I started at 23 (only 29 now) and remember not seeing many people my age about then…yet there seem to be a fair few now. Maybe it’s just harder to judge age by eye than we think…? 
Lucy:
I started at 23 (only 29 now) and remember not seeing many people my age about then…yet there seem to be a fair few now. Maybe it’s just harder to judge age by eye than we think…?
Just wondering how many years you’ve been 29. 
I’ll get my coat. 
Here is how it is from a driver who pulls Irish trailers out of Heysham docks in the northwest.
There is an Irish firm based at Heysham a year or so ago they bought a hotel in Morecambe and put 25 eastern european drivers in there.
they then opened a sub division of their company and based it in Dublin which in turn hired the 25 eastern european drivers at the irish basic rate.
A… your boss will be paying a certain percentage of your wage as national insurance contributions this firm is not .
b… your boss will be paying you at least the British nation minimum wage
which is more than the Irish N.M.Wage.
c… the Eruopean driver will work longer and harder than you because all the
laws that apply to us, do not apply to him, he simply will not be stopped and
checked like us, if by chance he is nothing will come of it anyway because
the authorities know they are wasting their time, driver’s hours ,
rest periods ,working time directive , health and safety, do not enter the
equation.
d…Their trailers have no M.O.T. to pay for , your’s does
If you were go to heysham docks on a friday night or saturday morning you will see upwards of 50 to 60 unit waiting to go on the ferry to Dublin or Warren point they will be back at heysham Sunday or monday and an eastern European driver will get in the cab and work for peanuts 24-7 regardless.
Also on the point of getting new British drivers the government have introduced this law that say british drivers have to procede thru the rank in the same manner that people get a bike license i.e in stages which all cost the British subject MONEY they cannot afford and if they get one almost impossible to keep.
1…So we end up in a situation where it is to expencive to run a british wagon
against a european one
2… It is to expencive to employ a British driver against a european one.
Yes they will be taking over our roads and there is nothing we can do about it the best we can do is to wait untill we retire and sell the familly car and get off the road because it is going to get worse,
Your Government and union will tell you we need these people because we are X amount of people short , I say get your X amount of people off the benifit list,
Same problem Down Under.
A Senior MP has stated"Refugees will be truck drivers"so that solves the problem.
A large intake of African immigrants AKA as Mexicans for Australia as they are here to do the jobs Aussies won’t-read lower wages.
Unskilled DC staff payed $10.00 per hour more than a semi driver.
Unskilled rail station assistants $8.00 per hour higher than a semi driver.
Assembly line workers at car manufacturer etc etc etc.
Pay for all my licences and upgrades,no tax rebates.
Have no social life.
Have no semblance of seeing your family grow up.
Have persecution from police,road inspectors,public etc.
Pathetic unions claiming to look after you.
No career advancement.
OH&S,imagine office clerks having the death and injury toll truck drivers suffer ,the public outcry would be unbelievible,but truckers cop it and whimper to themselves.
What other career would you be fined in the $1,000.00 for an honest mistake that causes no injury or grief to anyone?
Yep,we have never had it so good and why are drivers complaining.I make more $$ than an office clerk and so what if I work 50hours a week more than they do and public holidays,dont need em or weekends.
I can never fathom the reasoning on working,say 75 hours a week Vs unskilled DC worker on 36 hours a week,making $50.00 a week more.And then spouting off that being a driver pays more?!?!?
to those that post saying the jobs a load of cobblers, i just want to ask a sincere question here. if the job is a bag of testicles, why the ■■■■ do it? seriously, why do it 
there plenty of things a person can do with their life, whats the good of doing something you hate? as far as i know, there is no second time around here, when you dead youre dead, so if youre wasting youre life doing a job whicjh you think is crap, youve surely got to ask yourself, am i mad? why am i doing this??
believe me, im not sniping, this is a sincere question not meant as a dig to spend a life doing asomething that you hate has got to be insanity, no??.
I don’t know what the future will be but while the EU piles more and more laws onto the industry making it yet harder to do your job or even become a driver and remain a driver it will only get worse. As for being treated like crap, in my experience this is vastly exhagerated, since I’ve been driving I’ve had very few incedents of anyone treating me anything other than very well, I’ve never been spoken down to or treated like a fool and although I now do some VERY long hours and get extremely annoyed with the impossible things that are sometimes expected of me, I feel much more respected as a truck driver than I ever did as a forky, van driver, factory worker or seaman and I do get more money. You’ll always have times when management have a go at you but you get that far more in other things than you do as a trucker, after all, you are in effect your own boss unless your one of those corporate robots who does a set run at a set mph with set times from A to B. How many people have such freedoms in their job, if you work in an office, a factory or in some super fantastic highly skilled job that some would like to compare truck driving to, you have to do everything by the book, take your breaks when the company says so, do as the company says, but when you’re in your truck, you do what you want, when you want. I’m still only 21 and been driving for a few months now but my main worry as I’ve said millions of times on here already is the ever growing amount of beauocracy (sp?) that potentially effects us with things such as the wtd which in reality if even bothered with, achives very little as you still do the same work, but spend even more time doing it because you have to fanny around more with mode switched and paperwork and then we’ll all have digital tacho’s soon, and I’m sure that they won’t be any benefit to us, they’ll benefit those who wish to prosecute us for every little mistake that as humans we naturally make and then the drivers cpc, well when that comes in I for one will be looking for another career. I’m only a truck driver because I enjoy it and I’ve always wanted to do it but the day it becomes such a hassle and a headache so that i no longer get any satisfaction, I will be going elsewhere if I can actually find anything that interests me and I know trucking wont in years to come when we are faced with more and more regulations that gradually take away all the freedoms that attracted me to the job in the first place.
This is just 5 years ago now, wonder if any young lads at continental works now 
[/quote]
i’m 24 and i run uk spain 2-3 times a month
Mal:
to those that post saying the jobs a load of cobblers, i just want to ask a sincere question here. if the job is a bag of testicles, why the [zb] do it? seriously, why do itbelieve me, im not sniping, this is a sincere question not meant as a dig to spend a life doing asomething that you hate has got to be insanity, no??.
i cant answer this for the younger drivers among us but someone who has been driving HGVs for 10 years plus will find it difficult to change career path. they are used to it and comfortable so why change career and venture into uncertainty? im sure there are people here who have thought about it and decided that they couldnt do a different job so they stay put and retain confidence in themselves. they may not like it but they know they can do the job and it pays the bills
As i’ve said in previous threads i dont hate the job but i also dont live for the job and i’ll keep doing it until (if) something better comes along 
there is the trapped, too old, no confidence and cant do nowt else scenario scanny, thats true and would probabaly account for drivers stuck in the job and hating it that are over 40. and also, if the truth be told, it’s money for old rope for the most part, and a lot of other jobs involve hard collar, not being payed to listen to cd’s for hours on end. 
but it seems to me that most of the ones slagging the job off seem to be pretty young and new to it anyway, the ones with all the cards in hand, and all the opportunities! mind you, i’ll say stright up that even at 46 and only been in transport for the last 25 years i dont have a lot of skills other than that to offer in getting a new path. if i couldnt stand this job i’d move heaven and earth to at least try get summat else. sooner than sit in a trench getting bitter and twisted, better try even if you fail!
luckilly, i know where me breads buttered, and all i want is me ■■■■■■■ hgv license back so i can get back to the joyous business of extracting money for dossing about the place, otherwise known as container transport! 
im with you Mal. i love the job. i moan a lot but that is not aimed at the job, more the people i work with or around. like the idiot who loaded my trailer yesterday with 4 empty pallets pushed across testing the strength of my curtains. i had to sort that out by climbing onto the trailer and hang onto the pallets i was moving. that was fun 
the only way i will leave the job is through promotion and i will be working on that one next year when i can afford to get qualifications
Mal:
…but it seems to me that most of the ones slagging the job off seem to be pretty young and new to it anyway, the ones with all the cards in hand…
Dunno if that was aimed at me or just the younger ones in general Mal, but I certainly don’t hate the job - far from it in fact. There’s no way (at the moment, anyway) I’d do anything else except maybe train driving (have you seen what they earn for 37.5 hours a week?!) Maybe I came off a bit negativley, but I was looking at it from an outsiders’ point of view. If you’re accustomed to ‘working’ 9-5 in a nice warm office would you see moving to a job where (for argument’s sake) 15 hours a day and 4am starts are par for the course?
Yes, there are some days when I feel like sending my license back to Swansea with a note telling them to remove the ‘C’ and ‘C+E’ categories, but then on another day you’ll be cruising down the road with the sun shining and some tunes belting out of the CD player and it feels like the best job in the world. There’s not many other jobs where you can stop what you’re doing and have an hour’s kip more or less when you want is there?
The truth is, no matter what you do truck driving will not be an attractive prospect to young people.
im certainly not trying to get at you deaks or anyone else come to that, it aint personal and not meant as an attakc. im pretty straightforward i spose in the way i say things and it can come over unintended maybe
i think the real point im trying to make here is like ive said earlier in the thread, when it comes to lorry driving, it will (and has done as history proves) allways appeal to a certain type, my mates outside the job, which is most of them, called me a nutter allways!
there might be plenty that try it and say ■■■■ this for a game of soldiers, fair play to them i say do summat else! but some, will allways be into the job to put up with it’s obvious drawbacks. and there allways have been enough through the yesars, even when things were even worse!
i want to know what you lot are doing to get CD players. i have a radio/cassette in my truck which is sod all use to me since i only have CDs. on the other hand, i listen to local radio stations for traffic news anyway
scanny77:
i want to know what you lot are doing to get CD players. i have a radio/cassette in my truck which is sod all use to me since i only have CDs. on the other hand, i listen to local radio stations for traffic news anyway
The Technology is available to record CD’s onto tape, or get an Ipod and a device which plugs it into the tape deck.
whatever you do don’t continue to listen to local radio, because you won’t need to be driving a truck for much longer as the nice men in white coats will find you somewhere to live.
dead easy to get a cd player scanny, i just bought one, and bunged it in the motor!
scanny77:
i want to know what you lot are doing to get CD players
They do fall of the back of wagons ya know 
SimonRS2K:
scanny77:
i want to know what you lot are doing to get CD playersThey do fall of the back of wagons ya know
whoops!
Mal:
im certainly not trying to get at you deaks or anyone else come to that, it aint personal and not meant as an attakc. im pretty straightforward i spose in the way i say things and it can come over unintended maybe
Don’t worry Mal, I certainly didn’t take it as an attack or even regard it as remotely hostile. Just a slightly different viewpoint, that’s all.
I also have much more respect for those who ‘tell it like they see it’ rather than those who are content to beat around the bush all day!
ive never understood anyone who does this job just cuz its a job, ive always earnt good money. as a wage driving pays well its just the hours you do for it that let it down when you compare it to other jobs.im 32 been driving for 10 years then last may i had to pack in.im hoping to return to driving in september or failing that put the cpc im doing at the moment to use.i have 3 young children and i wouldnt want any of them to become truckdrivers.that is unless they had another career to fall back on.truckdriving will always be the same as it ever was.there will always be folk as daft as me and youy that think i like the look of them big motors i wonder what there like to drive.then ya start and get the bug or like me after all the problems ownerdrivers have you still want to run a motor of your own for a quid a mile or more if ya lucky.then you end up watching destination doha and wish you couldve done the middle east in its heyday.or is that just me dont panic there will be always someone to drive trucks,even if he/she are eastern european