Im starting class 2, have had a few options with great prospects initially a company transporting cars £38k a year. But rose tinted glasses the work isnt there atm. Despite a good opening day, also transporting cars daily could be .. problematic … with a curtainsider everything is relatively secure.
Went the agency route ran into a few problems a) i have an IN10 and b) the work i wamted required 6 months experience . Despite the fact i worked for yodel and parcel force for 2 years.
I now have an interview lined up with a company and spoke the boss on the phone. He seema haopy enough im.waiting on my tacho being sent in the post . Only issue is its £30k a year where most ppaces ive seen or previously been in contact was £33 -£38k
Ideal work depo to depo. Nights. But the work now is general haulage buisneses shops the auld doll down the road.
Hard to know what is better in the longrun
Newly passed need experience , also work my way up without feeling im beimg short changed it would be better suited doing something else
Ive done multi drop before but in 3.5 van or a luton i have a love hate relationship with it. And moving up to class 2 i was hoping less handballing and more money
Technically it wasn’t essentially ‘HGV’‘ I started on a Ford Transit pick up doing nights out in it ….I’m 6’1 so sleeping across the seats was an education, but it’s what ya did in those days, and I was young and very keen…albeit naive…..the Fiat Daily replacement was 3’’ longer across the seats.
Used to do a lot of Londons and South Coast ….before sat navs and before M25 when you had to drive through London, any mistakes and a Transit was easy to turn around……so by the time I got my HGV licence a few months later I knew my way around places, I then did a few months on a what was Class 3 then 16 t rigid….(day cab.across seats again but a bit more room….not much in a TK)
Then progressed… .if that is the right term to an artic.
I picked up Saturday shifts on the agency, and went from there. It was different then though. I didn’t really do any driving assessments. I was just handed keys and off I went. After a month or two of that, I was offered night trunks in the week with Homebase, a few nights here and there. This transpired into full weeks. After two or three months of that I was offered some work with a local well established haulier, where I was taken on after 10 weeks on the agency, and stayed there for 10 years.
Passed in 1999 started my hgv career in 2007 as an agency driver. My first was with the COOP
Thurrock on class 2 .Two week later they put me on class 1 at Lynx/ups Dartford first run was to
Dachser where i was trying to blind side on to a bay got kick out of lorry by a German driver who was fed up with me taking to long.
Started as an Owner Driver in 1972 subcontracting for the London Brick Company, Hand ball On, Hand ball OFF. often did Snachers ie unload yourself best i did was 9000 faceing bricks in 2.5 hours, 13 at a time was my best.
Think might been for gray law was agency. Was doing 7.5 t work then agency rang said were desperate need a driver for graylaw don’t tell them your a new pass
So went there 1 st job sent me to Sheffield area. Never forget 1st ever drive and sent me over wood head pass. Was going so slow as was nervous. Probably caused a huge tailback but who cared.
1st job had doing nights out was small garage door company in Stockport. 1st day Monday was familiarisation day etc . Then told come in Tuesday morning going Southampton be having a night out . Which I knew would be before started the. Job..but didn’t have a clue said never had night out before what’s the procedure etc. Was told your work it out as you go . Be driving flat bed so don’t pay for parking ..
But for first month of need be we will untill you get yourself sorted out
But you know what I did work it out and enjoyed it there stayed there about 5 years before moving elsewhere for better pay
The problem now is that class 2 has been lumped in with the old class 3 ( two axle ).Class 3 was/is often closer to light van and 7.5t type work than the heavier 3 or 4 axle type work.Good for employers who now take advantage of drivers not differentiating in that expectation.
Car transport is difficult in that 7.5t provides limited payload.18t not enough to make much difference.26t has better/more than enough weight capacity but limited deck space.Anything less than a purpose built multi deck artic will struggle for deck space
Most car transport involves random single loads to or from random customer or dealership locations scattered anywhere in the country often with no practical outward or return load.The payload/ cost/reward equation often doesn’t add up and that gets worse the heavier the vehicle and higher the overheads and running costs and wage bill for its driver.
As opposed to someone like me just driving the car from base or collection to base or delivery points.Minimum wage, part time, semi retired, any time of day as required, for minimum fuel costs to the customer and maybe a cheap train ticket as required.Sometimes can manage more than one job in a shift.
Ironically my first job was transporting and testing large airport fire trucks and collecting parts with a drop side flat 7.5 tonner employed by the factory.
It was only after being made redundant from that when I found out how bleedin arbitrary and difficult the industry’s recruitment and non existent career progression, winners and losers, regime can be.
Expect no sympathy and even hostility from the winners in that.
That was a brave move and a gamble, but it obviously worked out for you.
I started as an O/D at 23, but with 2 years experience as an employed driver……
Worst thing (in the job) I ever did, although I was quite successful at first building up a small fleet, but when things did eventually go tits up, tbf it was not really (all) my fault, although I accept full responsibility for it all.
I managed to find a class 1 job a week after passing my test at inter-city transport, delivering Ford car parts to dealerships on a set run across Liverpool. My first drop was Davys Ford garage in Huyton & you could never get in the bloody place on Monday morning for crashed police cars, they had the contract to repair them. It must have been like the bloody wild west on a weekend with so many crashed police cars. It was day work, as the unit had to be back for the night trunk from Lowton to Cumbernald. Later on I went on tramping, it was all flat beds & roping & sheeting back then.
1st Job after passing test was concrete purlins, rafters etc to a farm at Horton near Port Eynon on the Gower peninsular. Left at 2 am.. ish, found my way through London and arrived late morning. Then found a phone box and rang Silver Roadways for a return load for the South East. Parked on waste ground in the middle of Swansea with the rear wheels on top of the sheets. Loaded tin plates out of Velindre in the morning and that’s as far as I can remember apart from it pouring with rain all the way back along the M4. It probably went to Metal Box at Southwark. After that it was the odd concrete building, but mostly loaded with several drops for the wholesale fruit and veg markets and merchants all around the country, and find your own load back. Usually two journeys a week and locals or London Markets.
A bit like staying at those crappy digs at Lincoln Farm for first time, I had a pair of cowboy boots on…….(yeah ok, I know, but in those days they were fashionable ) , I always remember the pretty blonde girl who worked there showing me to the (communal) room and advising me to put the bed legs in my boots.
My first job was definitely jumping in the deep end. I did 3.5yrs of max hours (and over……as the fleet was a mix of paper disc and cards) delivering plants where day time was garden centres and night time could be markets. I was 20yrs old so could manage it, I definitely don’t have the energy for silly stuff like that now.
I already had a job in another profession when I passed my test, so I cut my teeth on weekend and holiday relief work driving artic fridges with Scania 80, Volvo F88, Ford Transcons and Merc 1626s. A lot of the work was with Insuliners (Tautliners with a Thermo King stuck on the front), something you never see now! I soon progressed to general haulage with more sensible motors like ERFs, Fodens and Seddon-Atkinsons, though TBF the Transcons were very good.
I remember the day four of us from the Lowton depot went unit only over to Boalloy in Congleton (I think it was) in the 70s to pick up four new tautliner trailers. More & more of them arrived over the year. Going from all flat bed/roping & sheeting work to tautliners was a different world altogether.
You weren’t covered in dirt any more, you didn’t have to climb up & over the load any more to drape sheets, the passenger side of the cab wasn’t full of ropes & rusty chains/dwangs, it was heaven.
Class 1 Reefers for Wincanton, hauling prepacked cooked meat, and swinging pig.
Raw pig fresh from the abattoir, to packing plants and cold stores, and the finished product to the supermarket RDC’s.
Fresh faced out the yard I managed 70+ down windy hill with a load of swinging pig on the hooks, and dolavs on the floor from Malton to Ashton-U-Lyne, (alas no steel on the floor)
My very first experiences were through an agency. At that time no HGV as I was too young. It was 3T unladen allowed on car licence, about 7.5T gross.
First run was in an Austin FG Luton. Local household removal followed by a run with chairs between different schools. Fortunately there were experienced porters who knew their arse from their elbow.
Then a few runs for local builder suppliers, a few weeks for a glass supplier, and later a bit over a year on bagged coal.
The coal was filthy work. Mostly domestic home deliveries. Fill an open sack and carry it onto the truck. Carry it off the truck and tip into a cellar/shed/bin whatever.
At the end of that job I could jog up steps with a cwt balanced by one hand on my shoulders. (1cwt 112lbs or about 50kg) The summer was fine, normally finished by lunchtime, and down the beach in the afternoon, but the winters were hard. Lots of small drops, two loads a day, and wet cold dripping all over you.
Paid for my own HGV 1 licence. Then on general haulage, with no clue at all on what I was doing with ropes’n’sheets (or anything much else really ) But they were patient with me, and I stayed for over ten yrs.
The only thing thats changed at Lincon Farm? is No blond bird anymore all though i have not been for a wile, table and chairs and parking area are the same lol.
Yeah I was in there about a year ago… it’s like a time warp.
The strippers and dodgy movies and the bar upstairs that were there once, have changed in stark contrast by ‘The God Squad’ . .. complete with a Bible in a glass case and an invitation to approach the guy in charge (last owner’s son? ) if you want any…’’spiritual help’‘.
Yes i have never needed spiritual help lol, I don`t know how well you know the owner? ( is it Bernard? as have foregot ) i will put it down to age,
You could always have the crack with him no Bible needed, i am sure you have wound him up in the past ?
If you get chatting to him he is quite interesting to listen to and a job to get away from, he was telling us all about his past and saying how much the site was valued as it had planning for a Hotel, My mate said to him if its worth all that why don`t you sell it, his answer was i would not have a reason to get up in the morning, as at the time He and his Wife did early and Son and Daughter did lates, my mate thought he was going to get one over on him and said if you are worth all that money why don`t you buy some new tables and chaires, wait for it he said when i come in here at 4 AM in the morning i look at them tables and chairs i can remember when real drivers sat in them lol,
I don`t know him that well be i do think his heart is in the right place should anyone need some help? , when he was about i always came out feeling better than when i went in after the crack / windup, it made me forget about the food lol.
….I’m 6’1 so sleeping across the seats was an education, but it’s what ya did in those days, and I was young and very keen…albeit naive…..the Fiat Daily replacement was 3’’ longer across the seats.
to an artic.
…..