My first posting so I’ll quickly say hi to everyone.
Ok back to the thread. I passed my HGV over 25 years ago and got experience with flats, steel, dropsides, tippers, curtainsiders and boxes. Somewhere along the way I also picked up my PSV license. A few years ago I got out of it and moved into a different field (electric assembly and electronics), still driving occasionally to keep my hand in. I let my license lapse three years ago, but DVLA confirm I only need to send new medical form and app form to reinstate them.
Have sent off for the forms, am getting an eyesight test before booking the medical, just to ensure all ok before parting with £60 and have also got details of local DCPC courses which are around £300 to get that sorted. I know that I will also need to get a digital tacho card from the DVLA. The DCPC course provider states they’ll show me how to use one on the course module, as last vehicle was roadsweeper and tacho exempt. Is there anything else that I need, as been out of touch with the industry for a while??
So why am I doing it? Well most of the production/factory/assembly work here in the Midlands seems to be offering minimum wage for rushing your nuts off in targeted environments. Some of those crud jobs have hundreds of applications. At least with having the HGV it reduces the number of potential applicants.
I am looking to stay with rigids on local and mid distance. Definitely not shop deliveries.
All contributions and advice gratefully received… Thanks…
Welcome to the site! good idea! you’ll soon be rushing your nuts off for minimum wage, getting spoken to like a tool and subjected to a spying regime of tracker, anpr, stobrat apps and your fellow comrades who drive trucks but will film you on their iPhones and upload to twitter, Facebook and Fallopian! ( YouTube! ) that’s why it’s called YOUTUBE! but they’ve not realised that one as they’re abit slow on the uptake! welcome to tha Stasi state my friend! if I were you learn in no particular order, rumu, bulgar, hungaro and Polska for £2.50 next year! it really is that ABYSMAL
It not brilliant atm but from what I know ( which is not a lot btw ) it is picking up a little but dont expect much above min wage now as there are quite a few with the licence some new some returned
Have a look at the jobs in your area but be warned a lot are now agency ( most agency advertise the same job ) if you do go down the agency route then be warned a lot like you to go the self employed or umbrella company route you are often pushed with timed deliveries
Maybe an upto date road atlas with bridge hight on some driver like a sat nav ( prat nav ) just use your common sense with these please
I seen a job advertised yesterday for Cat C £6.50 ph oh & they wanted full cpc with that as well as experience & digi card
Thanks guys. I tend to regard driving agencies as little more than con merchants, that will try to push you off onto the rubbish nobody else wants to do. Heavy handballing into small shops and mauling dragging heavy home deliveries up flights of stairs. They even have the cheek to refer to them as blue chip clients - yeah right!!
Rates for HGV in this area tend to be around the £8 to £12 mark depending on what it is. Factory and warehouse jobs all paying £6.31 and offering 37 hour weeks with no overtime. Grand sum of £233.47 week gross.
I’m aware many trucks have real time tracking now and some have that telemetric crud as well, but many vans including service engineers etc also have those things on board too now. Many factories and warehouses have the same big brother with cctv and scanning systems watching and monitoring though, so few places are exempt.
Fatboy slimslow:
Welcome to the site! good idea! you’ll soon be rushing your nuts off for minimum wage, getting spoken to like a tool and subjected to a spying regime of tracker, anpr, stobrat apps and your fellow comrades who drive trucks but will film you on their iPhones and upload to twitter, Facebook and Fallopian! ( YouTube! ) that’s why it’s called YOUTUBE! but they’ve not realised that one as they’re abit slow on the uptake! welcome to tha Stasi state my friend! if I were you learn in no particular order, rumu, bulgar, hungaro and Polska for £2.50 next year! it really is that ABYSMAL
Fatboy slimslow:
Welcome to the site! good idea! you’ll soon be rushing your nuts off for minimum wage, getting spoken to like a tool and subjected to a spying regime of tracker, anpr, stobrat apps and your fellow comrades who drive trucks but will film you on their iPhones and upload to twitter, Facebook and Fallopian! ( YouTube! ) that’s why it’s called YOUTUBE! but they’ve not realised that one as they’re abit slow on the uptake! welcome to tha Stasi state my friend! if I were you learn in no particular order, rumu, bulgar, hungaro and Polska for £2.50 next year! it really is that ABYSMAL
Biggest problem you will find, even with agencies, is that they now often demand that you have proven driving experience within the last six months. Best to start going around any local companies knocking on doors with a basic CV and see what comes of it. If not, things will start to pick up on the agencies after Easter, as long as you are prepared to put up with the bull****, and that may give you more opportunities if one pops up.
Fatboy slimslow:
Welcome to the site! good idea! you’ll soon be rushing your nuts off for minimum wage, getting spoken to like a tool and subjected to a spying regime of tracker, anpr, stobrat apps and your fellow comrades who drive trucks but will film you on their iPhones and upload to twitter, Facebook and Fallopian! ( YouTube! ) that’s why it’s called YOUTUBE! but they’ve not realised that one as they’re abit slow on the uptake! welcome to tha Stasi state my friend! if I were you learn in no particular order, rumu, bulgar, hungaro and Polska for £2.50 next year! it really is that ABYSMAL
tallyman:
…things will start to pick up on the agencies after Easter, as long as you are prepared to put up with the bull****, and that may give you more opportunities if one pops up.
Problem I found with agencies in the past, was lack of communication. Lengthy registration inevitably followed by a phone call the next day trying to push me into shop deliveries despite extensive rhetoric during registration that I DON’T do shop deliveries - ever, nada, zilch …
Quite happy to get my hands dirty on the industrial and construction work though.
Good luck pal, their are still some good jobs out and about. Nice to see an old driver return, take with a large pinch of salt the doom n gloom put on here, I still luv the job and earn a good wage.
Drive safe
Thereal-john:
Good luck pal, their are still some good jobs out and about. Nice to see an old driver return, take with a large pinch of salt the doom n gloom put on here, I still luv the job and earn a good wage.
Drive safe
Thanks. A few years ago when I was regularly earning £500 plus week, there were drivers there then that thought they were hard done by.
Drivers moan about the DCPC, but to be a humble works security bod nowadays you have to have a SIA license that has to be renewed and paid for. Minimum wage care workers need an in date CRB check which again has to be paid for (usually by applicant), even the Amazon warehouse wants folks to have a CRB check and a drink/drug screening test for the privilege of earning minimum wage for working shifts.
I know the influx of non UK drivers causes much resentment, but you will find foreign workers in factories, shops, offices also competing for the same UK jobs. That down to the folks in Brussels opening a door, rather than a vocation specific problem.
If you do have to do agency work for a bit, it ain’t all bad, When I was doing agency work last, I only worked a maximum of three days a week. Saturday and Sunday night shift, and if begged (by the right person) a night during the week. Co-op mainly, with the occasional Iceland, store deliveries and the odd trunk, of which I most certainly preferred the store deliveries. Fair enough the money wasn’t great (Clearing £220-300 a week) the time I was able to spend with family was excellent and the flexibility was unmatched in any job.
I have finally thrown the towel in truck driving after50years on the road take it from me the good days are well and truly gone I first got into truck as a young lad because my nan lived by Birkenhead docks and in the 50s/60s they would queue for days and as I walked past you could smell the tyres /diesel many 8wheelers with trailers so when I stopped to look sometimes the drivers would let me sit behind the wheel then they would chat my mum up(to no avail. ) I was hooked I can’t go into detail how I got started I could go on forever something like that puts trucks into your blood many guy got hooked going with their dads in the summer. Sadly not so these days not like they did anyway I could write a 500page book on my life on the road some wonderful guys I worked with mad as hatters most of them plenty of laughs do the job as you wanted to as long as it was done well and on time. So what I am trying to say those days gone I could earn better Money 20years ago always time and a half or double time weekends treble pay bank holiday or a day of and just double pay no early start money anymore (4am) these days thick as a dockers sandwich office staff who don’t have a clue about the job but pretend to know it all because they went to university phone cabs digital cards than can tell what you done months before your tracked all the time now camera in the cab. Any one who goes driving these days are mad in the old days it was in your blood it was a way of life these days in most cases it’s just a job in days gone by people drove for family firms clocking 30/40years with the one firm you where family now you are just another driver and get treated like. Dirt some people have no option to go back I understand that but if you have options consider them first even the drivers these days are not of the calibre of the old hands they don’t even talk to each other I shall be kind and put it down to the environment they work in having a laugh these days can get you the sack I thank god I am now out of it and thank him again that I drove when I did
dexterboy:
I have finally thrown the towel in truck driving after50years on the road take it from me the good days are well and truly gone I first got into truck as a young lad because my nan lived by Birkenhead docks and in the 50s/60s they would queue for days and as I walked past you could smell the tyres /diesel many 8wheelers with trailers so when I stopped to look sometimes the drivers would let me sit behind the wheel then they would chat my mum up(to no avail. ) I was hooked I can’t go into detail how I got started I could go on forever something like that puts trucks into your blood many guy got hooked going with their dads in the summer. Sadly not so these days not like they did anyway I could write a 500page book on my life on the road some wonderful guys I worked with mad as hatters most of them plenty of laughs do the job as you wanted to as long as it was done well and on time. So what I am trying to say those days gone I could earn better Money 20years ago always time and a half or double time weekends treble pay bank holiday or a day of and just double pay no early start money anymore (4am) these days thick as a dockers sandwich office staff who don’t have a clue about the job but pretend to know it all because they went to university phone cabs digital cards than can tell what you done months before your tracked all the time now camera in the cab. Any one who goes driving these days are mad in the old days it was in your blood it was a way of life these days in most cases it’s just a job in days gone by people drove for family firms clocking 30/40years with the one firm you where family now you are just another driver and get treated like. Dirt some people have no option to go back I understand that but if you have options consider them first even the drivers these days are not of the calibre of the old hands they don’t even talk to each other I shall be kind and put it down to the environment they work in having a laugh these days can get you the sack I thank god I am now out of it and thank him again that I drove when I did
I too grew up in the late 60’s early 70’s on Strand Road Bootle and remember all the wagons plus my Dad was a docker and often took me to work and I just fished with my net for tiddlers in the dock off the steps and often drivers would come and chat (I learnt my first swear words from wagon drivers ) I would have loved to have driven then. Even though I passed my class 3 test 27 odd years ago I have only last year started really using it (now class 2 w+d) after being a bus driver amongst other things.
I have been lucky where I work, not great money but not bad and no one really on your back (but there is always one ) but as technology is progressing the grapevine says we are getting PDA’s and tracking which for four wagon to me is a waste of time as we will do most things asked via the phone as non of us skive, couldn’t they just pay us more to do more?
I still like the job but when I drove buses in the 80’s it was way way better than when I stopped driving them in 2003, I suppose things just move on and we are the pawns
There is no doubt that driving in general (not just vocational) is not as laid back as it used to be. There was a time where you would seldom see a lorry on the road of a Sunday or in the very early hours of the morning, but we seem to live in a 24/7 world now.
In industry and production the non driving workplace is also less pleasant nowadays too. Performance monitoring of every aspect of your working life. You are not appraised on being a good worker with no sick time off anymore, but are scrutinised on attitude, teamwork, reaction to change, interaction with colleagues, meeting targets, accuracy, communication, willingness to adapt… list goes on. More time is wasted on monitoring than actually getting the product through the door - not good!!
I don’t see returning to vocational driving as any easy option, just an opportunity to expand my choices.
good idea! 
you’ll soon be rushing your nuts off for minimum wage, 
getting spoken to like a tool and subjected to a spying regime 
of tracker, anpr, stobrat apps and your fellow comrades who drive trucks but will film you on their iPhones and upload to twitter, Facebook and Fallopian! 
( YouTube! ) 
that’s why it’s called YOUTUBE! 
Lengthy registration inevitably followed by a phone call the next day trying to push me into shop deliveries despite extensive rhetoric during registration that I DON’T do shop deliveries - ever, nada, zilch … 