Winseer:
Paying the bills isn’t the problem. Paying the mortgage off is when wages have not risen for over a decade.
Being offered jobs isn’t a problem either. Being offered decent pay that’s worth the commute is however.
I consider wearing out my car attending the vastly spread out yards within say, 50 miles of me a fool’s errand if they only say "Sure guy, can you start next week? £500 salary for a 75 hour week…
If I asked for £500 for a 36 hour week in line with national average pay and hours, I’d just get laughed at. The industry currently accepts no price pressure from it’s actual ground staff.
That might change when the background changes is what I’ve been saying. Two decades ago was the time that general tradesmen like Plumbers & Builders were treated poorly by the economy - and nowdays they charge what they like, and get it. The worm turned for them, and it’ll be no different for transport. Just a matter of time. I’ll hold some faith, even if everyone else doesn’t 
The terms and conditions you suggest re salary for reasonable hours are out there, far better than you quote in some cases, its a case of finding them, they will not come to you.
The jobs are not advertised, they never will be, any vacancies are filled by recommendation or by the right applicant cold calling.
Only people with good work records and the right attitude get taken on, those already in have the common sense only to recommend good people because they want the job to last forever.
Too many drivers think the best terms and conditions are a right, thats never been the case, they have to be earned by putting in the ground work, either by investing time and effort into working your way up or specialising, and or by putting in years of hard work that creates a checkable CV that no one in their right mind would pass by.
The people who run these successful quality companies are not idiots, they know who to emply and who not to.
By checkable CV i mean years of accident free driving and years of being totally reliable and never throwing sickies.
The reason for the latter is that proper jobs are salaried, now as we all know there’s a sizeable proportion of people that can’t help themselves taking the P***, if salaried they’ll go sick at the drop of a hat, these people are no use to man or beast.
A good salary doesn’t mean having to put in 75 hour weeks, thats not the case, and the salaries can be very good for an average 44 hour week…no POA either, but thats not to say that things can’t go ■■■■ up and that when payback time comes for the driver to help out the company that makes it right afterwards…its a two way street.
Drivers have to stop looking at flash lorries or paint schemes and get away from the idea that night out pay is part of their wage.
Pay is often relevent to effort and performance, those who vegetate behind the wheel thinking they are just chauffeurs won’t like working for some of the better companies, it might mean looking after your vehicle and keeping it spotless all over if its on food, or getting filthy wet through and regularly hurt if on some other specialist jobs.
Only 2 weeks ago a food tanker came into a place i deliver regularly to, when it turned up i thought it was on the sewage or landfill and was here to vacuum the drains…thought to be fair the drain clearing lads usually keep their motors in better condition than this thing.
No excuse for this, the driver couldn’t give a stuff or he wouldn’t be prepared to be out delivering foodstuffs in such a disgusting vehicle, i’m surprised the food manufacturer concerned accpted the thing on site, i wouldn’t.
This is only one example of what i’m getting at, there’s lots of different things you see every day where drivers are not doing their jobs properly.
How many drivers have you ever worked with that you could honestly say…‘‘if i had my own company i’d poach him/her and pay them over the odds to retain because they’d be cost effective’’…i’ll tell you how many and thats a handful over the years.
A lot of it is taking a pride, in everything you do that involves the job.
(needs to be a large fleet operator of course) Saints was the last firm I saw advertising around here, but at 75 miles around the M25, it’s a bit too far for me to commute. 
