Euro pallets

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

Hi chaps, hope this isn’t too daft a question but it’s been almost 15 years since I worked as a truck driver in the UK.

Just wondered about euro pallets, do you fellas use them over there or is mainland transport still mainly based on 26 large pallets in a 13.6m trailer? Only asking as when I’m sat chatting with other drivers here in France and they ask what’s different about working in the UK apart from the obvious answers (driving on the left; predominantly 6x2 tractor units; enormous respect from Joe Public . . . :laughing: ) one of the other differences that comes to mind is here we have to squeeze three pallets width ways in the back of a fridge trailer, and nearly every place we go to is self tip or load, whereas I gather self-tipping is still reserved for Lidl and places like that in the UK?

So are you in or out of the ‘euro zone’, so to speak, and do you have to exchange pallets or are they written off?

(Forgive the randomness of the question, it’s a quiet evening here in Frogland!)

~ Craig

2

Hi, Craig,
I guess you haven’t heard of Chep over there in that backward country?!?!
And do the French expect you to pallet-truck two tonnes of cr*p on a europallet?
Bitter? Me?

3

Still the larger pallets here unless delivering to Lidl or Aldi then it has to be on Euro pallets.

4

Retired Old ■■■■:
Hi, Craig,
I guess you haven’t heard of Chep over there in that backward country?!?!
And do the French expect you to pallet-truck two tonnes of cr*p on a europallet?
Bitter? Me?

Yeah, we do see Chep pallets, but in most cases they’re worthless, other than at certain suppliers where they use the half sized ones with the metal corners.

And yes, the French also expect their drivers to drag around overloaded pallets with a manual pallet truck, especially at some of the farms we go to. In that way the job’s no different than back in Blighty . . .

~ Craig