy) I know they wouldn’t be looking at me stacking baked beans.There are people who realise that we do a job that they need us to do so they can have the things they want and need and that it’s not an easy job.
Especially when a customer says to me…“you did well to get in there” or “you make that crane look easy”.
I doubt they’d be saying…“you did well to get that mop in those nooks and crannies” or “you make putting out more cucumbers look easy”.
■■■■ it I’m quite proud I can do my job, I’m far from the best at it either and I never will be.
So yeah…money and rubbish days aside I’m happy to be one of the few younger drivers on the road (26).
Yea, I can go with that, Andy … even after all these years, I still feel an immense pride in what I do because no matter how bolshie I get in my dotage, I still do the job as required.
As a European driver, I am always amazed at how often a British car will pull in front of you on a motorway as if to acknowledge your existence and quite often I will get a flash of the hazards. Also when pulling into Caen, you drive up through the waiting cars and buses etc … I always get a buzz out of that.
I often come home off a trip and think as I pull up at home ‘another job well done’.
Amazing how often Brits will talk to you abroad in the services and such like. I often get asked where have I been and how long it has taken.
Yep, no matter how crap the conditions are, there is still a pride to be taken in what we do cos no matter what anyone else says…
WE’RE THE BEST IN EUROPE!!!
It is a fair buzz when you get to somewhere that has a notorious bay to get on or some unmovable obstacles and you spin it tight and get it where you want it first go with no fuss and frantic wheel turning with sweat dripping off you
Then again you could be parked tight against some arco and then just catch the rear cluster of the trailer when you move off and have to turn and rip the lense off , like i did this morning .
Andyroo:
It is a bit rubbish that we have to drive these things for shelf stacking money…but when I see passers by watching me unload with the crane or reverse into a tight spot and make it look easy (not very often I make it look easy) I know they wouldn’t be looking at me stacking baked beans.There are people who realise that we do a job that they need us to do so they can have the things they want and need and that it’s not an easy job.
Especially when a customer says to me…“you did well to get in there” or “you make that crane look easy”.
I doubt they’d be saying…“you did well to get that mop in those nooks and crannies” or “you make putting out more cucumbers look easy”.
■■■■ it I’m quite proud I can do my job, I’m far from the best at it either and I never will be.
So yeah…money and rubbish days aside I’m happy to be one of the few younger drivers on the road (26).
Such a pity that the same customer will…
carve you up on the motorway
slag you off when he thinks he has the right of way regardless of whether he has or not
treat you like a second class scumbag
automatically assume that you are in the wrong no matter what
moan and ■■■■■ about trucks causing congestion and pollution.
The money doesn’t help. My Uncle became a driver in the 1960s and managed to raise 4 kids, buy two houses and seemed to be forever funding another of his wife’s doomed business ventures as well as always having a decent car. Now in his 70s he still drives a day or two a week, working on his own terms.
Like most people I was unable to get a job at 24 with no experience so my planned career move never really took off and the bits and pieces of work I could get weren’t enough to live on so i stayed in the office.
Now at 38 I’ve got back into it. I enjoy the work and there seems to be plenty of it about. The agency say they’re desperate for C+E drivers (probably why they keep me on!) and I’d be happy to go full time but can’t afford it because even working twice as hard I’d be earning less.
It cost me about £800 to get my licence, before the days of the theory test and when you could go from car to artic in one go. That was a lot of money at the time but I thought I’d get it back in increased earnings. Quite how anyone’s expected to fork out £2000 (£3000 in 2009?) to get a lower paid job now I don’t know.
The inexhaustible supply of Polish drivers may keeps the trucks moving now but what happens in two years time when they have to start taking driving tests and CPCs? The EU rules mean that if your licence allows you to drive a truck in one member country you can drive one in all the others. As Edward points out if your home country will give you a C+E for driving a Transit 100 yards without hitting anything we can’t argue just because it’s not how we do things.
Of course in 15 years the EU will probably have expanded again, bringing in a new supply of van drivers to have a go at artics!
I’m struggling to see how earning between 26k and 30 k for an average of 48 hours a week ( in my case i don’t poa , don’t have to ) is shelf stacking money .
must say im only 21 and hold all my licence’s except for Bus. I have yet to see any1 my age out and about driving trucks and always get questioned at truck stops etc about my age… I think young people these days have the wrong understanding of people in our profession. Maybe they think u need to be old and fat or something. I know all the people i went to school with and every1 who i talk to speak down to me cause of my job because the have the wrong idea about it. Id love to see more young people on the road but then again they do need that big break too.
im 29. been driving full time almost 5 years with another 3 part time on top. i have turned up to some clients to receive a funny look and the inevitable accompanying question ‘how much class 1 experience do you have?’
Nice to join your forum. Been off the lorries for 9 years but have always missed being a professional driver. For what my opinion is worth, and as others have already said, it is just so difficult to get into this “career” without experience and indeed, without money for the very expensive training. Add to that the fact you cannot go from car to Class 1 (like I did). All these things make this job, not so much a job but a vocation.
From a logical point of view, many driving jobs give you no social life (except that on the road) and then when you are in your 30’s etc., you are married and are bringing up children which in many cases, because of your job has to take a back seat.
With that in mind, I may well take up driving again now I have turned 50. Assuming I can find a job 