bbez:
“almost a million letters will be sent to people who currently hold an HGV licence encouraging them to return to the industry”. Yeah, for less than £10 an hour in Scotland for driving a truck, I’ll not bother.
And I will “return to sender” with F U on it. 
AMEN !!!
I’ve got to own up here with regard to the RHA as I was a member from the time I operated one motor to when I ran a 100 motor fleet but I can say that the sole reason I continued as an RHA member was the fact that the RHA conditions of carriage ( GIT Insurance) were acknowledged as the industry bench mark and accepted in law as such . On a couple of occasions I was able to thwart dodgy claims as our RHA conditions of carriage ( printed on the bottom of our invoices) were water tight and the spurious claims were slung out ! The RHA conditions of storage also proved cast iron when a small paper mill went down on us but we had a 1000 tons of their paper in one of our warehouses so The RHA conditions of storage allowed us to hold on to the paper in store which the Receiver had to very reluctantly agree to pay us the £ 100 K we were owed out of the proceeds of the sale of the paper in store ! HOWEVER my opinion of the RHA management in general was very low as they were only interested in looking after the interests of the very large members who , of course, paid the largest annual fees ! I was for a while a northern area committee member of the RHA ( meetings held at Scotch Corner Hotel) but I got thoroughly ■■■■■■ off with all the BS that was spouted so finally I just used to send our Computer and Compliance manager who actually thrived on BS !! But if it not been for the Insurance aspects of membership I would have bailed out of the RHA many many years previously ! Rant over cheers Bewick.
They are useless. No one has actually spent a day with a driver on the road. Even Dead BC have not done a documentary on this. Panorama or Dispatches have stayed clear.
WheelsofCardiff:
They are useless. No one has actually spent a day with a driver on the road. Even Dead BC have not done a documentary on this. Panorama or Dispatches have stayed clear.
Spot on! How could they manipulate current conditions as a Driver to a positive agenda they can sell to the Public? they can’t.
WheelsofCardiff:
They are useless. No one has actually spent a day with a driver on the road. Even Dead BC have not done a documentary on this. Panorama or Dispatches have stayed clear.
I actually invited a Daily Telegraph journalist to come with me for a day. Needless to say I did not get a reply.
Grant Shapps not a happy bunny with RHA,I would expect him this week to release more details and hang them out to dry,it’s been obvious for months what the tactics had been,every time they’ve been on Air and questioned about the British drivers it’s always gone back to foreign Labour,The Government are going to be smarting over this,I think some shots will be fired this coming week…
Yorkielad:
Grant Shapps not a happy bunny with RHA,I would expect him this week to release more details and hang them out to dry,it’s been obvious for months what the tactics had been,every time they’ve been on Air and questioned about the British drivers it’s always gone back to foreign Labour,The Government are going to be smarting over this,I think some shots will be fired this coming week…
Good.
And good riddance if that’s the end of them.
As many others have said, they’ve dine nothing for decades to offer firms advice on how to retain drivers or do anything really for the driver. Granted its not their remit as they are there for the hauliers - but a lack of drivers threatens the firns within their association.
The only answer has been a plea to allow more cheap labour from wherever.
■■■■ them.
toonsy:
Yorkielad:
Grant Shapps not a happy bunny with RHA,I would expect him this week to release more details and hang them out to dry,it’s been obvious for months what the tactics had been,every time they’ve been on Air and questioned about the British drivers it’s always gone back to foreign Labour,The Government are going to be smarting over this,I think some shots will be fired this coming week…Good.
And good riddance if that’s the end of them.
As many others have said, they’ve dine nothing for decades to offer firms advice on how to retain drivers or do anything really for the driver. Granted its not their remit as they are there for the hauliers - but a lack of drivers threatens the firns within their association.
The only answer has been a plea to allow more cheap labour from wherever.
[zb] them.
That’s not true look at one of my links they went over to to Romania to help our haulage firms over there. Very helpful chaps lol.
It would be great if every British driver who’s company is a member of the RHA refused to leave the yard until the company has chucked their membership in,I know it’d never happen but be nice to see them fold by end of the week because they’ll keep banging the drum about Christmas shortages now until these visas are extended and more foreign Labour is let in…
I’ve nothing against the foreign Labour btw,I’m just against them working for £9.50ph and keeping the rates low when they don’t need to…
Where’s this fuel shortage then? I’ve just been to my local garage, no queues, no “sorry no unleaded/diesel” notices. Not so grim up north as some would have you believe… 
Zac_A:
Where’s this fuel shortage then? I’ve just been to my local garage, no queues, no “sorry no unleaded/diesel” notices. Not so grim up north as some would have you believe…
I think you are 24 hours too late Friday there were queues at every fuel station here and they were busy on Saturday it seems back to normal today.
I certainly believe there is more to the sudden overnight shortage of tanker drivers than we are being told by the media. The RHA and other such bodies do not give a dam about us drivers.
For years they’ve gone on about a driver shortage, we all know the issue is that there are a lack of people wanting to drive. Many people have licences but don’t use them. People have left the industry due to various reasons, age, pay, IR35, the hours or lack of interest in the job.
These core issues could have been resolved, the same as other problems such as lack of parking and facilities. But no, they wanted to cry wolf and say we need to grant visas. All the bigger haulier companies, who surprisingly are RHA members have said the same thing about granting visas, I believe it was Owens who said it first and all the others followed. All the same typical big companies who have high driver turnovers and low pay and long hours suddenly can’t find drivers due to their supply of cheap labour moving on. You would have thought they would have increased pay to try and keep drivers after IR35, but no, let’s go for the easier option and cry wolf.
For years and most likely most of our careers “truckers” were classed as “thick” and such. Nobody wanted us. Nobody cared about us. We were always a nuisance. However we are now “key workers” Unfortunately standards have dropped a lot in this industry, there are many poor drivers and people with a careless attitude, for example rubbish in lay-bys, drivers driving like they’re in a car, drivers not knowing how to couple and uncouple. But also there are many good drivers out there. What needs to be changed is the hours, wages and the image of the industry, to get back some of the professionalism there once was. The solution is not visas.
Latest utterance from Rod McKenzie; copied from a Daily Telegraph article.
"Rod McKenzie, the managing director of policy and public affairs at the Road Haulage Association, argued that “too much classroom stuff and not enough driving” has deterred some drivers from wanting to return to the sector.
“If you tell them they can come back into the industry but have to spend five days in the classroom getting up to speed and getting new qualifications… a lot of people have left the industry for that very reason,” he said."
I’m sure a lot of drivers might be tempted to agree with that. But wasn’t it the RHA who were one of the champions of DCPC when it first came out, arguing that it would raise standards in the industry?
For the record, I believe that whilst DCPC is clumsy and flawed, this is largely down to the set ways in which the timeframe is administered; basically you could either pack more into one course or combine some of them and perhaps reduce it to three days. or even have the drivers’ hours and tacho course as a mandatory one day starter, then able to drive conditional on the others being completed within say a year. Having said that, I’ve experienced enough drivers with only rudimentary (and frequently flawed) knowledge of Drivers Hours regs to be convinced that some sort of refresher training is essential. The number of posts on here asking basic questions which should be second nature, underlines this.
Anyone curious about McKenzie’s provenance before he joined RHA should read this:
'Tis one and the same. I am no Conservative voter but it is pleasing to see failed photocopier salesman Grant Shapps making McKenzie look stupid. RHA predictably denying all involvement in what has come to light today.
Here’s my theory:
1st people didn’t vacation abroad this year because stupid orange/red lists and 4-5 covid tests per person + other reasons
so they went camping with caravans/cars, increasing demand for fuel
2nd the bull excrement 10% ethanol petrol is apparently returning poorer mpg so people use more of that compared to before
And now everyone filling up to the brim because media/fb etc. the usual crapp like last year the runs on supermarkets, except this time people don’t have as much excess storage (you can only fill up 1 tank and maybe some canisters like 10-20l) so it’ll be over soon 
adam277:
lolipop:
Please you can not expect the RHA Cartel to invest in anything other than having a luxury life and investing for the future,that would be totally absurd,it would mean they would have to make cut backs,.I actually did a bit of research. I found nothing on them when it came to the influx of Polish people after 2004.
I also found almost nothing on the influx of Romanians and Bulgarians in 2014 I believe.The only thing I did find was this commercialmotor.com/news/wh … ice?page=8
RHA giving Romanian hauliers advice.The influx of Eastern European workers has led to two decades of wage stagnation and they did nothing to stop it and actively encouraged it.
Why would they want to stop it? It’s in the interests of their members (haulage companies, not drivers) to have cheap labour.
Drivers have to get over the fact that the RHA are NOT here to help us drivers.
adam277:
robroy:
I saw that interview also.
I sussed that this shortage announcement panic buying crap was intended as soon as it came out.
At first I thought the Govt had ‘manufactured’ it to allow them to get the foreigners back in, seems like they didnt have to, those bunch of [zb] s did it for them.One of the hazards of the industry is the RHA as far as drivers go.
I’m not a big fan of the tories. I actually think they are [zb].
But they seem geninue in their desire for the industry to sort out the issues themselves. Which I 100% agree with.
Also there visa scheme is not so bad as it expires at the end of the year. You can tell they dont want to give out visas for truck drivers and their hand is being forced.
It is not down to the government to give visas to foreign drivers. It is up to the industry to attract drivers to join the industry.
It is not down to the government to pay for HGV training it is down to the industry.
It is not down only to the government to improve facilitates at MSAs. This is where the RHA should come in. Demand reasonably priced food and good facilities. The RHA if it chose to could have these MSAs by the balls. They represent a huge amount of haulage companies who could boycott certain MSAs if the do not provide adequate conditions for drivers. But they dont do that because they dont give a crap about drivers.All the RHA want is the government to solve a problem they helped create. Tbh I think the RHA is as bad as the NRA in America.
I share your view on this.
It’s not quite clear why the government are so unsympathetic to the RHA, given that the RHA is an association of haulage bosses. I think it’s basically because they see the haulage bosses as sturdy beggars who won’t help themselves, and even the Tory conscience has been shocked by the working hours and conditions in haulage, and the refusal of the sector to obey market signals to improve them.
I wonder whether these 5k visas are a test to see if the quota can even be filled. If not, the Tories will once again tell the haulage sector that their pay and conditions are simply not good enough. Remainers, meanwhile, will claim that the problem is with the visa scheme, rather than with the lack of pay.
As for reasonably-priced food, the reality is that MSA food will be reasonably priced for drivers, if their wages significantly improve.
Sidevalve:
Latest utterance from Rod McKenzie; copied from a Daily Telegraph article."Rod McKenzie, the managing director of policy and public affairs at the Road Haulage Association, argued that “too much classroom stuff and not enough driving” has deterred some drivers from wanting to return to the sector.
“If you tell them they can come back into the industry but have to spend five days in the classroom getting up to speed and getting new qualifications… a lot of people have left the industry for that very reason,” he said."
I’m sure a lot of drivers might be tempted to agree with that. But wasn’t it the RHA who were one of the champions of DCPC when it first came out, arguing that it would raise standards in the industry?
For the record, I believe that whilst DCPC is clumsy and flawed, this is largely down to the set ways in which the timeframe is administered; basically you could either pack more into one course or combine some of them and perhaps reduce it to three days. or even have the drivers’ hours and tacho course as a mandatory one day starter, then able to drive conditional on the others being completed within say a year. Having said that, I’ve experienced enough drivers with only rudimentary (and frequently flawed) knowledge of Drivers Hours regs to be convinced that some sort of refresher training is essential. The number of posts on here asking basic questions which should be second nature, underlines this.
The real problem for drivers is not the classroom work. The problem is not being paid to spend a week in the classroom.
Rjan:
The real problem for drivers is not the classroom work. The problem is not being paid to spend a week in the classroom.
Or for…
Agency men, effectively losing two weeks money. One by having to pay for the courses and two for the week of lost work.
