I’m not convinced this is a short term thing and in 6 months we will have our 100,000 drivers. I cant see many young people bothering to spend a few grand in the hope of getting a license - its a crap job and everyone has known it for decades which is why all the drivers are 50-odd. You dont get out of a hole this deep by offering 14 quid an hour and a blackbirds egg.
This is with us for the rest of our lifetimes. Mind you being fat lorry drivers in our 50s our lives wont las long. I give it ten years to get anywhere near out of it.
Its just such deadly boring lousy job - sitting in busy traffic gobbing diesel particulates. No one in their right mind could get excited by it. Its like when they were offering good money picking potatoes - were you tempted at the thought of being bent double all day - for even 20 quid an hour? And you dont have to spend 2-3 grand to train first for picking tatties.
14, 15 quid an hour doesnt make people change their lives and retrain - not enough to get out of this hole anyway. The problem has been decades coming, it will be decades sorting it out.
At my theory test yesterday, there’s obviously a range of people doing all sorts of categories, car, ADI, etc. One young girl went up to receptionist who patronised her with a comment about horsebox or ambulance? to which she replied no she was going to drive lorries for a living.
I think there’s loads of people like me, able and willing to come into the industry so long as we can get past DVLA/DVSA delays.
Im sure theres a lot but there needs to be a lot more. With most of us in our fifties and perilously close to either dropping dead from furred arteries or retiring this is getting worse for a good few years yet.
JeffA:
Its just such deadly boring lousy job - sitting in busy traffic gobbing diesel particulates. No one in their right mind could get excited by it.
Put your…
A/C on recirculation mode, that will stop a great many of those nasty little diesel particulates getting lodged in your bellows.
I don’t find it boring, I find it easy and nine times outta ten it’s trouble free. If I’m in traffic, I’m making wedge cos they pay me by the hour.
I wouldn’t want to spend all day picking spuds when there are thousands of machines lifting tatties all over east Anglia.
Jeff, retrain, get a job in yer local chippy or funeral arrangers or local B&Q.
HGV driver shortage: remote-controlled lorries could prevent future logistical nightmares
September 28, 2021 1.21pm BST
Siraj Ahmed Shaikh, Giedre Sabaliauskaite, Coventry University
The current HGV driver shortage is the latest chapter in the UK’s supply chain jitters, disrupting wholesale food delivery, cancelling bin collections and leading to the panic buying of fuel. While there is a good chance the country will overcome this temporary problem, the driver shortage is calling into question the long-term viability of logistical transportation on the roads.
One intuitive long-term solution to future HGV driver shortages is to take the driver out of the driver’s seat altogether. Self-driving car technology, which can also be applied to HGVs, promises to bring about substantial change to how we transport people and goods. But, despite advances in automation technology and operational techniques, self-driving vehicles remain distrusted and difficult to build.
One possible solution sits at the very interface of technology with the human: teleoperation, or the replacement of the behind-the-wheel driver with a combination of automation technology and remote-controlled human oversight. We’re involved in work that’s trialling this approach as a more realistic, less distant solution to crises in road logistics in the coming years.
I don’t think it will take too long for road transport to sort itself out.
If the government hold their nerve and refuse to allow high numbers of drivers to come in from abroad drivers rates and the way drivers are treated will find their own level, market forces usually find a level that’s both acceptable to continue business and sustainable.
As for young people not wanting to become HGV drivers, take a look in the new drivers forum sometime
I toyed with the idea of returning for odd shifts but I’ve thought about it some more and came to the conclusion I’d rather lick urine from jaggy nettles than return
The job doesn’t have to be boring, if you’re in a sector that bores you find another sector that makes you think allows you to take some pride in your work is interesting and chances are it’ll pay a bloody sight more than £14 an hour, its not all RDC hell holes containers or multi drop pallet work, the industry is huge so find what floats your boat.
tachograph:
I don’t think it will take too long for road transport to sort itself out.
If the government hold their nerve and refuse to allow high numbers of drivers to come in from abroad drivers rates and the way drivers are treated will find their own level, market forces usually find a level that’s both acceptable to continue business and sustainable.
As for young people not wanting to become HGV drivers, take a look in the new drivers forum sometime
“Market forces” have got us where we are now!
A lack of Governmental oversee has resulted in too few parking places for trucks on industrial estates and the highway network. Selling off service areas so they are a cash cow for retail outlets, rather than part of an essential national resource, isn`t good for the country as a whole, but is good for private investors.
JeffA:
Its just such deadly boring lousy job - sitting in busy traffic gobbing diesel particulates. No one in their right mind could get excited by it.
Then go drive lorries on a job that doesn’t involve that. I don’t sit in busy traffic unless it’s roadworks or an accident because I can’t stand doing that so I choose work where I don’t have to.
tachograph:
As for young people not wanting to become HGV drivers, take a look in the new drivers forum sometime
There may well be several in the new drivers forum but then the concentration of young drivers on an internet truck drivers’ forum is going to be higher than in the real world by definition. I was 26 when I started and drivers of my age were commonplace. Now they are a comparative rarity.
I think both the job and the nature of young people have changed. There is not the adventure to be had that there was in the heyday of long-haul international transport- not so long before I started many young people aspired to travel the Hippy Trail to Afghanistan or somesuch- and more than ever young people seek work more fitting for someone who has spent several years at University studying for a degree. It must seem a waste to them to spend all that time studying just to get a job that you don’t need so much as an O level for.
There’s also the issue of training being eye wateringly expensive now, and who knows how long their jobs will last before automation takes over?
tachograph:
As for young people not wanting to become HGV drivers, take a look in the new drivers forum sometime
There may well be several in the new drivers forum but then the concentration of young drivers on an internet truck drivers’ forum is going to be higher than in the real world by definition. I was 26 when I started and drivers of my age were commonplace. Now they are a comparative rarity.
I think both the job and the nature of young people have changed. There is not the adventure to be had that there was in the heyday of long-haul international transport- not so long before I started many young people aspired to travel the Hippy Trail to Afghanistan or somesuch- and more than ever young people seek work more fitting for someone who has spent several years at University studying for a degree. It must seem a waste to them to spend all that time studying just to get a job that you don’t need so much as an O level for.
There’s also the issue of training being eye wateringly expensive now, and who knows how long their jobs will last before automation takes over?
If I was 19-24 right now I would 100% not get a job driving a HGV as a career choice. The government and industry are doing everything they can to speed up automation.
I know some people on here think it will never happen but it will.
For example. Lets say they manage to automate trunking. (Well that’s like 20k drivers out of a job now competing for other work).
Next they automate shunting. (Another 5k drivers now searching for work in a dwindling job pool).
It’s not hard to see how it will happen.
adam277:
If I was 19-24 right now I would 100% not get a job driving a HGV as a career choice. The government and industry are doing everything they can to speed up automation.
I know some people on here think it will never happen but it will.
For example. Lets say they manage to automate trunking. (Well that’s like 20k drivers out of a job now competing for other work).
Next they automate shunting. (Another 5k drivers now searching for work in a dwindling job pool).
It’s not hard to see how it will happen.
It will happen. A 25-year-old has 40 years of working life ahead of him. Forty years ago many cars wouldn’t start on a damp morning, had engines which lasted 80,000 miles at best and had rusted apart within five years. Forty years before that cars had running boards, a starting handle and no heater.
At first it will be inter-depot trunking but as much as the trucks evolving, the industry will adapt to what autonomous trucks can do. They won’t pay a day’s wages just to deal with the problems of “the last mile”.
Harry Monk:
It’s going to get worse before it gets better, that’s for sure.
Can’t disagree with that at all. I think government thinking is going to get worse too. I bet at least one of them is wondering if conscripting those of us who are qualified, but no longer drive, could be made an option
tachograph:
I don’t think it will take too long for road transport to sort itself out.
If the government hold their nerve and refuse to allow high numbers of drivers to come in from abroad drivers rates and the way drivers are treated will find their own level, market forces usually find a level that’s both acceptable to continue business and sustainable.
“Market forces” have got us where we are now!
It’s certainly true that market forces are responsible for the generally low level of wages in recent years, when Tony Blairs government opened the door to thousands of EU migrants from relatively poor countries he pretty much guaranteed that market forces would stagnate and in some cases lower wages for drivers.
Franglais:
A lack of Governmental oversee has resulted in too few parking places for trucks on industrial estates and the highway network. Selling off service areas so they are a cash cow for retail outlets, rather than part of an essential national resource, isn`t good for the country as a whole, but is good for private investors.
I’m not sure that we share the same meaning of “market forces” but I’m certainly not going to disagree with what you’re saying here.
