We used to do a lot of resurfacing at nights in the early 2000’s, but it was usually (say) a 9pm start and finish (hopefully) around 4am, or earlier if the work was bl**dy cancelled. Then get my head down for an hour or so at the tarmac plant, or nip back home for a drink if local, then reload tar between 5-5.30am for a single load to Birmingham or similar. Usually back home for between 9 and 10am and get my head down for a few hours until early pm and start again in the evening if needed. And that was the problem, it wasn’t regular enough to get into a routine, and often you didn’t know you were doing nights until you went in to load that same morning! Good money back then (rate and and threequarters at one time, but later dropped to rate and a half when Tarmac ran the quarry ) but my body clock suffered especially as my neighbour liked mowing and strimming his lawn while I was in bed!
I did prefer night driving though, generally quieter on the road, but my gaffer wasn’t too keen on me doing it incase I broke down as the truck was 12 years old by then, and it would also cost him more money! If I could have done it on a regular basis I would probably have settled into it more though as I enjoyed it? Apologies for the long post, and of no real use to the op!
Beau Nydel:
I don’t understand why when you’re volunteering for night shifts you think you are entitled to an enhanced rate . If my firm wanted me to do night work then they would have to offer me an enhanced rate but if I volunteered for it I wouldn’t expect it.
Beau Nydel:
I don’t understand why when you’re volunteering for night shifts you think you are entitled to an enhanced rate . If my firm wanted me to do night work then they would have to offer me an enhanced rate but if I volunteered for it I wouldn’t expect it.
And there lies the problem why drivers wages are crap…you SHOULD expect it, night work SHOULD be an enhanced rate.
It does not matter a [zb] whether you are willing or volunteering, …but if you are it’s a bonus towards enjoying a crap job.
It’s better than living like a rat in a layby or industrial estate all week. I’d want time and a half to go tramping again.
Beau Nydel:
I don’t understand why when you’re volunteering for night shifts you think you are entitled to an enhanced rate . If my firm wanted me to do night work then they would have to offer me an enhanced rate but if I volunteered for it I wouldn’t expect it.
And there lies the problem why drivers wages are crap…you SHOULD expect it, night work SHOULD be an enhanced rate.
It does not matter a [zb] whether you are willing or volunteering, …but if you are it’s a bonus towards enjoying a crap job.
It’s better than living like a rat in a layby or industrial estate all week. I’d want time and a half to go tramping again.
Maybe not better exactly, more equal to.
If that’s the way you done it (presumably for all of 5 mins) I ain’t surprised you didn’t like it, nor would I.
Beau Nydel:
I don’t understand why when you’re volunteering for night shifts you think you are entitled to an enhanced rate . If my firm wanted me to do night work then they would have to offer me an enhanced rate but if I volunteered for it I wouldn’t expect it.
…
The same logic and attitude ■■■■ ed up European work a lot.
Drivers obviously liked it, so the idiots among them were willing to do it for poor money…yet another example of some driver’s stupidity, and how they are their own worst enemy.
No I didn’t do it like that. I think I stayed in a lay-by once and it was actually a nice one on the A9 north of aviemore with a beautiful view of Scottish mountains, it was set back from the road with a large piece grass separating the lay-by from the road. Better than just about every truck stop I ever stayed at. Also did industrial estates which were all cleaner and quieter than most truck stops.
Beau Nydel:
I don’t understand why when you’re volunteering for night shifts you think you are entitled to an enhanced rate . If my firm wanted me to do night work then they would have to offer me an enhanced rate but if I volunteered for it I wouldn’t expect it.
…
The same logic and attitude [zb] ed up European work a lot.
Drivers obviously liked it, so the idiots among them were willing to do it for poor money…yet another example of some driver’s stupidity, and how they are their own worst enemy.
It’s like dumb and dummer the job is full of them they infest and destroy anything they touch, its like they have no value on themselves, if the truth be known they would not get a job anywhere else, its only this industry that would employ them
Rowley010:
No I didn’t do it like that. I think I stayed in a lay-by once and it was actually a nice one on the A9 north of aviemore with a beautiful view of Scottish mountains, it was set back from the road with a large piece grass separating the lay-by from the road. Better than just about every truck stop I ever stayed at. Also did industrial estates which were all cleaner and quieter than most truck stops.
Ok…You used the example of lay bys, ind ests, and…‘‘living like a rat’’ before you said you would not do it again which implied that is how you did do it…so what was your point exactly?
It’s only those who choose to do the job that way that makes tramping crap as a job, those that know better do it properly.
As for ind ests, as long as they are relatively safe, well lit up and on the edge of a town with facilities, and near a toilet for the morning,.I can not see a problem parking there.
As for truckstops, there are more bad ones than good ones imo.
Either way I prefer tramping than doing the same mundane boring run every night.
Rowley010:
No I didn’t do it like that. I think I stayed in a lay-by once and it was actually a nice one on the A9 north of aviemore with a beautiful view of Scottish mountains, it was set back from the road with a large piece grass separating the lay-by from the road. Better than just about every truck stop I ever stayed at. Also did industrial estates which were all cleaner and quieter than most truck stops.
Ok…You used the example of lay bys, ind ests, and…‘‘living like a rat’’ before you said you would not do it again which implied that is how you did do it…so what was your point exactly?
It’s only those who choose to do the job that way that makes tramping crap as a job, those that know better do it properly.
As for ind ests, as long as they are relatively safe, well lit up and on the edge of a town with facilities, and near a toilet for the morning,.I can not see a problem parking there.
As for truckstops, there are more bad ones than good ones imo.
Either way I prefer tramping than doing the same mundane boring run every night.
Pros and cons. I miss going to different places all over the country, even the challenge of London now and again. But I don’t miss not having my own bed and don’t miss doing 65+ hours weeks and only seeing home for 2 days. you can’t have both.
Im a dayman and do the occasional nights out. I would much prefer to tramp full time but unfortunately I’ve got to do what the mrs says [emoji23][emoji23]
Beau Nydel:
I don’t understand why when you’re volunteering for night shifts you think you are entitled to an enhanced rate . If my firm wanted me to do night work then they would have to offer me an enhanced rate but if I volunteered for it I wouldn’t expect it.
Because it ■■■■■ your body, night after night, night shifts are not good for your health and earlier or later you will pay the price if you keep doing it for a long period of time, so selling your health just for some ordinary rate would be stupid, but everyone makes their own choice.
I love nights. However, unlike a lot of people, I find it really difficult to get up in the morning and work during the day. On days off I am awake until about 10am and then go to sleep so nights suit me fine
OP - nights will suit you if your clock is different to ‘normal’. If you tend to wake up early, have trouble going to sleep at other times, etc then I would think it’s safe to assume that night work won’t suit you at all and may make you ill
IMHO I don’t believe it’s good for you to try and adjust your ‘normal’ body clock to fit into a different way of working. It’s got to be a form of jet lag and that can be very debilitating for some people
I did it for over 18 months and i can honestly say it was the worst experience of my life and made me quite ill but i had just taken a mortgage on so had to stick it out
In the end i took a pay cut because i knew if i kept doing nights it would kill me
Bad diet lack off sleep lack of daylight lack of interaction and so ■■■■ boring
Freezing cold in the winter
i was doing 10pm till 6-7 am for five nights so i got home on saturday morning about 8am and had a few hrs sleep but the whole of Saturday was shagged because i was shagged and then on Sunday my body was awake early when it was use to being asleep and the same on Monday when everyone is back at work and you are just sitting there wide awake waiting to go to work and when i got to work on monday night i was shagged
thetastytrucker:
I did it for over 18 months and i can honestly say it was the worst experience of my life and made me quite ill but i had just taken a mortgage on so had to stick it out
In the end i took a pay cut because i knew if i kept doing nights it would kill me
Bad diet lack off sleep lack of daylight lack of interaction and so [zb] boring
Freezing cold in the winter
i was doing 10pm till 6-7 am for five nights so i got home on saturday morning about 8am and had a few hrs sleep but the whole of Saturday was shagged because i was shagged and then on Sunday my body was awake early when it was use to being asleep and the same on Monday when everyone is back at work and you are just sitting there wide awake waiting to go to work and when i got to work on monday night i was shagged
Try 15 years of permanent nights.
What you’ve said there is just another way of saying don’t change your sleep patterns at weekends.I got home Saturday mornings and slept just the same as workdays.Which meant awake as usual Saturday night and slept as usual again Sunday.Awake again as usual Sunday night,sleep as usual Monday,start Monday night as usual.
There are obviously some weekends when you might want to do things/go places at weekends ( sometimes jobs around the house etc or trips to motor race meetings in my case ) but don’t expect it,let alone the following Monday night’s work,to be easy in that case.Wrecked weekends, or feeling wrecked if you try to change your body clock over the weekend, goes with the territory.
With hindsight I’d definitely have tried to walk away to day tramping work with the change to hub systems and speed limiters.Instead of just setting my sights on Euro work or stay with it.Night work only makes sense if there are plenty of weeks of short nights and decent start times like 8am - 3 am.
Juddian:
There’s one big reason for doing nights, and thats the money, anything else that suits you is a bonus.
As I’ve said elsewhere less than £8 per hour on artics and A frames in my case including London Weighting and not that long ago.What did the Union do it allowed our job and finish terms to be trashed and signed us up to working in the warehouse all handball doing hub transhipments.
It’s not so much the money as there are loads of much worse alternatives.
The elephant in the room here is that zb work is too often heaped on the naive under the cover of the bs ‘experience’ thing.Night trunking being the best of a bad bunch in that regard.The fact is no one in the industry deserves to be working permanent nights for most of their career let alone for peanuts.Yes the downsides do ( eventually ) outweigh the upsides especially since the introduction of limiters and hub systems and an end to proper job and finish contracts.
The claims of quieter roads at night is mostly a fallacy, especially on the motorway network and trunk routes. It’s so bad now with every motorway and trunk route shut at some point along them that you can make better progress by working days because all the roads are open and you don’t have 5+ mile long queues everywhere, trying to shove 3 lanes of traffic into 1. You don’t get 25 mile diversions through the Derbyshire countryside working days, because they want to trim the grass on a small section of the A38 embankment .
R420:
The claims of quieter roads at night is mostly a fallacy, especially on the motorway network and trunk routes. It’s so bad now with every motorway and trunk route shut at some point along them that you can make better progress by working days
There has to some agenda behind all this.It rarely happened if at all during the 1980’s/90’s.My theory is sabotage to discourage the road transport option because they know that it can shift a lot of stuff overnight given a clear run.
Although a general increase in over night traffic seems more difficult to explain.The motorways carried very little traffic at that time at least between around 11pm to 5.30am.Then in many cases they wasted the best of those hours trans shipping freight with the change to hub systems.
Then get my head down for an hour or so at the tarmac plant, or nip back home for a drink if local, then reload tar between 5-5.30am for a single load to Birmingham or similar. Usually back home for between 9 and 10am and get my head down for a few hours until early pm and start again in the evening if needed. And that was the problem, it wasn’t regular enough to get into a routine, and often you didn’t know you were doing nights until you went in to load that same morning! Good money back then (rate and and threequarters at one time, but later dropped to rate and a half when Tarmac ran the quarry 
) but my body clock suffered especially as my neighbour liked mowing and strimming his lawn while I was in bed! 
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