The current fuel prices?
Are you all passing on the cost to the company’s you pull for or is your weekly income rapidly being reduced every time the fuel price goes up?
How long will you be able to last before throwing the towel in and packing up?
not like you to try and stir up a row! 
i personally get a fuel surcharge on top of each months invoice, last month it was 10% but thats subbin virtually full time so in a way i’m already working at a cut rate. it’s the one thing that put me off of boxes, the couple of firms i talked to both set the mileage rates in january so you could sit down and do all the sums but it were guesse work what you’d be earning in the second half of the year.
i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, it dosn’t matter what the fuel price is as a long as it’s the same for everyone and all rates are set accordingly, the problems are created by some hauliers being able to buy cheaper fuel which has seen a massive increase in foreign hauliers working in the uk,simple fact is if the uk price was comparative to mainland europe or visa versa they wouldn’t be here and brit firms wouldn’t be going out of business!
On the Machinery Haulage I quote for work so can pass it on, on the container work its paid per job and mainly local with a bigger element of the payment for the time taken to do the job, although it still smarts a bit it’s not as hurtful as doing the long distance I used to do for Hanbury Davies.
im sorry but people have got to stop blaming foriegn hauliers when an english one goes outta bussiness if its just fuel prices then everybody would go bust the reason most brit firms go bust is because they undercut each other and it gets to a point where theyre doing it for nothing just to keep the wheels turning to many people start a haulage firm not really thinking it through and then when the first bill comes in there stuffed and they end up robbing peter to pay paul until they go bust im sorry but if a company goes under theres no one to blame but themselves.unless the company they work for goes under then a haulier does have my sympathies cuz that isnt somthing they control
so how does that explain haulage firms that have been running for thirty years or more folding up?
a brit haulage firm has been working for a factory for ten years, their current rate is £10 a ton albert heizeniger destriangle comes along and says we’ll do that for £6 a ton, which firm does the factory give the contract to?
Rob K:
Are you all passing on the cost to the company’s you pull for ?
oh yes 
every job has it’s own price 
the problem I can see is not fuel but changes in farm subsidies - which means no payments to farmers until next spring, and the possibility of reducing stock numbers now payments are area based now ,not headage based!!
The next 12 months could be interesting 
dennis, totally off subject, but how do you know what weight you’ve got on when carrying livestock?
thats the way it goes paul im affraid once the cabbotage rules were dropped it became an open market but you still cant blame foriegn firms they dont make the rules and if the owner of the factory wants to make a bigger profit by saving on his haulage costs then thats his perogative
paul b:
dennis, totally off subject, but how do you know what weight you’ve got on when carrying livestock?
experience
and guesswork
paul b:
dennis, totally off subject, but how do you know what weight you’ve got on when carrying livestock?
He has 4 little bathroom scales, each beast steps on them and Denis adds them all up
It doesn’t take long because he’s a very clever chap and does it in his head
When I last carted cows, in Oz, can’t remember anyone bothering. We just loaded the crates till they were full. 
Edited once by Spardo to give Denis his French name, after being re-christened by Paul. 
Salut, David.
paul b:
dennis, totally off subject, but how do you know what weight you’ve got on when carrying livestock?
Maybe, if the beasts were a bit heavy, giving them a fright could make them lose weight quickly. Messy but effective.
don’t you think denis (dennis,denise?) driving em down the road a fifty mph would frighten em enough?
There are a lot more reasons that 30 year old companies go bust than fuel prices, there is the rising costs that have cut profits to a loss, so that Gordon can top up his holiday fund! Obviously it what all the hauliers wanted because they voted this government back into power.
Another reason that the UK haulage industry is in dire straights is that they are unwilling to change, or take risks.
Everybody complains about the foreign hauliers, it seems to have come as a great shock when the EU expanded and suddenly there is an influx of new members competing for work. The French, Dutch and Belgians looked to the future years ago and began buying companies in the new member states.
I have some rate confirmations from 20 years ago, it would put most rates to shame nowadays, The Dutch hauliers are not running scrap lorries and never have done. The Germans have always bought the best equipment for the job, we seem to make do 
We should have been active in Europe buying companies to expand our business, instead we sat back and watched.
There was nothing to stop Fred Smith (Carriers) Ltd from going to Hungary to buy a failing haulier.
We allowed Dutch hauliers to come here and buy our haulage industry while sitting drinking tea and complaining quietly
so it’s not the fact that theres hundreds of wagons coming over every week to do uk work with huge fuel tanks full of fuel bought at a fraction of the cost of uk fuel thats the problem, it’s down to the fact that joe bloggs haulage didn’t buy a hungarian haulage firm ten years ago?
paul b:
so it’s not the fact that theres hundreds of wagons coming over every week to do uk work with huge fuel tanks full of fuel bought at a fraction of the cost of uk fuel thats the problem, it’s down to the fact that joe bloggs haulage didn’t buy a hungarian haulage firm ten years ago?
Those ‘hundreds of wagons’ are not all foreign, you know!!! Although we are a Dutch registered company, we are basically British… and woe betide us if we came back into the UK without filling our 1500 litre tanks to the neck!! That would last me a week until I went out again. In fgact, it was well known on our firm that unless they were desperate, if you had full tanks, you had no chance of shipping out till you was down to at least a quarter!!
paul b:
so it’s not the fact that theres hundreds of wagons coming over every week to do uk work with huge fuel tanks full of fuel bought at a fraction of the cost of uk fuel thats the problem, it’s down to the fact that joe bloggs haulage didn’t buy a hungarian haulage firm ten years ago?
I cant carry 1500 litres, I have only got small tanks, 930 litres so I have to be more careful not to buy foreign (UK) fuel. We have the same problem as Bear, if we come home with a full tank, then the night man will use the truck 
What my post was meant to portray, is that you have all had 30 years to prepare for this sudden invasion, instead of preparing, the UK transport industry stuck its head in the sand
well lets hope your all still so pro europe when the europeans have completely taken over and there is no “brittish haulage industry” left!
do you think they’ll want to employ brittish drivers at what they’d consider inflated rates or a lithuanian at two quid an hour?
paul b:
so it’s not the fact that theres hundreds of wagons coming over every week to do uk work with huge fuel tanks full of fuel bought at a fraction of the cost of uk fuel thats the problem, it’s down to the fact that joe bloggs haulage didn’t buy a hungarian haulage firm ten years ago?
According to a dft survey regarding foreign trucks.
Average distance travelled per round trip within GB is 640 kilometres. Over two thirds (68%) is on motorways.
Most drivers spend only a short period of time in GB, on average less than 2 days, with a sixth (16%) returning on the same day and four fifths (83%) spending less than 3 days in GB.
Around 20 per cent of foreign registered HGVs entering GB made at least one trip to GB per week, accounting for three-fifths (62%) of all trips.
A large majority (90%) of trips are made by EU-based operators and by drivers resident in the EU.
I’m sure there’s another survey from them stating that domestic freight transported by GB mainland trucks rose during 2004. From these figures, it appears that the vast majority of foreign trucks are tipping a load/reloading and straight home again. Nothing to do with cabotage. I’m not saying cabotage does’nt happen, but its on a far smaller scale than some people like to think.
I have huge tanks filled with cheap Irish diesel and am in England every week, but I don’t steal english work. I tip/reload and straight home again, doing 3 trips a week. GB mainland trucks doing the same work are also using cheap Irish diesel.
The main reason the haulage industry is in a mess is because of the muppets that got voted in again. Add to that some large UK companies undercutting just to win contracts. Then you have the ‘return load’ culture. Firms refusing to come home empty so they will haul 20 tonnes for peanuts. Plus you have freight forwarders booking thousands of loads per week, taking huge commissions and leaving very little gravy in the pot for the haulier. There are many reasons for poor rates, but foreign trucks will always be the easy target to blame.
jd_123:
[. Then you have the ‘return load’ culture. Firms refusing to come home empty so they will haul 20 tonnes for peanuts.
Not disagreeing with anything you wrote JD but I can’t remember a time in the last 40 years that this specific complaint wasn’t being voiced. I used to puzzle over it then and the only thing I can think of is that rates to customers haven’t been undercut, it’s just the rate that the prime haulier passes on to the backloader - obviously he has to make a profit. Thus hauliers are not neccessarily being undercut on their own home traffic.
Of course if backloaders were regularly targetting customers directly, that would make a difference, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The big backloaders set up in their customers’ areas and thus maintain viable rates.
If this wasn’t the case the whole job would have collapsed completely years ago.
Salut, David.
interesting survey that, i saw another one the other day that said foreign trucks using the crossings into the uk had increassed by something like 80% in the last year wonder how many are doing the trip with a load in and one back to dump fuel for wagons running in the uk? something i’ve noticed in the last few weeks is how many foreign registered 7.5 tonners they have been on the roads, makes you wonder.
we can blame all sorts of things for the decline but the fact still remains until theres a level playing field induced by either forcing foreign hauliers to pay uk prices or uk prices being dropped, that decline will continue.
it’s the same old same old,everyone thinks it’s someone elses problem cus they got paid last week!