Carryfast:
The fact that the road transport industry is going back to the 1930’s,in being mainly just an essential local delivery service for the shops and building trade etc and less and less as a way to move stuff viably over long distances,is the main reason why we are seeing a pro rata shortage of drivers willing to meet that change.
There isn’t a shortage of drivers to begin with, except that created by certain employers themselves and within their gift to resolve.
IE people drive trucks because they like driving and seeing new places and going from place to place and getting out of town.By going from one town to another,not from one part of the same town to another.The fact that with that local work often comes more ‘other labouring duties’ just adds insult to injury.
I think it’s a mixed bag to be honest. There are fellas in the world who don’t mind physical labouring, but those who like it most tend not to like sedentary mental labouring, and that’s what a lot of driving involves, and there are those in between who like a bit of both but won’t do extremes of either. Indeed, a person cannot do extremes of both without overwhelming stress or loss of quality of performance in doing it.
And as I say, the roads have changed over time (as have other aspects of the job) and have become significantly more mentally demanding.
The problem is perhaps that employers (and non-professional drivers generally) often like to think that driving basically involves nothing at all, or is even an inherent pleasure - after all, they can drive 30 minutes to work and glide into their normal parking space, or a small journey to the tip with household refuse, without much sweat beading on their brow - and then think they can then add physical labour on top as the only element of actual work in the job of a driver.
In reality there are mental demands in driving for many hours on end, daily, and which is rarely on a fixed and familiar route. Some sites, especially for fellas on multi-drop, are appallingly difficult to access and need careful concentration to wrangle with traffic, pedestrians, and maneouvering obstructions. It can be hard work, that may not wear out the body, but does wear out the faculties of the mind.
And this really is the nub of the problem of recruitment into driving-with-labour roles, that there is often just too much to them.
To use a rail analogy, the engine driver has never been the stoker at the same time, and nor do they take turns, because you cannot perform the mental aspects of the driving role when hyped for significant physical exertion.
Even if you find a fella who will do either, he won’t accept doing both to the normal standard set by the person dedicated to each, much less again to the normal standard set by the person who actually prefers (for reasons of character or habituation) one or the other specifically.
It is not even purely a question of wages, but of the intensity and conditions of the work.
That change being definitely politically driven in the form of a deliberate policy of taking longer haul freight off the roads.It also has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Conservative v Labour in that both are allied in that aim Labour moreso if anything.
The fact is, no government is going to prefer a mode of transport which is more labour intensive, fuel intensive, and generally less efficient (at scale). It is not in anybody’s interests that unnecessary jobs are created simply for the sake of providing you with a scenic daily tour of the motorways. There’s a big difference between spreading necessary work around, and actually creating unnecessary work.
And it is not the rail industry that determines conditions in haulage.
So a rare distance bulk pallet delivery job appears on the agency two drivers decide they want to do it.Rather than local multi drop/hiab building deliveries/retail shop work etc etc,often involving lots of handball,while those jobs keep moaning about a ‘driver shortage’.Who would have thought it. 
Indeed, a “shortage” for the reasons I mentioned above.
