At end of day the job can be demanding but let it get to you and it will drag you down big time.
Office blokes can make your life a misery if you let them,my advice is to try and find a good honest family or smallish haulier, work hard and just accept that you have bad days now and then and you will be happy.
I was ready for leaving the industry last year fed up of all the lies and corporate bs and politics and red tape,but changed jobs and got a bit of passion back for the job again. 
Everyone who thinks that lorry driving for long hours is the only way to earn enough for a specific standard of living should look at what their neighbours do for a living, they will have similar lifestyles, so will be a good comparison.
You will probably find that they won’t have much in the way of degrees or other academic qualifications, but will have worked their way up the ladder over the years.
You can’t really do that as a lorry driver, a wet behind the ears newbie can earn the same as a driver who has been there, got the T-shirt etc, so comparing different ways of earning a living is a waste of time, you’ve chosen to drive lorries and that is what it is.
You can choose to be away, run local, do nights, weekends, whatever, but it all adds up to the same in the end, you ain’t getting rich…
One other thing iv noticed is in the last week or so iv been spending a lot of time in and out of hospital with the wife,you only need to look at jobs in nursing etc to see that we in comparison have a life of riley…
NewLad:
waynedl:
mac12:
waynedl:
mac12:
This is now on to 3 pages and nobody has agreed that maybe drivers are working to many hours. No wonder drivers get treated like they do when they cannot see how many hours workers in other jobs work, drivers come on here saying how long they are waiting at some rdc but all the staff there do 8 hours then go home, same with the office staff at the firms drivers work for 8 hours then home.
Drivers have got to stop thinking it’s right to be working all these hours.Do they heck like.
How many 8hr jobs do you think there really are, and doing an 8hr job, what do you think you take home per week?
I’ve done a few driving jobs that are ‘8hr jobs’ (usually 9 because they dock 1hr dinner) and they pay [zb], but they are around, so if that’s what the driver wants, then go and get one, but if you get a job as a tramper, you’ve GOT TO expect to be either maxing out your hours, or near to it.
Don’t get me wrong, if I was a salaried tramper, I’d rather be parked up on 12hrs or so, but that’d be unlikely, and as an hourly paid tramper, I’d rather EARN some extra money than be parked up spending it.
So going back to the rdc how can the man unloading live on 8 hours per day when the man he’s unloading need to work 12 to 15
It’s not about being able to live, it’s a standard of living.
My p60 for last year was around 27,000, and night out money isn’t on that, and I only work 3/4 of a year because I’m a lazy moody bugger.
Ask a forky what his P60 was…
Now, I only live in a 2 up 2 down terraced house, I drive an old car and have 2 old motorbikes, my missus has a horse, we have a house in Bulgaria and a tourer caravan, we also go out for meals and have holidays and enjoy life.
I was working for Calor Gas a while back, that was basic hours and paid around the 18k mark…
See the difference?
When I was at Co-op on nights in the warehouse I earned £26000 on my last p60 that was doing about 50h one week and 40h the following.
You’re forgetting 2 things though.
1, I only work approx 9 months out of the year, by time I’ve taken my dummy spitting time off into account.
2, Night out money etc are not taxable income, so not included in the above figure…