I was in a lift this morning over Woodhead pass,For something to do I counted the artics going east to west. Between the gun inn Hollingworth and the flouch I counted 17 artics FIFTEEN of those were on foreign plates heading for manchester,Boy am I glad IM,e at the end of my driving career. UK firms cant compete with the foreigners on the rates, and I blame the clearing houses who are obviously going to give the work to the cheapest tender.
just to cheer everyone up 
rest of UK firms was on tea break 
they will learn just like all the rest cheap does not
mean all ways that the load comes on time, undamaged
and that has been proven else where try looking where they
require experts and you see only those who are capable of doing the job right
and many of the firms are not up to it,
malenki22:
rest of UK firms was on tea break
At least UK firms take a break…
rocky 7:
malenki22:
rest of UK firms was on tea breakAt least UK firms take a break…
class.
rocky 7:
and I blame the clearing houses who are obviously going to give the work to the cheapest tender.
and that has happened since time immemorial. Clearance houses, agencies and over zealous regulating industries are to blame
I was waiting for this kind of reply
Thats what I don’t understand that foreign drivers are pay well and theres no need to put other road members at risk to push for more hours ect.
brit pete:
they will learn just like all the rest cheap does not
mean all ways that the load comes on time, undamaged
and that has been proven else where try looking where they
require experts and you see only those who are capable of doing the job right
and many of the firms are not up to it,
eh? Many (foreign)firms are up to it and many foreign firms are much cheaper. The UK is swamped with foreign trucks now, or really i should say trucks ‘from member states’ to be politically correct. To my mind it doesn’t demonstrate that ‘foreigners’ are here to do ‘our work cheaper’.It demonstrates UK buisness reliance on cheaper imports brought here by their own transport, who are in turn (due to their lower running costs and cheaper standards of living)are able to do back loads to Europe from the few remaining exporters we have at a lot cheaper rate than a native haulier. A haulier returning to his native country is always going to be able to take a load there cheaper than a dedicated run from our own hauliers. Thats the price we pay for free trade, which is ultimateley less work ironically !! Don’t give me no gumph about Germany either, Germany is a transit country fl.ank.ed by alsorts of others, we are an Island. I think when more imports arrive here by ship or train then that should mean less foreign hauliers here and enable our own transport to do our own road transport abroad. Until then we’'ll just have to suffer the wider cost of cheaper manufacturing and imports from abroad !!!
edited because the word censor caught f lan ked as a naughty word !!!
sorry Mike i have to disagree , before i had lost my job
due to ill health we had no end of problems with the
drivers of those non German registered trucks who
were a sister company , they were not as competent
and were not allowed into some of our customers in fact
we often had to pre load for them, we carried only liquid
products sorry expertise was not some thing they were good at.
also look at certain Dutch company s that have lost contracts
due to the problems which there eastern country drivers
made and carried out, I am not saying that 100% of eastern
Europeans are incompetent how ever they are still lacking
in some of the specialist trades that are required, and yes
it is a true fact, as for GERMANY believe me the transport company’s
have seen the light and are rushing to keep the good drivers and although
wages are still not excellent all over Germany, this is changing
by the way many years ago when we left the UK we used to take full
fuel tanks and pay the coffee as it was CHEAPER than buying abroad,.
brit pete:
sorry Mike i have to disagree , before i had lost my job
due to ill health we had no end of problems with the
drivers of those non German registered trucks who
were a sister company , they were not as competent
and were not allowed into some of our customers in fact
we often had to pre load for them, we carried only liquid
products sorry expertise was not some thing they were good at.
also look at certain Dutch company s that have lost contracts
due to the problems which there eastern country drivers
made and carried out, I am not saying that 100% of eastern
Europeans are incompetent how ever they are still lacking
in some of the specialist trades that are required, and yes
it is a true fact, as for GERMANY believe me the transport company’s
have seen the light and are rushing to keep the good drivers and although
wages are still not excellent all over Germany, this is changingby the way many years ago when we left the UK we used to take full
fuel tanks and pay the coffee as it was CHEAPER than buying abroad,.
I’m sure you’re right Pete. However with roughly 2million Eastern European employees working in the Uk, of whom all the users of them espouse their benefits and a few million unemployed Brits here we’re going to be hard pushed to exand your argument out further to the masses !!! People are just people, i don’t buy for a minute the theory that somehow me and you are great and clued up and Eastern Europeans are clueless !!!
malenki22:
I was waiting for this kind of reply
well keep your gob shut then
Good god this topic has been done to death and the ‘poor me’ attitude of drivers in this country gets on my ■■■■. Everybody lumps trucks from over 20 different countries into the same camp and assumes they pay poorly, have crap trucks and cant do the job properly. It’s the same all over Europe, trucks of all nationalities all over the place. British trucks and drivers used to be the ones spending weeks in Europe doing work now its other nationalities, swings and roundabouts, get over it.
switchlogic:
British trucks and drivers used to be the ones spending weeks in Europe doing work now its other nationalities, swings and roundabouts, get over it.
When I did european work there was no cabotage, we could only load back to the country of origin, now you see foreigners loading in the north of england or scotland for the south, were they then load for home . I worked for Warisa from Wigan who lost the MOD contract to DFDS as they were then supplying the forces in Kosovo and Bosnia.when they got the contract they wouldn,t employ ex warisa drivers they preferreed eastern europeans who worked for less than us.so getb your facts right pal.
rocky 7:
switchlogic:
British trucks and drivers used to be the ones spending weeks in Europe doing work now its other nationalities, swings and roundabouts, get over it.When I did european work there was no cabotage, we could only load back to the country of origin, now you see foreigners loading in the north of england or scotland for the south, were they then load for home . I worked for Warisa from Wigan who lost the MOD contract to DFDS as they were then supplying the forces in Kosovo and Bosnia.when they got the contract they wouldn,t employ ex warisa drivers they preferreed eastern europeans who worked for less than us.so getb your facts right pal.
Many apologies if I didn’t know the facts about your particular life and experience, pal.
rocky 7:
switchlogic:
British trucks and drivers used to be the ones spending weeks in Europe doing work now its other nationalities, swings and roundabouts, get over it.When I did european work there was no cabotage, we could only load back to the country of origin, now you see foreigners loading in the north of england or scotland for the south, were they then load for home . I worked for Warisa from Wigan who lost the MOD contract to DFDS as they were then supplying the forces in Kosovo and Bosnia.when they got the contract they wouldn,t employ ex warisa drivers they preferreed eastern europeans who worked for less than us.so getb your facts right pal.
20 years ago I was doing Europe, doing cabotage or running on a CEMT book. I’m not sure about “could only load back to country of origin” I used to stay out for 12 to 14 weeks and loaded from close to where I tipped. You cannot blame foreign drivers for the EU rule change, they just take advantage of it, probably the same as Virginia Transport. A UK based company can tip in the south of France and load back to Paris, or you can tip in Munich and load for Hamburg
German builders complained about Brits taking all their work too.
Auf Wiedersehn pet
It’s caused by the Free Market Economy, transport is viewed as a commodity, therefore the cheapest price wins everytime, maybe there’s the odd exception with high value loads or specialist transport, but that apart there’s a load of stuff that has to get from point A to point B, as long as that happens the buyer of the transport service is happy, it’s unimportant what country the lorry, driver & company come from, nothing much wrong with that as I see it. After all if that hadn’t always been the case then British firms wouldn’t have been able to backload from other countries. The problem is that there isn’t a level playing field, as has been said the foriegn lorries that are all too common over here are from ‘Member States’ of the supposed COMMON MARKET, now what is common about it is beyond me, every other country within the group, especially those east of Germany seems to benefit a lot more than the rest of us, but is that the fault of the transport firm or it’s drivers? No it ain’t, if you don’t like the situation, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, you elected the British representatives in the EU, lobby them, that’s what they’re there for, to represent their voters, tell them what you want & tell them that if they don’t at least try to get it then you will vote someone in who will act in your best interests, moaning about it & doing nothing is the reason why this situation is with us, it ain’t going to go away unless you do something about it 
newmercman:
It’s caused by the Free Market Economy, transport is viewed as a commodity, therefore the cheapest price wins everytime, maybe there’s the odd exception with high value loads or specialist transport, but that apart there’s a load of stuff that has to get from point A to point B, as long as that happens the buyer of the transport service is happy, it’s unimportant what country the lorry, driver & company come from, nothing much wrong with that as I see it. After all if that hadn’t always been the case then British firms wouldn’t have been able to backload from other countries. The problem is that there isn’t a level playing field, as has been said the foriegn lorries that are all too common over here are from ‘Member States’ of the supposed COMMON MARKET, now what is common about it is beyond me, every other country within the group, especially those east of Germany seems to benefit a lot more than the rest of us, but is that the fault of the transport firm or it’s drivers? No it ain’t, if you don’t like the situation, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, you elected the British representatives in the EU, lobby them, that’s what they’re there for, to represent their voters, tell them what you want & tell them that if they don’t at least try to get it then you will vote someone in who will act in your best interests, moaning about it & doing nothing is the reason why this situation is with us, it ain’t going to go away unless you do something about it
Big problem with the ‘do something about it’ bit is that even democratically elected members (BNP) get ignored in Euro land.