Carryfast:
The amount of East Euro trucks and drivers on UK roads doing UK/International haulage work,as opposed to the amount of immigrant East Euro drivers wanting to work here in the typical distribution/building/trunking sectors,seeming to confirm that.
Are you not aware there’s thousands of eastern Europeans driving British lorry’s doing every sort of job going.
My point is they are probably outweighed by many more staying at,or going,home.For a combination of better more interesting less boring work with more quality time off and possibly even more money in real terms.Bearing in mind effectively no commuting costs and general living costs.The fact that the East Euro international haulage sector opportunities seem to far outweigh the typical dregs left here in the form of the distribution etc sectors and the fact that the domestic employers are actually moaning about a driver shortage.When they could obviously fill every job with an East Euro driver ‘if’ the East Euros are supposedly so keen on the UK scene. [/quo
I doubt most don’t choose to stay with a home firm doing euro work over coming here to drive lorry for a builders merchant due to a desire to be a long distance euro tramper
Decent firms doing any kind of work don’t have a driver shortage be it euro work or multi drop hand bail.
The firms that struggle either pay crap money run dodgy kit or treat staff badly and it doesn’t matter what kind of work it is
lolipop:
What a load of crap about speed limiters,they make very little or no difference over the course of a day,especially with the pulling power the big engines have these days.A great deal of them can stay in the 50`s all day long, unlike the days when motors dropped down and needed a gear change at the site of a pimple.
That would all depend on the distance and terrain of the run and the ( real world ) power to weight ratio of the old school wagon that you’re talking about.Let’s just say that my working week was ( a lot ) longer running from Heathrow to Dewsbury and back with a Merc 2534 limited to 90 kmh than with an unlimited DAF 2800.
In the real world, 100000miles was easily do-able and more pre limiter, at 100kmh or 62mph you could still push 100000 miles a year, but at 90kmh that’s down to 85-90000, that’s 10-15000 miles of lost revenue per year per truck on containers, analogue to digital made it even harder to achieve decent annual mileages do to the way 1st gen tachos worked.
From experience many trunk runs that were easily do able previously were at best marginal,or at worse would have been effectively unviable,in terms of driving hours at 90 kmh max.By which time many trunking operations had changed,or were changing,to hub type operations.Probably in large part for that reason.The implications regards productivety being obvious.
kr79:
I doubt most don’t choose to stay with a home firm doing euro work over coming here to drive lorry for a builders merchant due to a desire to be a long distance euro tramper
Decent firms doing any kind of work don’t have a driver shortage be it euro work or multi drop hand bail.
The firms that struggle either pay crap money run dodgy kit or treat staff badly and it doesn’t matter what kind of work it is
Realistically there’s probably more drivers who would answer an advert for an international haulage job on a 4 weeks on 2 weeks off rota at let’s say £25k a year or the Polish equivalent wage for example.Than a commute every day distribution etc typical UK type job for the same money.
mike68:
sit behind the desk of a transport office for any length of time and the things you see and hear is shocking
Like what…?
Like doing a 3 drop run which would normally take 10hrs tops and taking 17hrs using a car prat nav, getting recovered from a lane after drop 1 getting to drop 2 realising there is still stock on the trailer for the 1st store then driving back up the lane he was previously recovered from.
Or taking the wrong map for a store, and then get lost going to the wrong store.
Or getting lost up a country lane trying to turn around and having to be recovered back to the depot with a tree poking out of the radiator.
I don’t think any eastern European firms pay 25 grand a year and from what I gather many tramp round Europe for months on end before going home.
I know and work with a lot of eastern Europeans and many are single and a group of 10 or 12 will rent a house and share rooms and some even beds if there’s guys working day and night shifts to keep costs down they spend as little as possible to live with the aim of buying or building a property at home to set themselves up in later life.
That’s fact from speaking to the people not reading the daily mail.
mike68:
sit behind the desk of a transport office for any length of time and the things you see and hear is shocking
Like what…?
Like doing a 3 drop run which would normally take 10hrs tops and taking 17hrs using a car prat nav, getting recovered from a lane after drop 1 getting to drop 2 realising there is still stock on the trailer for the 1st store then driving back up the lane he was previously recovered from.
Or taking the wrong map for a store, and then get lost going to the wrong store.
Or getting lost up a country lane trying to turn around and having to be recovered back to the depot with a tree poking out of the radiator.
I could go on.
You can only lay the blame for idiocy like this at the door of short sighted incompetent management, if an idiot with a licence turns up you send them away.
When they offered proper industry leading contracts the company had waiting lists of good experienced drivers as long as last week, and, assuming they gave recruitment choice to someone who has the slightest clue about real transport, they could cherry pick the very best from those.
They didn’t need to let monkeys anywhere near their lorries, didn’t need to, and when a jobs good those who work there tend to look after it…you yourself know this Mike.
Offer the right terms and conditions and you can pick from the pool of good drivers, all you have to do then is to not lump your good drivers in with the numpties…a mistake too many of the new logistics thinkers make…treat experienced knowledgeable people like children they’ll soon act it.
mike68:
Like doing a 3 drop run which would normally take 10hrs tops and taking 17hrs using a car prat nav, getting recovered from a lane after drop 1 getting to drop 2 realising there is still stock on the trailer for the 1st store then driving back up the lane he was previously recovered from.
Or taking the wrong map for a store, and then get lost going to the wrong store.
Or getting lost up a country lane trying to turn around and having to be recovered back to the depot with a tree poking out of the radiator.
I could go on.
Ok, everyone has a bad day now & again right…?[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]
kr79:
I don’t think any eastern European firms pay 25 grand a year and from what I gather many tramp round Europe for months on end before going home.
I know and work with a lot of eastern Europeans and many are single and a group of 10 or 12 will rent a house and share rooms and some even beds if there’s guys working day and night shifts to keep costs down they spend as little as possible to live with the aim of buying or building a property at home to set themselves up in later life.
That’s fact from speaking to the people not reading the daily mail.
Reading the Daily Mail didn’t even inform us that so many of it’s own readers were “closet Tories” in the election just gone…
UKIP supporters like me were declaring. Tory voters (for the first time even…) were keeping stumn as they did in 1992. Labour were odds-on 1/5 to win that election with an outright majority - and lost to John Major’s seemingly floundering Tories with a small majority like Cameron has now… It took another 5 years for the total collapse originally envisiaged in 1992 happening at least to some of the Tory big names in 1997…
Cameron banged on about “A vote for UKIP is a vote for Milliband” - but in the end, a “A Vote for Milliband was a vote for Tory” - because UKIP ended up coming second in a lot of seats held on to by Labour, but made no significant inroads into the massive Tory majorities in the southern seats where a 5 figure incumbent increased their majority even further, and even newbies like Kelly Tollhurst managed to increase her 2nd place to Mark Reckless at the end of last year - to a significant majority over him in May - despite the fact that support for Reckless remained at around the 16,000 poll mark. WTF? That suggests that 10,000 people who didn’t bother to vote in the important by-election - suddenly came out in support of a Tory candidate who should have been too busy on the council to ponce about trying to be an MP as well.
The Tories holding onto seats in the south - didn’t give them the overall majority - it was the collapse in the Libdem vote that got them over the line, combined with the biggest UKIP surges all being in the seats where they were too far behind to “quite get there”… The electoral bounderies will of course be changed in time for 2020 - so that it’s even harder to oust the Tories from their safe seats. Two adjacent labour safe seat wards will be merged into one, and safe Tory shires will be split into multiple smaller - but still perfectly safe - seats thus allowing “double counting” of each Tory seat, and “half counting” of each Labour one. Expect a LOT of changes to wards in London as well of course…
alder:
Pay rates have dropped on average £1.50 per hour in the last two years. I am on agency and easily got £12 per hour two years ago but find it difficult to even get £10 now
Change agency. Even in Hull £10/hr is normal. The guy I used to work for used to ask us if we’d cover LPC in Leeds and we’d get £12 plus guaranteed 10hrs so I find it hard to believe that its down to £10 in Leeds now.
weeto:
In the real world, 100000miles was easily do-able and more pre limiter, at 100kmh or 62mph you could still push 100000 miles a year, but at 90kmh that’s down to 85-90000, that’s 10-15000 miles of lost revenue per year per truck on containers, analogue to digital made it even harder to achieve decent annual mileages do to the way 1st gen tachos worked.
I’m still doing 100,000 miles a year if I worked 5 days a week. We do a run to Portbury from Howden which is 410 miles and you can do that in 9hrs. I’m going to Lockerbie tonight and because of the A1 closure we go the scenic route which is 214 miles each way, 428 miles. That gets done in 8.5hrs driving. So if I do that 5 times a week that’s 2140 miles a week or 111,820 a year for 42.5hrs a week driving and I’d still have the ability to potentially drive another 12,500 miles a year.
Several company in the NE have advertised recently most have filled the positions easy as many drivers called up about them they have been inundated with applications simple as that
I know as have called up yep I have a job driving but would like a change of role that all if my boss would give me something different I would be happy to stay
Yep the wages are rubbish up here for most & that is the biggest problem also some employers speak to drivers badly this does not help
mike68:
Like doing a 3 drop run which would normally take 10hrs tops and taking 17hrs using a car prat nav, getting recovered from a lane after drop 1 getting to drop 2 realising there is still stock on the trailer for the 1st store then driving back up the lane he was previously recovered from.
Or taking the wrong map for a store, and then get lost going to the wrong store.
Or getting lost up a country lane trying to turn around and having to be recovered back to the depot with a tree poking out of the radiator.
I could go on.
I raise you to having driven around all day with the diff lock on and then phoning up to say the truck won’t go any further and they can’t understand why.
kr79:
I don’t think any eastern European firms pay 25 grand a year and from what I gather many tramp round Europe for months on end before going home.
I know and work with a lot of eastern Europeans and many are single and a group of 10 or 12 will rent a house and share rooms and some even beds if there’s guys working day and night shifts to keep costs down they spend as little as possible to live with the aim of buying or building a property at home to set themselves up in later life.
That’s fact from speaking to the people not reading the daily mail.
Firstly I said the East Euro real terms ‘equivalent’ of £25,000 bearing in mind the cheaper cost of living.We’ve also got a description of 8 weeks on 4 weeks off rotas on international haulage work and what seems like reasonable wages there.Which ‘could’ obviously work just as well with 4 weeks on 2 weeks off or possibly even 2 weeks on 1 week off rotas.All of which sounds a lot better than commuting to a zb uk distribution etc type job and living as you’ve described to compensate for the uk type wage v cost of living equation.
While ‘if’ you’re right there would be no claims by employers of any driver ‘shortage’ because there would obviously be more than enough East Euro immigrant labour to cover every vacancy.
While the East Euro international haulage sector would equally obviously be crippled by driver shortages caused by East Euro drivers fleeing to work here instead.Which not surprisingly doesn’t seem to be happening.
kr79:
And that has something to do with the driver shortage.
Politics has everything to do with driver shortage - at least in that they have “the big lie” in common. What politicians tell us is ■■■■■■■■. What they enact is what they are bribed to do by overseas concerns. 500 years ago, one would have gone to the block for such treason.
Labour told big business that “deflating wages” due to immigration and tax credits - is good for business. The money Labour donked away over 13 years was mostly about reduced tax take, the introduction of tax credits - rather than about “waging war in Iraq” which is what Blair is deemed to have been most guilty of doing wrongly.
The Tories told us that “reducing the deficit” is a good idea, rather than reducing the national debt. That “cutting in-work benefits” is better than cutting layabout housing and JSA benefits. That helping more working families to have latchkey children is better than paying mum an allowance to step aside from work a few years, and bring up the kids properly. That not taxing those who’ve been coining it in pretty much for nearly 20 years now - can continue to do so - because “we won’t tax the broader shoulders more” which actually might have made some serious inroads into the national debt - at least in that we could actually start NOT borrowing more money each month to pay our top public sector officials - whom are very much still in place.
By telling the public the lie that “there’s a shortage” - there’s this implication that “get a licence, pay for it yourself despite it being more expensive than ever to get now, and the big money will be yours from day one after passing”
Complete tripe of course.
If the truth were told - that the blue collar market including drivers has been flooded out by immigrants, which is driving down wages - then the only future we have as career drivers is to “keep your head down, and keep your full time job despite falling T&Cs,” OR "carry one with agency when ultimately all the work for home-grown talent will be covering immigrants who didn’t bother to turn up to the cheap rate shift originally given them.
Personally, the thought of being “second choice” to johnny come lately bothers me - it has nothing to do with xenophobia, racism, or ‘resentment of scroungers’.
mike68:
sit behind the desk of a transport office for any length of time and the things you see and hear is shocking
Like what…?
Like doing a 3 drop run which would normally take 10hrs tops and taking 17hrs using a car prat nav, getting recovered from a lane after drop 1 getting to drop 2 realising there is still stock on the trailer for the 1st store then driving back up the lane he was previously recovered from.
Or taking the wrong map for a store, and then get lost going to the wrong store.
Or getting lost up a country lane trying to turn around and having to be recovered back to the depot with a tree poking out of the radiator.
I could go on.
To be fair incident 1 and 3 were sub contract hauliers that are not assessed, the assessment criteria is strict and robust, I agree as with all things in life you get what you pay for
You can only lay the blame for idiocy like this at the door of short sighted incompetent management, if an idiot with a licence turns up you send them away.
When they offered proper industry leading contracts the company had waiting lists of good experienced drivers as long as last week, and, assuming they gave recruitment choice to someone who has the slightest clue about real transport, they could cherry pick the very best from those.
They didn’t need to let monkeys anywhere near their lorries, didn’t need to, and when a jobs good those who work there tend to look after it…you yourself know this Mike.
Offer the right terms and conditions and you can pick from the pool of good drivers, all you have to do then is to not lump your good drivers in with the numpties…a mistake too many of the new logistics thinkers make…treat experienced knowledgeable people like children they’ll soon act it.
To be fair incident 1 and 3 were sub contract hauliers that are not assessed, the assessment criteria is strict and robust, I agree as with all things in life you get what you pay for, there seems to be no long term strategy in the industry as regards to training and retaining people.
Surely proper pay structures would outweigh the cost of delays damage and wasted fuel, the saving pennies and wasting pounds mentality.
mike68:
Like doing a 3 drop run which would normally take 10hrs tops and taking 17hrs using a car prat nav, getting recovered from a lane after drop 1 getting to drop 2 realising there is still stock on the trailer for the 1st store then driving back up the lane he was previously recovered from.
Or taking the wrong map for a store, and then get lost going to the wrong store.
Or getting lost up a country lane trying to turn around and having to be recovered back to the depot with a tree poking out of the radiator.
I could go on.
I raise you to having driven around all day with the diff lock on and then phoning up to say the truck won’t go any further and they can’t understand why.
My all time favourite, filling the clutch reservoir with screen wash.
[/quo
