It’s been quite a year for me. Got my class 2 licence in Jan, started with an Agency in Feb and I’m now nearly two months into a permanent position, giving me a very different perspective on the industry to the one I had at the start of the year, so thought I’d share a bit (more) of what I’ve learned on the way.
Now i’m probably as big a fan of this forum as anyone, but spend a bit too much time on here and you could be forgiven for believing the following Myths:
Myth 1 - You’ll struggle to find a permanent job untill you’ve got 2 years experience (I found one with 6 months experience)
Myth 2 - it’s best to avoid agencies if you can, they will mess you about and lie to you about the amount of work available (I signed up with 1 agency as a new pass, they got me an average of 4 days work a week over 6 months and they got me into where I now work)
Myth 3 - Tachos - if you are not very careful you’ll end up running up against the clock / working your unpaid breaks / building up infringements and (gawd knows what) penalities with VOSA (I typically drive no more than 6 hours in a day, get paid for my breaks and in 6 months I’ve never seen VOSA - at a guess they are alot more interested in artics)
Myth 4 - Cameras are everywhere ! - you’d better not pick your nose / wander slightly into a bus lane / creep over 30mph / park 3 feet outside of a loading bay - 'cos it’s all on camera ! (Erm, no they aren’t. I’ve driven for around 10 companies only one had driver facing cameras. I’ve parked on pavements and double yellows to my hearts content with no issues. Quite a few bus lanes you can use anyway [or use between certain times] and as for speed cams - restricted to 55mph you’d have to be trying very hard indeed to get caught when out of town AND in town most of the time you’ll be well under the usual 35mph prosecution threshold plus they are MUCH easier to spot from a truck cab 
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Myth 5 - Weight restrictions - you’d better not ever enter a 7.5T limit or gawd knows what will happen !!! (For bridges then YES DEFINITELY do not ignore,) but for normal roads, yes of course they are best avoided but it’s not the end of the world if you happen to enter one. obviously a decent sat nav helps alot here.
Myth 6 - other road users - there is just so many of them holding you up (in general congestion) and most of them are tw*ts just waiting to pull out in front of you , cut you up, beep at you from behind at the lights if you make a slow getaway and not give you room to proceed when you need it (I do motorway runs on the M1, M62 and A1 every week and significant congestion is very rare, just as it is in the major urban centres I enter during the day typically between the hours of 10am and 3pm. The vast majority of other motorists I find to be patient and courteous. But then I’m in the North, London and the South East may well be a bit different Some Manchester pedestrians are like lemmings though, expect them all to do something stupid and then hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised when they don’t 
Myth 7 - With height restrictions weight restrictions and traffic congestion to contend with, I’d better get a £300 Sat Nav (I paid £80 for my second hand TomTom truck on ebay and it has done everything I need. Even with a £300 satnav you will occasionally need to use google maps on your phone once you are half a mile away.)
Myth 8 - You can expect to have to get up before five, drive 20 miles to an industrial estate and arrive home exhausted around eight, half dreading having to do it all again tomorrow and all for a whopping £8 an hour. (Tuesday to Friday, I get up about 7.30 or 8 depending on which run i’m doing and arrive home usually feeling pretty good somewhere around 4 and all for a weekly wage that some people are apparently doing nearly 50 hours for)
Myth 9 - your T.M. will be a moron with a personality bypass who generally talks down to you and harrasses you on the phone all day (My T.M. feels like a mate - in fact i’m quite looking forward to having a few beers with him at Xmas - he leaves me to get on with the job and between them my TM and GM have averaged a phone call to me while driving of about one a month)
Myth 10 - sitting idle in a truck cab and out on the road all day you’ll pile on the flab through the lack of exercise and an unhealthy takeaway diet.
(I’ve lost nearly a stone so far through the regular daily exercise and [usually] a hummus or tuna wraps and nuts and raisins diet)
As you can probably tell I love my job, so do not be put off by all the MYTHS surrounding an HGV career. For sure some of the things I’ve highlighted will be issues for some people some of the time, but definitely not for every driver all of the time !
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didn’t mean to let the cat out of the bag… erm…oh yes that’s it ! - The decription of my job above is a complete fabrication designed to wind up the vast majority of forum members who all of course have an utterly thankless trucking existence because that is the only one available in 2017 in the UK 
As the only truck driving I have known is up against a limiter, then at least your progress is not really affected by the heavy traffic volume - which is what I meant by “significant congestion is very rare” - the major routes are of course generally fairly congested much of the time, it’s just not bad enough to particularly affect journey times.