Over regulated, underpaid, unappreciated and threatened with a criminal record for the slightest mistake.
The wonder is that anyone wants to be an LGV driver.
So by the rules of supply and demand, I guess the pay will be rising soon (and rapidly) as this shortage takes hold?
The same ‘shortage’ that has been advertised in the industry since before I first sat the test in 2007.
Arf 
You can make statistics look any way you want them to, CM would do well to do a ‘real’ investigation instead of hanging off the government figures. You might as well pluck those statistics out of your backside for all the value they are.
Why would anyone want to drive a truck nowadays. Yep it has the reputation of long hours and low pay, but how about the poor attitude we are greeted with everywhere we go. How about the poor driving standards of the general population. Those of us still turning wheels and not driving a desk can vouch that holiday periods and fridays are a nightmare, especially the slip roads onto the motorways and the practise of swooping. Lastly and most importantly the dangerous nature of driving C+E is disregarded by the majority especially planners. When it goes wrong, which it does, even a minor error the consequences can be multiple fatalities usually including the driver. Add to this the cost of retaining a licence apart from the initial cost ie. CPC, £7-8 per hour seems like a really poor deal. Have advised my lad to forget trucks and get on a forklift initial cost £300 one days refresher every two years and more money than class 1. Simple common sense to me.
madfish:
Have advised my lad to forget trucks and get on a forklift initial cost £300 one days refresher every two years and more money than class 1. Simple common sense to me.
Yeah, and you get the chance to wind up truck drivers all day as well! Downside is it’s [zb]ing boring!
by trux » Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:17 pm
fingermissing wrote:
Wonder whycommercialmotor.com/latest-n … -nosedives
Have you seen the price of having tattoos done these days
yes …yes I have 
madfish:
‘…Have advised my lad to forget trucks and get on a forklift … more money than class 1…’
Aah, proper values 
Happy Keith:
madfish:
‘…Have advised my lad to forget trucks and get on a forklift … more money than class 1…’Aah, proper values
Very ambitious 
and plain wrong advice for your son.
If i lose my licence how on earth am i gonna replace the £500 + a week take home■■? 
for doing almost sweet fa■■?
Such a cushy number compared with most working class jobs. If i don’t like a job i don’t do it. 
I ain’t saying it’s a bed of roses but if the grass is greener somewhere else then go and munch on it.
Does anybody believe anything they read in “Take a Commercial” ?
Talk about prophets of doom, I picked it up a few weeks ago after not buying it (or any other truck magazine) for years.
Change the pictures and it could have been the first one i ever bought, in about 1988. Back then I was young and silly enough to believe the garbage that was churned out weekly. Not now.
I blame magazines like this for putting people off the industry, would you fancy it after reading the latest transport armageddon story?
While 86,926 LGV tests were taken in 2005/06, this has fallen by more than half (43,094) in 2009/10.The combined pass rate shows a similar fall during the same period, with a 45% drop from 39,220 to just 21,749.
Can’t remember when you had to take c before e first started but this is just using numbers to say nothing. Where is the detail? how many passed at a 2nd or 3rd attempt? The reasons in the posts above are all valid but I would be more interested in the number of LGV licenses held but not used any more. Then get into the why and wherefore that transport is seen as such an unattractive career choice and then consider how to fix it if indeed it does need fixing.
Of course since most deliveries seem to be made I don’t see that there really is such a problem for the industry. Are companies more vexed by a shortage of drivers for the vehicles or the cost of fuel to propel them? This is, IMHO, simply training companies crying wolf again, and again, and again with Commercial Motor the conduit for the siren voices.
Wiretwister:
‘… transport is seen as such an unattractive career choice …’
I understand ‘transport’ to be riddled with daily and generic confrontation between, ie, clerks, planners, warehouse, supplier & customer, etc, having equal disinterest, disrespect, distrust (often desecending into dislike) between them.
Rise above those sometimes fraught relationships with a thick skin and the necessary personal qualities to include (where they exist!) self-respect and a belief in doing an honourable job to prove that ‘transport’ can be less unattractive.
In other words, whether ‘…transport…’ is seen as ‘…attractive…’ is in the eyes of the beholder if the beholder can be arsed to work at it. Maybe today’s emerging (spoonfed?) transport candidates want, want, want, a staple working diet to the equivalent of Disneyland and Coca Cola, etc morning, noon & night.
Wiretwister:
‘… the cost of fuel …’
Oh ,and why not add accountants/bean-counters (and Health and Safety, those that blindly apply un-reasoned legislative nonsense & not forgetting to add Energy/Environmental Protection protagonists also) into the above mix of mutual antagonism too!
Wiretwister:
‘…Of course since most deliveries seem to be made…’
That’s akin to suggesting that “we’re here because we’re here” - which, I’m guessing, just about sums it up 
Santa:
Over regulated, underpaid, unappreciated and threatened with a criminal record for the slightest mistake.The wonder is that anyone wants to be an LGV driver.
You’re having a smile right? And you call yourself Santa? Robber baron might more appropriate!
I was a TM on own account back in the day when the T&G ruled in Birmingham. The first thing I did when I started was to stop the Saturday mornings - four hours at time and a half to wash their trucks - dream on. On the other hand I defended the drivers against the general impression at board level that they were really just labourers.
The drivers there were on trip and finish for the week. So they would roll in on Friday morning and hang around fo no good reason. This upset the factory workers because they only saw them when they were standing around drinking tea. I stopped most of the overtime too - the rule was that they couldn’t claim OT on a day when they had a night out. My reasoning was that there was no reason for them to work it, apart from the odd half hour to get to the digs (no sleeper cabs then).
There is an abundance of not only elderly HGV drivers, but also in other professions too. One of the reasons is the low state pension, as a pensioner myself, and still working 3 days a week, i do it for the few luxuries that i want. For example, my car, which needs tax, servicing, m.o.t. insurance, etc, beer, ■■■■, restaurants, days out, holidays etc. There is also other costs like, household insurances, decoration etc etc.
Nothing would give us pensioners the greatest pleisure in allowing us to retire, with enough money to give us a decent standard of living, especially after working for 50 yrs, but this is the real world, and having been in transport all of my life, there was never any mention of a private pension, the closest we got was S.E.R.P.S., which was created with the intention of a final salary pension, only for the government to realise it woould be too expensive, but it does give me £50 a week extra, and i did manage to take out a couple of private insurance pensions, so i could in fact retire, and survive, if i didnt want luxuries, but who dont ?
God help the future generations who wont be as fortunate as myself, and will end up working longer, and receiving a lot less.
God help the future generations who wont be as fortunate as myself, and will end up working longer, and receiving a lot less.
If you plan for zero pension, and assume nobody is going to help you. Then you won’t be disappointed when you arrive there, with nothing.
It’s the attitude of entitlement that screws people up. Get yourself out of the mindset of expecting empty promises to be fulfilled. It doesn’t matter what age you live in, or in what part of this world, taxation is a certainty. It doesn’t mean you can expect anything in return.
History shows us that nothing ever changes, it should teach us but people refuse to learn. Our very modern problem is getting young people hooked on a common certainty of benefits. It becomes so very normal to expect something for nothing, that the reality is so very painful to accept, in fact they will do everything they can to fight against it. See student riots et al “educate me, for nothing, its my oooman rites”. It’s a very clever system.
I’m 26 and have no illusions of a state pension or a state anything by the time I am thinking about retirement. A remington 700 is far cheaper, and it only takes 1 round.
Euthanasia might even be legal, perfected and socially acceptable by then.
Our whole economy is based on people being good little producers, in order that they can be good little consumers. Anything else is of no benefit, so why are people surprised that after they have reached the end of of their usefulness they are treated with disdain. It’s grim, but if you aren’t part of the solution (producers) you are part of the problem (a drain). The problem is large, because we are an aging population on this island. The individual matters not a bit.
If you accept this at the earliest possible opportunity, then you have the greatest possibility of living a fullfilling and happy life despite it. Retirement is not the destination to pin all your hopes on, it’s best to live a full life whilst you can.