froggy:
Parked up at dunkerque docks sat night thought I was in warsaw there were that many poles parked up,it not just the fact that the poles are working in the UK they are taking out from the UK loads at prices that most firms can not compete with.This was the same all the way down to the spanish border when parked up the places where full of not just polish trucks and drivers but duch and german trucks being drivern by polish guys,wait till they start under cutting the spanish and porto`s then some real sparks will fly.
My dad has been saying the same thing for years, it just keeps getting worse and worse. He’s being on the Calais ferry before when 90% of the trucks have been Polish alone, thats before we take the other Eastern Europeans into account.
My view is that the expansion of the EU eastwards, and in particular with Poland is that its the worst thing that ever happened and will happen for Western European haulage. The Polish transport industry is expanding like a wild fire, a fire thats eating up not work made by the Polish economy, but work taking by undercutting Portugese loads to Denmark, Greek loads to Holland and British loads to Italy. To let a country with a population of 40 million, with a collasal unemployment rate, a country that has workers who work for an amount of money that would see people bankrupt within a week in this country, to simply let an ecomeny like that lose and free to do as it wishes, its a downright disaster. Its a disaster we now have to deal with because its we who are losing our continental jobs, its we who now have our domestic UK jobs at constant risk because its now perfectly legal to have 10 Poles doing the job of 10 British drivers.
It says it all when you speak to Slovenian drivers who talk of how bad things are in their country for international hauliers because of Polish competition taking a large share of their import and export loads, at the expense of them. The same could be said of every single other Western European nation barring perhaps Switzerland who havent as yet sold their people down the river.
Well put robin hood, glad someone put some sense back into this debate,
me I am sick of seeing poor quality poles doing the jobs that once British drivers were doing, before someone comes on saying ahhhhhhhhh but their only trying to better themselves , I dont care two figs , the majority are only here down to greed from the companies employing them, SIMPLE KING FACT
I know for a fact that references at one company are not being check on the poles , why because its too hard to chase , yet when British workers were employed they were all checked.
The only good thing is that when VOSA start chasing with regard to the WTD the poles will be in it up to their necks because they dont even understand the tacho laws, and when companies start getting units and trailers taken off the road for a few weeks by the ministry ddue to crap record keeping then the money men may realise what a crap idea it wa to jump on the polish band wagon,
CM:
What we are talking of here are two distinct issues:
Driving in a country in which you are not conversant, does that make you dangerous or just more of a risk?
.
Ah, same could be said of any British driver abroad.
Ian I had made that very point on an earlier post in this thread, but yes your right!
However it would not hold up for one reason, the reason of numbers. Why do we always talk about Poles huh? did we pick them by chance? or because we dont like countries begining with P? or because there is an absoluetly massive amount of Poles compared to other nationalities working here. So no, the same could not be said about British drivers abroad as could about Poles. You could compare British drivers to Germans, French, Slovenes or Austrians, but not ever, to Poles.
Robinhood - 100% spot on!
Brit drivers are getting worried because up until the EU grew even bigger when Poland joined, our drivers finally started getting good money and dare I say it - a little more respect for doing a professional job.
Johhny foreigner comes along in great numbers - and all the transport bosses think they can do without those expensive Brit drivers.
As a result, British drivers are worried that their security has been compromised.
Thats this argument in a nutshell.
Can British drivers go abroad and drive buses if they do not speak the language of the country they are working in ■■
O.K Mr British Bus Driver , with no knowledge of , lets say German, how would you feel if a passenger asked you a question, or needed help ?
Basically, you would be stuck, and would not be able to answer the passenger.
This post was about a person carrying passengers on a bus, who ,as I have said time and again, COULD NOT SPEAK ENGLISH.
British Drivers abroad, if they have no language skills muddle through.
They try.
I have done.
Whatever country you are in, a phrase book costs pennies, and the 'please ’ and ‘thank you’s’ and ‘good mornings’ really do go a long way.
In my experience, if you make an effort to speak the language of the country you are visiting, THE PEOPLE YOU ARE TALKING TO WILL SPEAK TO YOU IN ENGLISH !!!
Any feed back on the last statement from British drivers travelling to Europe would be welcome.
As I have said, if I see a truck from another country stuck or lost, I will always pull over and try to help the driver.
The driver is carrying a trailer full of goods, and not people who could be in danger due to the driver NOT SPEAKING ENGLISH !!
Niall -
Yes we know what the original post was about.
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but - when you post anything with the words “driver” and “Polish” anywhere on this forum, you’re gonna set off the same arguments time and time again.
Regarding your comment on Brits abroad in a truck - I totally agree with you.
A Brit who tries to speak the local lingo gets a hell of a lot further than one who just does the typical British tourist abroad and talks in a very loud voice!!
I have found in my experience, especially when stopped for a check by the Spanish coppers, that a few words of local language goes a long way.
Hi All
A little bit of hope on the horizen
This problem has been going on for years in Germany
German firms are more and more refusing to load trucks with Polish drivers because
Poles are crap drivers
Brit drivers need 2 days for the trip(Brit drivers are good and our german bosses know it)
Germans need 3 days
Poles need 6 days
Poles dont understand the Phrase “just in time”
the Mercedes Benz production line in bremen stood still last week for 2,5hrs because the Polish driver running out of Uk with electronic parts could not read the delivery note, needless to say that Brit transport firm does not need to set foot in a Mercedes Benz factory again
German transport firms running in Germany are starting to compile lists of custumers who except only “German Speaking drivers” and lists are getting longer
Warehouse workers are refusing to let drivers who do not speak German or a few words in English on the loading bays because of health and safety
I was offered a job 6weeks ago by a Dutch firm looking for 350 drivers ,because they had “sent all there” East bloc Drivers Home"
We can only hope it starts this way in the UK soon
not actually driving related, but we’ve been working on a big job down the southwest for past 2 weeks - the installers are a UK based company but the WHOLE crew doing the complex installation of the machinery were from their polish branch, even the supervisor who speaks impeccable english - they were all hard working, helpful and cheerful to a man
the contractor cutting corners? nope, they are fed up with the UK labour they bring in not turning up, being idle and thieving from clients, despite paying good money - is it any wonder this country’s going to the dogs?
I won’t deny that I am VERY concerned about the amount of foreign drivers coming in and under-cutting us… Especially with the WTD and the £10ph issue
BUT… I believe it will come full circle…
Yes they are cheaper… Yes your profits will go up… Then your insurance will go thru the roof, cuz of all the ‘taps’… Customers will drop off due to late arrivals… PROFITS WILL FALL…
THEN… They’ll all want the properly ‘educated’ drivers back on the books to save their money grabbin RS’s…
This will create a two-tier haulage industry in this country… The cheap “it’ll get there eventually”, and the more expensive “It will get there” types…
ALSO… i’m sorry I can’t let this drop, but the women drivers comment earlier has really pee’ed me off… How dare you compare me to someone of any type, who you consider to be less compitent than yourself… I passed FIRST TIME, with NO FAULT… I have a degree in electronics, 10yrs as a programmer, I can strip and rebuild engines, and STILL I feel I have to try HARDER than you, because of thougfhtless comment like that… !!!
How would you feel, If I were to say “I’m 'better than you” cuz i’m more qualified… !!! We took the same test, but because I can programme too, i’m better… !!!
Not really fair to compare my previous carreer, to driving, as it’s NOT RELEVENT… being able to solder won’t make me reverse any better, as your nuts won’t help you…
I try not to care, but I have pride in my job and know if I mess up any manouvre, it’s gonna give the blokes a whole afternoon of entertainment…
Rant over… And I do appreiciate you probably didn’t mean it like that, but…
Reading that statement of comparison between women drivers and eastern bloc drivers, just goes to show that just as i thought i was starting to be seen as equal is total, whats between your legs!
I and every other woman driver, ladies correct me if i’m wrong, are always aware that if at any time we mess up, i.e 20 shunts to get in a bay, lost, late etc etc then you may think something along the lines, bloody female drivers, shouldn’t be doing the job. Most people do accept that we’re equal, but then you get the people that think that by making those comments and giving you the dud runs will get rid of you. The industry is short of drivers and increasing costs mean that they resort to employing “cheap” labour, instead of investing and making the industry a more attractive and appealing one. Only this week i’ve had direct discrimination from an agency because i’m female with responsibilities (my son) what can i do. I’m not going to let any snide comment make me get out of the industry.
I would just like to add though, in the 2 and a half years i have been in the driving game, i’ve had more comments of fair play etc from drivers than bad words. It’s not the drivers so much that cause the problems, it’s more the office bods.
As for polish drivers. They are just the same as us they have families and responsibilities, they are free to rome and search for good work in the EU. Let them come over. They should be treated the same though, they should go through the training that we went through and should be given help by the government for making the working transition over here where english speaking, writing and reading is concerned. As for companies paying them less, like someone has said, it will do a full circle and bite them in the arse. The cheapest is not always the best.
It wont go full circle, dont kid yourself. People were saying such things about Western European merchant navies in the 60s and 70s when entire crews of British/Dutch/German sailors were made redundant and replaced with people such as Cape Verdeans and Portugese at the time. Yeah true, the Cape Verdeans and Portugese didn’t last forever, but when they left the British or Dutch didn’t get their jobs back, oh no, they were replaced with yet another cheap labour source, namely Filipinos, and now Filipinos on ships are being replaced with Pacific Islanders from Tuvalu and Vanuatu, and now even they are being replaced with Burmese who are currently the cheapest possible people to employ in the world and companies such as Rickmers and Columbus Reederei in Germany have full crews of them and treat them like dirt.
Dutch haulier Harry Vos is well known for employing endless amounts of Polish drivers, but he’s cutting well back on that now because his customers are making thousands of complaints about damaged or stolen loads, loads always being late and arrogant and rude drivers, so Vos started employing Dutch and Germans for a while…until that is, he decided that instead of Poles, maybe he could try his luck with Czechs and Hungarians.
This situation will definetly not go full circle if people just sit on their backsides and wait for it to happen.
tiggz:
I and every other woman driver, ladies correct me if i’m wrong, are always aware that if at any time we mess up, i.e 20 shunts to get in a bay, lost, late etc etc then you may think something along the lines, bloody female drivers, shouldn’t be doing the job.
I don’t think it is because you are female, people pick on something about a person when they are berrating them. i.e. if it were a guy then it might be “look at that fat/bald/ugly pillock who can’t reverse” if they are of ethnic origin then that is usually used as the adjective for the statement, hence when a female mucks up the “Female” bit is used as the adjective.
anyway I’m not bald