MPs reject driver shortage, crap pay and conditions to blame

[rjan]

parliament.uk/business/commi … hed-16-17/

publications.parliament.uk/p … ulereports

House of Commons:
We believe that a major reason for the driver shortage is a shortage of people willing to work in the sector rather than a shortage of people with the right qualifications and licences.

Simply recruiting drivers is not a sustainable solution if road haulage companies do not deal with issues affecting retention.

Data from the DVLA show there are more than enough people either licensed or licensed and qualified to drive LGVs but for a number of reasons they choose not to work as drivers … there seems to be a large pool of people who could work in the sector.

There are a lot of people out there who have the licence and who are sick of the conditions at the moment.

The Department’s road freight statistics show that more vehicles are off the road through lack of work than lack of a driver.

Rjan:
The industry is swirling in a cesspool of its own making.

[the_nodding_donkey]

Rjan wrote:The industry is swirling in a cesspool of its own making.

[coolrider]

For once the MPs are spot on. There is and never has been a driver shortage.
I can think of at least 20 people I know off who have a class 1 with a number of years experience but swear they will never step foot inside a truck again!

Why? Well that’s an easy one to answer. Look at everything that stands in a drivers way these days and the consequences should an accident happen,

Vosa
Police
Traffic
Speed cameras
The way drivers get treated by customers at RDCs etc
Amount of time spent waiting around
The way they get treated by their very own employers, in some cases
Having to sleep in some lay-bys 4 or 5 nights a week away from your wife and kids just to make a few quid to look after them on the odd occasions you get to see them.
Cpc training every 5 years
Cycling awareness courses
Trackers every where you go

The list goes on and on.

I’m also in no doubt that there will be more thrown at us drivers over the coming months and years.

Already drivers are having in cab cameras looking at them 24/7 and I can tell you that this will become the norm and by no means the exception!!
All for what 4 - 5 hundred quid a week if your lucky!

No there is no driver shortage at all. There might be a good driver shortage but no shortage of people holding the licences.

[evil8beezle]

The industry wouldn’t have an alleged shortage if the basic as £15 an hour with overtime on top…

[darkside]

Evil8Beezle:
The industry wouldn’t have an alleged shortage if the basic as £15 an hour with overtime on top…

I agree with that because there wouldn’t be a haulier left in business with pay rates that high…

[robroy]

Coolrider:
For once the MPs are spot on. There is and never has been a driver shortage.
I can think of at least 20 people I know off who have a class 1 with a number of years experience but swear they will never step foot inside a truck again!

Why? Well that’s an easy one to answer. Look at everything that stands in a drivers way these days and the consequences should an accident happen,

Vosa
Police
Traffic
Speed cameras
The way drivers get treated by customers at RDCs etc
Amount of time spent waiting around
The way they get treated by their very own employers, in some cases
Having to sleep in some lay-bys 4 or 5 nights a week away from your wife and kids just to make a few quid to look after them on the odd occasions you get to see them.
Cpc training every 5 years
Cycling awareness courses
Trackers every where you go

The list goes on and on.

I’m also in no doubt that there will be more thrown at us drivers over the coming months and years.

Already drivers are having in cab cameras looking at them 24/7 and I can tell you that this will become the norm and by no means the exception!!
All for what 4 - 5 hundred quid a week if your lucky!

No there is no driver shortage at all. There might be a good driver shortage but no shortage of people holding the licences.

Well said mate. …Not a driver shortage at all a GOOD driver shortage, You are spot on with that.

If I could afford to jack it I would tomorrow, Some will inevitably come back and say '‘Nobody forces you to do it’ …and to be fair they are right, but I am at the stage now where I know nothing else.
I have qualifications in mech engineering but it has changed to the point with tech that I would be the same status, and same knowledge level of that trade as a non qualified novice.

It is for all the reasons that Coolrider points out (and more) that have ■■■■■■ me with it for last 10years or so, it bears no resemblance, this over regulated, over monitored crap, to the job that I started in 79, …and once really enjoyed.

How much does it cost these young lads to do it now? , and for what, just over min wage + time and £1 over 50 hours and such cack, IF they can get somebody to give them a chance, or get involved with an abusive ■■■■ agency… aint surprised hordes of young guys aint exactly queing up to do it.

I cut my hours down to Tues to Sat lunchtime, (and tbf am reasonably content with the work and same run every week that I do) because I realised (maybe too late) there was more to life than spending the majority of it in a ■■■■ truck maxing out. like a demented homeless ■■■■ tramp.

However the last 2 weeks or so, I have been doing full weeks maxing out to make up for having a days off for a funeral and other things. I done 5 full days and a part Sat with 5 nights out, at the same time thanking ■■■■ that I was still not doing it every week (according to driver’s hours before anybody jumps )

I discussed these hours and pay ratio in the pub with a couple of mates with better jobs, electrician and one in my old trade, my 70+ hour wage and 5nights more or less equated to their 39 hours plus a little overtime, they asked me why tf I do it.
Out of the 3 of us who was the mug.

I also speak to a few retired drivers, some of which showed me the ropes when I started, who I have a lot of respect for.
When I tell them what we have to put up with today, and with very little resistance by many, they just either shake their heads or ■■■■ themselves laughing .

[freight_dog]

Evil8Beezle:
The industry wouldn’t have an alleged shortage if the basic as £15 an hour with overtime on top…

I’ve an HGV licence and would consider coming back to driving if I could earn that per hour as min basic fulltime on the lorries .

[the_nodding_donkey]

Freight Dog:

Evil8Beezle:
The industry wouldn’t have an alleged shortage if the basic as £15 an hour with overtime on top…

I’ve an HGV licence and would consider coming back to driving if I could earn that per hour as min basic fulltime on the lorries .

There are driving jobs that are at that level, or very near. But you need to be able to drive a bog standard shopping trolly…

[freight_dog]

the nodding donkey:

Freight Dog:

Evil8Beezle:
The industry wouldn’t have an alleged shortage if the basic as £15 an hour with overtime on top…

I’ve an HGV licence and would consider coming back to driving if I could earn that per hour as min basic fulltime on the lorries .

There are driving jobs that are at that level, or very near. But you need to be able to drive a bog standard shopping trolly…

Is that supermarket work? What’s that, 30k a year plus bit for overtime? Not too bad. Especially for low stress lifestyle. Part of my back up plan in life. Don’t think the misses would buy the pay change if it happened though

[dolph]

I ditched class 2 driving in favor of a warehouse job - less stress, mandatory breaks, dont worry about any driving laws or bad weather or wrong addresses or customer attitude etc. and I make the same if not more.
The other day I was driving(assessment I guess) for 7 hrs a hiab truck with company driver - no time for break, no time for a toilet, no time for a meal, you eat a sandwich behind the wheel while you get loaded at base…[zb] that.
If class 1 is like that or worst(sleeping in the truck in the middle of nowhere), I would drop trucking completely.

[ovlov_jay]

I’ve been saying it for years. The last time there was a “shortage”, circa 2003, the rates were pushing £18 per hour, in certain places. The wtd has hit those same places hard, with blue chips trying to restrict drivers to 10 hours a shift, with wages nowhere near the ones I stated.

When I was a sainsburys Waltham point, we had Mancs, Scousers, Jocks, Welsh, you name it. And when they couldn’t get any more, they offered a pound an hour more than Tesco. Now, it’s a non stop stream of Eastern European labour that can live on nmw, where the indigenous workforce simply can’t put food on the table at those rates.

The worse thing we ever had was the introduction of the nmw. Wages would never have fallen so low without its introduction. It’s become a benchmark wage, and until people start offering more than the firm round the corner, like the old days, you’ll never turn it around.

[juddian]

Its not all doom and gloom.
There are some good jobs out there still, nothing like the old days of lorrying to be fair (which it must be said has good points as well as bad) but jobs which pay proper money for reasonably short if not exactly sociable hours with easy if responsible work.

Early starts and/or some form of shift working are likely to be involved if you want to be at the better end of the salary scale and home after every shift, i do to both, and you might have to accept a shift pattern that you don’t want in order to get your feet under the table at the right company, i did.

The problem is some drivers don’t seem to be able to earn that reputation that opens the right doors, there is a massive void between the good and less good jobs out there, whilst top lines can appear similar, there’s a world of difference between 40odd hours and sleeping in your own bed and 60plus hours and sleeping in the lorry for the same take home…and for crying out loud when will drivers stop counting night out money as wages, unless you live like a bloody hermit you’ll spend most if not all of it.

Anyone of us can get into these jobs with a bit of using our noddles, they won’t be advertised (where i work never has and most likely never will) and they probably won’t be that obvious, it took me years of grafting on various types of jobs before i got me first good break, you have to have make your own luck in many ways by making sure you are the reliable one…which doesn’t mean you are the one they walk over at all, it means they know that they can give you that job which be there whatever happens and forget you, i can’t emphasise enough how much a reputation for can do attitude can do for your job prospects as time goes by, unless you move many miles away you will be running into old colleagues at all sorts of levels in companies, when you are known as up to the job good doors open instantly.

If you are unreliable and can’t be arsed about the job, trash kit, act the bolshy twerp, then other drivers you work with who end up on the premium jobs arn’t going to be singing your praises to help open any doors for you, if they did the good job soon wouldn’t be good… , good people who have made the move and value what they have only recommend other good ones.

Don’t forget every industrial job has a certain amount of apprenticeship to it, where in the early years you won’t be getting the best pay because you arn’t up to the skill level they require, apart from that you won’t have made the contacts or have the knowledge of what parts of the industry to aim for to get what you want.
Lorrying is no different, those who fall on their feet from day one usually have a leg up somewhere along the line or they’ve been incredibly lucky, most of us have had to scrat about till we got into better things.

And i know i bore the arse of most of you with this, tough, but joining the union and seeking out unionised companies and negotiating alongside your fellow union members whenever possible will usually give you above average terms and conditions in this game.

[bluey_circles]

Darkside:

Evil8Beezle:
The industry wouldn’t have an alleged shortage if the basic as £15 an hour with overtime on top…

I agree with that because there wouldn’t be a haulier left in business with pay rates that high…

Wrong - Without the haulage industry the UK economy would collapse within 24 hours, the lorry and its driver are about as important within society as it gets. Sadly the industry (including the drivers) have cut their own throats by continuously undercutting each other, willing to work harder and harder for less and less, you couldn’t make this level of stupidity up if you tried. @Rjan’s comment in the OP is very accurate “The industry is swirling in a cesspool of its own making”.

It would be nice if we all said enough is enough and £20 an hour (inc breaks) is the new minimum, prices would go up but it would have to be paid, but I doubt that is what will happen; queue all these young men from syria and afghanistan all waiting at Calais who would be willing to work for extremely little, we could just give all them a licence, problem solved, the industry is mad enough…

[alix776]

Actually it wouldn’t there would just be more eu hauliers here doing the work we now do. As usually an eu haulier can serverly under cut a UK haulier rates are still heading south so as usual its a race to the bottom. This leads to lower rates so companies pay less they are there to make a profit and the driver is a cost that can be driven down so you get lower wages if they can reduce that cost never more through using agencies’ they will

[coolrider]

Bluey Circles:

Darkside:

Evil8Beezle:
The industry wouldn’t have an alleged shortage if the basic as £15 an hour with overtime on top…

I agree with that because there wouldn’t be a haulier left in business with pay rates that high…

Wrong - Without the haulage industry the UK economy would collapse within 24 hours, the lorry and its driver are about as important within society as it gets. Sadly the industry (including the drivers) have cut their own throats by continuously undercutting each other, willing to work harder and harder for less and less, you couldn’t make this level of stupidity up if you tried. @Rjan’s comment in the OP is very accurate “The industry is swirling in a cesspool of its own making”.

It would be nice if we all said enough is enough and £20 an hour (inc breaks) is the new minimum, prices would go up but it would have to be paid, but I doubt that is what will happen; queue all these young men from syria and afghanistan all waiting at Calais who would be willing to work for extremely little, we could just give all them a licence, problem solved, the industry is mad enough…

Do you know something I really think you might have a very good point here.

I was only saying to someone last week that I can see the haulage industry going along the same route as the farm workers. Most imported from abroad to do the jobs that a lot of English workers don’t want to day and for far less pay.

When I was a lad there were a few of us in my school who said they wanted to drive a truck when they got older. I grew up with it. My grandad was heavy haulage for wynns and a few others. My dad and uncles were general haulage including European . I spent a larg part of my school hols with my dad including nights out.

How many kids these days tell their teachers that they want to be a truck driver when they leave school ?

Although I don’t go out on the road much these days but when I do I ask my lad if he wants to come and he’s just not interested!!

As I said there are plenty of licence holders about at the moment it’s just a lot have done it and not liked what they saw or the pay so move onto a different line of work.

I can see there being a shortage in the future because not many youngsters now a days grow up aspiring to drive a truck

[andrejs]

Bluey Circles:

Darkside:

Evil8Beezle:
The industry wouldn’t have an alleged shortage if the basic as £15 an hour with overtime on top…

I agree with that because there wouldn’t be a haulier left in business with pay rates that high…

Wrong - Without the haulage industry the UK economy would collapse within 24 hours, the lorry and its driver are about as important within society as it gets. Sadly the industry (including the drivers) have cut their own throats by continuously undercutting each other, willing to work harder and harder for less and less, you couldn’t make this level of stupidity up if you tried. @Rjan’s comment in the OP is very accurate “The industry is swirling in a cesspool of its own making”.

It would be nice if we all said enough is enough and £20 an hour (inc breaks) is the new minimum, prices would go up but it would have to be paid, but I doubt that is what will happen; queue all these young men from syria and afghanistan all waiting at Calais who would be willing to work for extremely little, we could just give all them a licence, problem solved, the industry is mad enough…

All in long chain solution.if factory,farmers or construction stop working for one day or mote that thousand dribers will be without job .

[andrejs]

Coolrider:

Bluey Circles:

Darkside:

Evil8Beezle:
The industry wouldn’t have an alleged shortage if the basic as £15 an hour with overtime on top…

I agree with that because there wouldn’t be a haulier left in business with pay rates that high…

Wrong - Without the haulage industry the UK economy would collapse within 24 hours, the lorry and its driver are about as important within society as it gets. Sadly the industry (including the drivers) have cut their own throats by continuously undercutting each other, willing to work harder and harder for less and less, you couldn’t make this level of stupidity up if you tried. @Rjan’s comment in the OP is very accurate “The industry is swirling in a cesspool of its own making”.

It would be nice if we all said enough is enough and £20 an hour (inc breaks) is the new minimum, prices would go up but it would have to be paid, but I doubt that is what will happen; queue all these young men from syria and afghanistan all waiting at Calais who would be willing to work for extremely little, we could just give all them a licence, problem solved, the industry is mad enough…

Do you know something I really think you might have a very good point here.

I was only saying to someone last week that I can see the haulage industry going along the same route as the farm workers. Most imported from abroad to do the jobs that a lot of English workers don’t want to day and for far less pay.

When I was a lad there were a few of us in my school who said they wanted to drive a truck when they got older. I grew up with it. My grandad was heavy haulage for wynns and a few others. My dad and uncles were general haulage including European . I spent a larg part of my school hols with my dad including nights out.

How many kids these days tell their teachers that they want to be a truck driver when they leave school ?

Although I don’t go out on the road much these days but when I do I ask my lad if he wants to come and he’s just not interested!!

As I said there are plenty of licence holders about at the moment it’s just a lot have done it and not liked what they saw or the pay so move onto a different line of work.

I can see there being a shortage in the future because not many youngsters now a days grow up aspiring to drive a truck

Now most people dream become to shop assistant ,reception assistant.But not so much parent want if son start work at car garages for fitters or plumbers or factory workers.It is not just Uk problem.Can see this problem in diffetent country.

[carryfast]

To be fair there’d be a lot more room for wage rises and less trucks ‘off the road through lack of work’ given a level playing field with rail in terms of road fuel taxation.While it’s the government’s policy of shifting freight from road to rail that’s to blame for that not the employers.

You can then add to that bs over regulation such as who wants to do a night trunk at 56 mph max.Together with ridiculous hours regs allowing 15 hour shifts.Or unrealistic driving time limits which create a night out stuck in the cab instead of getting home.

Then there’s all the ‘experience’ ( often a case of luck or who you know ) pecking order bs for new drivers and/or drivers wanting to move up the work quality ladder.

[carryfast]

Dolph:
I ditched class 2 driving in favor of a warehouse job - less stress, mandatory breaks, dont worry about any driving laws or bad weather or wrong addresses or customer attitude etc. and I make the same if not more.
The other day I was driving(assessment I guess) for 7 hrs a hiab truck with company driver - no time for break, no time for a toilet, no time for a meal, you eat a sandwich behind the wheel while you get loaded at base…f**k that.

Let’s just say that if I was starting out again here I’d seriously think about moving to Poland for some decent work.

[rjan]

Coolrider:
Vosa, Police, Speed cameras

Who is bothered if you’re obeying the law. I think this is implicitly a complaint about operator’s maintenance standards, and the non-compliant scheduling of work. Perhaps to a lesser extent, about the risk to job security, load security and the suitability of the equipment to the load carried.

Traffic, Amount of time spent waiting around

I’d sit in traffic for 5 minutes for a £100 any day. Are we not talking again about problems with scheduling and working hours?

The way drivers get treated by customers at RDCs etc
The way they get treated by their very own employers, in some cases
Trackers every where you go

Obviously, the poor treatment of drivers by operators and “customers” (who are really a kind of employer in most cases - they just legally outsource their driving employees). I personally wouldn’t mind being tracked in principle, so long as it’s not used as another stick by management (which usually it is).

Having to sleep in some lay-bys 4 or 5 nights a week away from your wife and kids just to make a few quid to look after them on the odd occasions you get to see them.

Poor pay. Poor conditions. There is nothing per se which prevents drivers being put up in hotels, like drivers once were before sleeper cabs, and workers in all other sectors who work away. Nor is there anything which stops people who night out from having their own exclusive vehicles which are not shared, as part of secure steady employment, as was once more common.

Cpc training every 5 years
Cycling awareness courses

Would it be so bad if employers arranged and paid for it? With those I’ve done it’s a good laugh and interesting.

All roads lead to Rome and everything in this game comes back to issues that are within the control of employers.

Even the things they don’t control per se, like traffic, they control the amount of time we’re exposed to it, they control the comfort of our cabs, and they control many other stresses we’re exposed to.