ibson:
I don’t think the driver Cpc will be dropped, I also think there could be a possible wage increase for drivers as there is more demand for them. I’m 23, I don’t mind putting up with the Cpc and other things so long as it benefits me in the long run.
“doing away with the 7.5t entitlement with a car license about 15 years ago is also going to start to make a difference.”
the future could be a bit brighter
train drivers get paid more because of the investment the company has made in them, embrace the training
Eh? I don’t recall this happening at ANY time?
I figured 2013 was going to be the year where if you had a 7.5t entitlement on a car licence, you’d lose it without the DCPC after that year?
What next? Lose the C+E entitlement because I’ve had no full time job for 2 years?
I passed my car test in the middle of 95 and in doing so got a 7.5t entitlement, anyone taking their car test 18 months after me in 97 didn’t get a 7.5t entitlement, only up to 3.5t. Ringing any bells with ya yet fella?
They will probaly let Turkey join the EU or at least give them tempoary worker status. Don’t want the British working classes earning to much and getting above there station.
stevieboy308:
doing away with the 7.5t entitlement with a car license about 15 years ago is also going to start to make a difference
Eh? I don’t recall this happening at ANY time?
I figured 2013 was going to be the year where if you had a 7.5t entitlement on a car licence, you’d lose it without the DCPC after that year?
What next? Lose the C+E entitlement because I’ve had no full time job for 2 years?
stevieboy308 was simply saying that car tests passed in 1997 or later do not include C1 and C1E (up to 8.25t combination MAM) entitlement.
Nobody will lose any driving licence entitlements because of Driver CPC. As has been said already in this thread, they remain on your licence for non-commercial use.
You need LGV DCPC to make use of any C ‘family’ entitlements commercially and PCV DCPC to make use of any D ‘family’ entitlements commercially. Whilst the periodic DCPC is the same for both LGV and PCV, each family has its own initial tests.
If you once held DCPC and you let it expire, you have to complete 35 hours of periodic training to regain DCPC.
Winseer:
Is the great dieback going to be about “wages endurance” then?
Basically, how low can YOU go before the pay is no longer economically viable?
I never understood why the north seems to have a stronger stomach for low pay than down here. I get told it’s to do with the cost of living, but I’ve been to ■■■■■■■■ York, etc. OUTSIDE the inner cities many times, and I see expensive everything - just as bad as London coupled with low wages for the locals, AND a bad attitude by both the locals and those just passing through like me.
There’s got to be something else involved I think.
The cost of living is much less up north, where else can you buy a terrace for under 30k, drive to work every day and think you’ve got gridlock when there are ten cars in front of you at the lights, you pay £2.50 for a pint, I could go on …
Ahh that might be part of it. I like a drink, but have not been to a pub in a decade. I like to live in a house, but have not bought one for a decade.
Cost of living surely is about how much it is to pay the bills, not spend on items not payable every week I would have thought.
I was in Eastbourne yesterday, and noticed that their petrol is priced up at 127.9 which seems cheap for the notorious area of Sussex that it is for expense.
Compare that to last week, where more than a few petrol stations in Yorkshire are still charging over 140p!
My biggest expenses are (1) Filling the larder (2) Filling the Car (3) Maintenance and (4) social activities.
Doesn’t seem too extreme a lifestyle eh?
On the other side of the coin, my total bill this year for (1) buying new car (2) credit interest payments (3) booked social activities and (4) trying to keep up with the joneses has cost me less than £1000 for the entire year so far.
I was offered a job in Warrington at the beginning of the credit crunch, but when I looked into house prices in the area, I found that if I wanted to do a SIDEWAYS move from Kent (ie sell my house here, buy the same size house up there, with only the commissions paid out of the proceeds) I’d have to live 46 miles away to get one of those “nice cheap houses” spoken of. In Warrington area they cost an arm and a leg - just like down here. I imagine the same applies to property near places like Trafford Park, and the like.
Then there’s the traffic… Getting into the nearest inner city seems just as bad whatever city it is. Milton Keynes and Leicester seem better than most other places, but they are not counted as being “northern” are they? York, Hull, Manchester, Blackpool, and Nottingham seem quite congested (rush hour traffic comparisons), but Newcastle, Middlesborough, & Leeds seem to have vastly improved road systems compared to a few short years ago.
stevieboy308:
doing away with the 7.5t entitlement with a car license about 15 years ago is also going to start to make a difference
Eh? I don’t recall this happening at ANY time?
I figured 2013 was going to be the year where if you had a 7.5t entitlement on a car licence, you’d lose it without the DCPC after that year?
What next? Lose the C+E entitlement because I’ve had no full time job for 2 years?
stevieboy308 was simply saying that car tests passed in 1997 or later do not include C1 and C1E (up to 8.25t combination MAM) entitlement.
Nobody will lose any driving licence entitlements because of Driver CPC. As has been said already in this thread, they remain on your licence for non-commercial use.
You need LGV DCPC to make use of any C ‘family’ entitlements commercially and PCV DCPC to make use of any D ‘family’ entitlements commercially. Whilst the periodic DCPC is the same for both LGV and PCV, each family has its own initial tests.
If you once held DCPC and you let it expire, you have to complete 35 hours of periodic training to regain DCPC.
How common is it going to be for a private driver not working for any firm to drive a C+E vehicle in a non-commercial manner?
Well we’ve been busy for months; Taken on 2 young inexperienced drivers, several subbies seemingly on hire all the time.
Some trades seem quiet like landscape gardeners, drive/patio layers but in contrast, several caravan dwellers pretending to be driveway layers are constantly coming in for materials. Lots of stupid gulliable people about or are people economising?
Any haulier faced with a recruitment problem has a number of choices:
He can improve wages and benfits to make the job more attractive
He can do whatever he can to make the job more efficient
He can drop the less profitable contracts
He can spread the net wider to recruit drivers from abroad (or even oop Norf)
He can train some of his existing workforce
He can just give up
In practice many hauliers don’t really understand what is happening, and I suspect that when their accountants tell them that they are making a loss - they will chose the last option.
The more finacially aware operators will have already pruned things to the bone and it is surprising how many are still busy in spite of the recession. Sure there are fewer lorries on the road but I think that there ai also a lot less empty running. Pallet systems have revolutionised the way part loads are distribituted and the big operators have monopolised the full loads. Lorries are getting bigger (again) making them more efficient and reducing the need for drivers.
When I was a TM in the 80s I ran an own-account fleet. We delivered our own goods in our own trucks to depots and customers all over the country. If I was doing that job today then I doubt that I would have more than a 3½ tonne pick-up. Sure I would have more people in the warehouse packing, but the transport would be a trailer in the yard that someone collected at 5pm every day, with the goods, for the most part, being delivered the next day.
The future - who knows - For sure there are a lot of older drivers, many past retirement age already, who won’t bother with a CPC. It doesnt take much to train a warehouseman to drive a truck though.
Muckaway:
Well we’ve been busy for months; Taken on 2 young inexperienced drivers, several subbies seemingly on hire all the time.
Some trades seem quiet like landscape gardeners, drive/patio layers but in contrast, several caravan dwellers pretending to be driveway layers are constantly coming in for materials. Lots of stupid gulliable people about or are people economising?
I had a new front door fitted last month. When I went in to pay the bill I was chatting to the girl in the office (as you do:)). She said that they were busy as usual but that most of their customers seemed to be older people. Up to a couple of years ago their customer base was mainly the young upwardly mobile, doing up their new houses. Now it seems that it is the pensioners who are spending the kid’s inheritance.
ibson:
I don’t think the driver Cpc will be dropped, I also think there could be a possible wage increase for drivers as there is more demand for them. I’m 23, I don’t mind putting up with the Cpc and other things so long as it benefits me in the long run.
“doing away with the 7.5t entitlement with a car license about 15 years ago is also going to start to make a difference.”
the future could be a bit brighter
train drivers get paid more because of the investment the company has made in them, embrace the training
Eh? I don’t recall this happening at ANY time?
I figured 2013 was going to be the year where if you had a 7.5t entitlement on a car licence, you’d lose it without the DCPC after that year?
What next? Lose the C+E entitlement because I’ve had no full time job for 2 years?
I passed my car test in the middle of 95 and in doing so got a 7.5t entitlement, anyone taking their car test 18 months after me in 97 didn’t get a 7.5t entitlement, only up to 3.5t. Ringing any bells with ya yet fella?
Nope, it just got past me clearly.
I passed C+E in 1991, amd in 1997 I was solidly in full time employment driving C+E, 17t and 7.5t on a regular basis, and there were no hoops mentioned that newbies had to jump through.
ibson:
I don’t think the driver Cpc will be dropped, I also think there could be a possible wage increase for drivers as there is more demand for them. I’m 23, I don’t mind putting up with the Cpc and other things so long as it benefits me in the long run.
At 23 you wont remember the boom times, when a driver could tell his boss to “shove it” walk out of the gates and into another job in minutes, companies bought high end trucks just to attract drivers - £9 per hour was sneered at- its not that long ago that was the norm , then the recession hit and everything took a nose dive - drivers stopped being a needed commidity- now there are more drivers than jobs- and employers have their pick- wages go down - quajlity of trucks go down
While the DCPC may be a farce in its current form - if enough drivers refuse to do it, then those that do will be back in the market place - in a strong position to get good rates and decent motors and that can only be a good thing for the individual driver
Absolutely, when I started only 13 years back I clearly remember being able to pick and choose from 4 jobs in a single days worth of job hunting…
The transport industry has only itself to blame! It has bent over for to long letting Europe and successive governments shaft it with legislation and duty increases, without the ability to raise rates to compensate for it all.
The only cost that operators can control is drivers wages, which they keep low to facilitate a profit. All these drivers who are taking the DCPC and think after 2014 that they are going to get higher rates of pay are kidding themselves.
Most general haulage work in this country is for the supermarket chains, who to be competative have to keep their prices low. If you think Tesco or ASDA will start putting their prices up to facilitate an increase in drivers wages you are living in cloud cuckoo land.
The way it will be done is by bringing more drivers from east European countries to drive british trucks who have subsidised DCPC.
Many European transport companies already do this, they can fly eastern Europeans to the nearest airport, give them a truck for say 3 to 6 weeks, pay the something like €50 a day, fly them back home again for a couple of week and replace them with another lot of drivers for another spell and so on and so forth. This works out a lot cheaper than employing British drivers who due to having a higher cost of living need higher wages.
It’s not theirs anymore,
This is our England now.
Paaaaarrrrrrttttttttyyyyyyyy
Rikki`s right, out of one job, into another, and by doing so, made the cowboys think again, decent trucks, conditions etc, and made us feel better. So here we are, retired but still working, maybe if we got a decent pension we could retire, and solve some of the unemployment issues. But way back when us and the rest of europe were short of drivers, they enlarged the EU, so we got plenty of drivers and farm workers from a cheap labour force called eastern europe, and they flooded us, not to mention the education, housing and benefit system, we even gave them child benefit for the next 16/18 yrs with no questions asked. Problem is, we have a full labour force, but not enough work, and its not booming, well the fittest survive in any industry, but what happens when the eastern bloc decides to go home, well they will keep their benefit, and after 2 years here, they will get a pension too, so i dont suppose they will let that worry them, or any eu government either, for they can call upon, Turkey, change the rules on Bulgaria/Romania, greece will default soon anyway, and withdraw from the euro, so theres another labour market, plus Spain/Portugal, Ireland as back ups, so theres definitely not going to be a shortage, plus good ol dave is going to war with the euro bods, to cancel our WTD, and maybe even re-negotiate our terms of the eu, so things are looking very rosy after all, maybe a change to the benefit system, and a withdrawal of foreign aid, should see us benefit a great deal, with all of us getting a final salary pension. alas, not in my lifetime.
"bestbooties:
But I hope that very,very soon,the industry gets the bite in the arse that it deserves!
This sentence alone has made my day! it won’t be long and I hope I’m still at stobarts when it happens! they’ll get everything they deserve, and deserve everything they get!
Okey-Didley-Dokely:
The transport industry has only itself to blame! It has bent over for to long letting Europe and successive governments shaft it with legislation and duty increases, without the ability to raise rates to compensate for it all.
The only cost that operators can control is drivers wages, which they keep low to facilitate a profit. All these drivers who are taking the DCPC and think after 2014 that they are going to get higher rates of pay are kidding themselves.
Most general haulage work in this country is for the supermarket chains, who to be competative have to keep their prices low. If you think Tesco or ASDA will start putting their prices up to facilitate an increase in drivers wages you are living in cloud cuckoo land.
but that’s not how supply and demand works and operators don’t have control of wages, every man and woman of driving age who has the right to work and ability to get here dictates the wage
Okey-Didley-Dokely:
The way it will be done is by bringing more drivers from east European countries to drive british trucks who have subsidised DCPC.
Many European transport companies already do this, they can fly eastern Europeans to the nearest airport, give them a truck for say 3 to 6 weeks, pay the something like €50 a day, fly them back home again for a couple of week and replace them with another lot of drivers for another spell and so on and so forth. This works out a lot cheaper than employing British drivers who due to having a higher cost of living need higher wages.
It’s not theirs anymore,
This is our England now.
Paaaaarrrrrrttttttttyyyyyyyy
Okey-Didley-Dokely:
The transport industry has only itself to blame! It has bent over for to long letting Europe and successive governments shaft it with legislation and duty increases, without the ability to raise rates to compensate for it all.
The only cost that operators can control is drivers wages, which they keep low to facilitate a profit. All these drivers who are taking the DCPC and think after 2014 that they are going to get higher rates of pay are kidding themselves.
Most general haulage work in this country is for the supermarket chains, who to be competative have to keep their prices low. If you think Tesco or ASDA will start putting their prices up to facilitate an increase in drivers wages you are living in cloud cuckoo land.
The way it will be done is by bringing more drivers from east European countries to drive british trucks who have subsidised DCPC.
Many European transport companies already do this, they can fly eastern Europeans to the nearest airport, give them a truck for say 3 to 6 weeks, pay the something like €50 a day, fly them back home again for a couple of week and replace them with another lot of drivers for another spell and so on and so forth. This works out a lot cheaper than employing British drivers who due to having a higher cost of living need higher wages.
It’s not theirs anymore,
This is our England now.
Paaaaarrrrrrttttttttyyyyyyyy
Van den boshe were and probally still doing that with British drivers and if I remember the money wasn’t great. So we must be on par with the eastern block now in terms of wages.
Come 2014 they will find another cheap source of labour.
Okey-Didley-Dokely:
The transport industry has only itself to blame! It has bent over for to long letting Europe and successive governments shaft it with legislation and duty increases, without the ability to raise rates to compensate for it all.
The only cost that operators can control is drivers wages, which they keep low to facilitate a profit. All these drivers who are taking the DCPC and think after 2014 that they are going to get higher rates of pay are kidding themselves.
Most general haulage work in this country is for the supermarket chains, who to be competative have to keep their prices low. If you think Tesco or ASDA will start putting their prices up to facilitate an increase in drivers wages you are living in cloud cuckoo land.
The way it will be done is by bringing more drivers from east European countries to drive british trucks who have subsidised DCPC.
Many European transport companies already do this, they can fly eastern Europeans to the nearest airport, give them a truck for say 3 to 6 weeks, pay the something like €50 a day, fly them back home again for a couple of week and replace them with another lot of drivers for another spell and so on and so forth. This works out a lot cheaper than employing British drivers who due to having a higher cost of living need higher wages.
It’s not theirs anymore,
This is our England now.
Paaaaarrrrrrttttttttyyyyyyyy
Van den boshe were and probally still doing that with British drivers and if I remember the money wasn’t great. So we must be on par with the eastern block now in terms of wages.
Come 2014 they will find another cheap source of labour.
for 3 weeks work the money was quite good, take home was about £2200
It’s not theirs anymore,
This is our England now.
Paaaaarrrrrrttttttttyyyyyyyy
it won’t be long 
and I hope I’m still at stobarts when it happens! 