iv been in [north] china and there was no nice driving, no courtesy for pedestrians crossing .
jakethesnake:
Juddian:
And those of us living in the real world know just how appalling they can be this side of the pond tooWhat a typical Brit attitude Mr Perfect. I doubt you have experienced driving in Asia with that sort of reply.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle, and yes have a fair bit of experience of driving in third world countries and the general rule seems to be he with the loudest horn has priority
The thing is, British people grew up in a structured environment, we follow the rules, apart from a bit of speeding and incorrect lane discipline, generally British drivers are very well behaved. This passes down through the generations, the insurance companies know this and penalise those at greater risk, the young who tear arse around and the old that are overwhelmed by it all and have slower reactions.
Compare this to Africans, Asians, Russians etc. Recent converts to the mechanically controlled vehicle, or more dangerously, having driven where there are no rules, or minimal enforcement of those that do exist. It’s a recipe for a gong show and open borders and immigration have mixed all those ingredients onto the by the book roads of Britain (and western europe) that’s what you’ve got to deal with now.
The snowflakes will view it as racism, but it’s not, it’s just the way it is, if you were born in a country where owning a vehicle is only for the privileged few, or on a country with no rules, you will have a hard time on British roads, no matter your shade or which mythical man in the sky you worship.
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newmercman:
The thing is, British people grew up in a structured environment, we follow the rules, apart from a bit of speeding and incorrect lane discipline, generally British drivers are very well behaved. This passes down through the generations, the insurance companies know this and penalise those at greater risk, the young who tear arse around and the old that are overwhelmed by it all and have slower reactions.Compare this to Africans, Asians, Russians etc. Recent converts to the mechanically controlled vehicle, or more dangerously, having driven where there are no rules, or minimal enforcement of those that do exist. It’s a recipe for a gong show and open borders and immigration have mixed all those ingredients onto the by the book roads of Britain (and western europe) that’s what you’ve got to deal with now.
The snowflakes will view it as racism, but it’s not, it’s just the way it is, if you were born in a country where owning a vehicle is only for the privileged few, or on a country with no rules, you will have a hard time on British roads, no matter your shade or which mythical man in the sky you worship.
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+1.very good post.
Mazzer2:
jakethesnake:
Juddian:
And those of us living in the real world know just how appalling they can be this side of the pond tooWhat a typical Brit attitude Mr Perfect. I doubt you have experienced driving in Asia with that sort of reply.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle, and yes have a fair bit of experience of driving in third world countries and the general rule seems to be he with the loudest horn has priority
Rubbish, yes they use their horns but not to gain priority. A lot of these countries seem to have their own unwritten rules and it seems to work a lot better than in the UK.
Far less aggression if any and no stressed drivers.
That’s my observations anyway. 
jakethesnake:
Mazzer2:
jakethesnake:
Juddian:
And those of us living in the real world know just how appalling they can be this side of the pond tooWhat a typical Brit attitude Mr Perfect. I doubt you have experienced driving in Asia with that sort of reply.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle, and yes have a fair bit of experience of driving in third world countries and the general rule seems to be he with the loudest horn has priority
Rubbish, yes they use their horns but not to gain priority. A lot of these countries seem to have their own unwritten rules and it seems to work a lot better than in the UK.
Far less aggression if any and no stressed drivers.
That’s my observations anyway.
Of course I’m talking rubbish I’m up against TN’s resident expert whose experience is above all others how foolish of me to not notice how people in Africa, central America and Asia drive just stick to black catting everyone it’s what you’re best at
I am particularly talking about Asia as I said before. These are my observations as I said before. Of course we all perceive things differently but a lot of that depends on how long you spend in a certain country.
newmercman:
Your situation appears to be a common occurrence nowadays,no idea of what you want to do to earn a crust.
I’m hardly a youngster, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do, maybe still don’t, done many different types of jobs over the years before settling on one in my late 30’s, but I could still change my mind, although the opportunities for a radical change might not as easily available now.
newmercman:
In day’s of old, lorry drivers were either born into it, or had a desire to drive a lorry from childhood, or they got a class one from the army,
Nope none of that can apply to me, and having read a couple of the autobiographies of those who did the Middle East, some of them fell into the job without much a background in transport, I think you have your rose tinted specs firmly placed on your face.
newmercman:
now people are doing it for a job, with no interest in the lorry itself and no desire to go further (longer journeys)
Well there is probably some truth in that, but then wanting to go further isn’t really an option for many these days, so why would that be an attraction for the job
newmercman:
That’s never going to have a happy ending, the hours are long, the money’s not great for the hours you put in and you often get treated like something smelly on the bottom of a shoe.
Would agree with you there, if the industry wants to attract new drivers it needs to change the terms and conditions of employment to reflect the new logistics industry they’ve created, that is one of constant monitoring, production like work, so therefore the workers should be working factory hours and getting the pay to suit.
Muckles, like yourself, I posted about my own experiences, I have lots of friends that followed in their father’s footsteps and became lorry drivers, I’ve worked with hundreds of drivers that did the same and it’s this that I base my assumption on.
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muckles:
newmercman:
Your situation appears to be a common occurrence nowadays,no idea of what you want to do to earn a crust.I’m hardly a youngster, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do, maybe still don’t, done many different types of jobs over the years before settling on one in my late 30’s, but I could still change my mind, although the opportunities for a radical change might not as easily available now.
newmercman:
In day’s of old, lorry drivers were either born into it, or had a desire to drive a lorry from childhood, or they got a class one from the army,Nope none of that can apply to me, and having read a couple of the autobiographies of those who did the Middle East, some of them fell into the job without much a background in transport, I think you have your rose tinted specs firmly placed on your face.
newmercman:
now people are doing it for a job, with no interest in the lorry itself and no desire to go further (longer journeys)Well there is probably some truth in that, but then wanting to go further isn’t really an option for many these days, so why would that be an attraction for the job
newmercman:
That’s never going to have a happy ending, the hours are long, the money’s not great for the hours you put in and you often get treated like something smelly on the bottom of a shoe.Would agree with you there, if the industry wants to attract new drivers it needs to change the terms and conditions of employment to reflect the new logistics industry they’ve created, that is one of constant monitoring, production like work, so therefore the workers should be working factory hours and getting the pay to suit.
There’s a lot of stereotypes there.In my case I knew I wanted to drive trucks from before I’d left school.Ironically my Dad ended up more as a driver in the forces than his preferred job of engineering.
He wanted me to follow him into engineering.
I hated working in a factory meaning lots of arguments with my Dad concerning my chosen career path.So not much help or encouragement there.
I wanted to do distance/international work but was lumbered with mostly boring more local work then years of night trunking which was at least better than local zb.
The bitter irony of that being even worse when I found out that career changers were jumping into the type of work which I wanted to progress to and been refused on ‘experience’ grounds.After believing all the bs that starting at the bottom will automatically mean progression later.When it really just meant mug.
As for hitting something on a roundabout.Generally if you’ve given way to anything on the roundabout on entry and if you then collect someone on the left of you when exiting a roundabout from a right turn it’s their bleedin fault because they shouldn’t be there. 
muckles:
Nope none of that can apply to me, and having read a couple of the autobiographies of those who did the Middle East, some of them fell into the job without much a background in transport.
I didn’t have any background in road transport, my Dad worked in an office. The payroll department in a hospital. He took me to work one day to show me what he did and I thought “Errr, I won’t be doing that then”.
So I didn’t really know what I wanted to do until I was mini-cabbing in the mid-1980s when I was 25 and I used to watch the trucks coming off the Sally Line ferry in Ramsgate, and they had things on the side of the trailers like “Weekly Service to Athens” and “UK- Italy daily” and “Saudi Arabia Overland” and I thought “Hey, I could do that!” 
newmercman:
Muckles, like yourself, I posted about my own experiences, I have lots of friends that followed in their father’s footsteps and became lorry drivers, I’ve worked with hundreds of drivers that did the same and it’s this that I base my assumption on.Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
I do know a lot of people followed fathers footsteps, but personally I think the reason for the change in the type of driver you see is the industry has changed, not the lack of drivers “born” to it.
Like Harry it was the trucks going to far flung places that attracted me, I used to read the Long Distance Diaries in my brothers Truck mags, although I didn’t get anywhere near as far as he did, hit the tail end of the good days for International work and didn’t have the confidence to push myself into the remaining jobs, it was falling into the motorsport work that allowed me to start driving out of the UK.
These days UK haulage is unlikely to attract many of those looking for adventure, travel and freedom and the pay isn’t what it was, when I was a nipper those of my friends whose fathers were doing International work seemed quite well off, only the offshore workers (something else that attracted me as a job) seemed to get better pay and I’m sure that with the attraction of the job lead to a different type of candidate entering the industry.
muckles:
Like Harry it was the trucks going to far flung places that attracted me, I used to read the Long Distance Diaries in my brothers Truck mags, although I didn’t get anywhere near as far as he did, hit the tail end of the good days for International work and didn’t have the confidence to push myself into the remaining jobs, it was falling into the motorsport work that allowed me to start driving out of the UK.
These days UK haulage is unlikely to attract many of those looking for adventure, travel and freedom and the pay isn’t what it was, when I was a nipper those of my friends whose fathers were doing International work seemed quite well off, only the offshore workers (something else that attracted me as a job) seemed to get better pay and I’m sure that with the attraction of the job lead to a different type of candidate entering the industry.
Firstly Harry seems to have found a sort of parallel universe in which you could walk into a long haul international running firm’s office and say I’ve been driving a taxi up to now can you put me on a run to wherever far flung foreign place starting Monday.To be met by the answer no problem we can do that where would you like us to send you to. 
Now seemingly also able to walk into any agency office and ask for a few days work as and when he feels like it while others can get as much distance work as they want.
As for confidence in my case possibly more like extreme naivety.In which I thought that my class 2 experience of driving fire trucks and council wagons would actually count for something when I tried to move on to driving draw bar outfits across Europe,at least with the Iranian revolution and Iraq Iran war having decimated Middle East work.If only I’d have been driving a taxi since the age of 17 I might have actually got somewhere and for far less effort. 
As for whatever agencies that Harry is now using my recent tentative moves back into the work environment have resulted in me this time disbelievingly going through all the hoops of providing what history I could and licence checks etc,just in case a supposed offer of distance bulk drop van driving work might have been true.While equally disbelievingly laughing at a big glossy photo of a truck on open clear foreign roads which I assume was meant to tempt my former and now modern day naive young counterparts.All confirmed by the predictable no further contact regarding the van job and later seeing loads of adverts posted by the same agency for you’ve guessed it class 2 local building materials delivery work.
muckles:
I do know a lot of people followed fathers footsteps, but personally I think the reason for the change in the type of driver you see is the industry has changed, not the lack of drivers “born” to it.
Like Harry it was the trucks going to far flung places that attracted me, I used to read the Long Distance Diaries in my brothers Truck mags, although I didn’t get anywhere near as far as he did, hit the tail end of the good days for International work and didn’t have the confidence to push myself into the remaining jobs, it was falling into the motorsport work that allowed me to start driving out of the UK.
These days UK haulage is unlikely to attract many of those looking for adventure, travel and freedom and the pay isn’t what it was, when I was a nipper those of my friends whose fathers were doing International work seemed quite well off, only the offshore workers (something else that attracted me as a job) seemed to get better pay and I’m sure that with the attraction of the job lead to a different type of candidate entering the industry.
I wouldn’t argue with any of that.
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Carryfast:
muckles:
Like Harry it was the trucks going to far flung places that attracted me, I used to read the Long Distance Diaries in my brothers Truck mags, although I didn’t get anywhere near as far as he did, hit the tail end of the good days for International work and didn’t have the confidence to push myself into the remaining jobs, it was falling into the motorsport work that allowed me to start driving out of the UK.
These days UK haulage is unlikely to attract many of those looking for adventure, travel and freedom and the pay isn’t what it was, when I was a nipper those of my friends whose fathers were doing International work seemed quite well off, only the offshore workers (something else that attracted me as a job) seemed to get better pay and I’m sure that with the attraction of the job lead to a different type of candidate entering the industry.Firstly Harry seems to have found a sort of parallel universe in which you could walk into a long haul international running firm’s office and say I’ve been driving a taxi up to now can you put me on a run to wherever far flung foreign place starting Monday.To be met by the answer no problem we can do that where would you like us to send you to.
Now seemingly also able to walk into any agency office and ask for a few days work as and when he feels like it while others can get as much distance work as they want.
As for confidence in my case possibly more like extreme naivety.In which I thought that my class 2 experience of driving fire trucks and council wagons would actually count for something when I tried to move on to driving draw bar outfits across Europe,at least with the Iranian revolution and Iraq Iran war having decimated Middle East work.If only I’d have been driving a taxi since the age of 17 I might have actually got somewhere and for far less effort.
As for whatever agencies that Harry is now using my recent tentative moves back into the work environment have resulted in me this time disbelievingly going through all the hoops of providing what history I could and licence checks etc,just in case a supposed offer of distance bulk drop van driving work might have been true.While equally disbelievingly laughing at a big glossy photo of a truck on open clear foreign roads which I assume was meant to tempt my former and now modern day naive young counterparts.All confirmed by the predictable no further contact regarding the van job and later seeing loads of adverts posted by the same agency for you’ve guessed it class 2 local building materials delivery work.
It depends on luck and personality.
Most 23 year olds don’t think they could move from driving a car derived van for |Europarts to tootling around Europe on the recommendation of a mate, but that’s the way ‘my’ youngest got into working for us. Nice lad + decent attitude = more interesting that an RDC job
Carryfast:
Firstly Harry seems to have found a sort of parallel universe in which you could walk into a long haul international running firm’s office and say I’ve been driving a taxi up to now can you put me on a run to wherever far flung foreign place starting Monday.To be met by the answer no problem we can do that where would you like us to send you to.
Not a parallel universe but that is how it was in east Kent in the mid-1980s. I personally know someone who passed his Class 1 in the morning and was on his way to Italy that afternoon. In fact, it was harder to find a UK-only job than continental work.
Harry Monk:
Carryfast:
Firstly Harry seems to have found a sort of parallel universe in which you could walk into a long haul international running firm’s office and say I’ve been driving a taxi up to now can you put me on a run to wherever far flung foreign place starting Monday.To be met by the answer no problem we can do that where would you like us to send you to.Not a parallel universe but that is how it was in east Kent in the mid-1980s. I personally know someone who passed his Class 1 in the morning and was on his way to Italy that afternoon. In fact, it was harder to find a UK-only job than continental work.
As I’ve often said previously I applied and got an interview for an international job with I think from memory European who were based in Military Road Dover where Port Shipping depot is now.That was with almost 10 years of rigid and artic UK plant and general haulage and trunking behind me.Was told I’d got the job although having no international experience was ‘difficult’ for them but,after my comments regarding no job no experience,would be sent out on Italian etc runs when I started after handing in my notice.Luckily my gut feeling said wait and see and as expected soon got the phone call sorry we can’t do the job we offered you but will you be ok with doing UK work out of our Northampton depot.To which I ‘politely declined’ the offer.Going by the apologetic nature of the call my guess is an under manager having been over ruled on the bs experience issue.With it being quite likely,that possibly like your example ?,they chose instead someone who was a good liar and weren’t that bothered about confirming/validating references ( unlike today ). 
On that note I’ll ask Dean B again if he could possibly post some of the situations wanted ads in his large collection of Truck magazines which might bust the myth about new,or even experienced UK,drivers walking into international work in the day unless they were very lucky,were bleedin good liars with dodgy references,or preferably both.It’s my guess that you’re confusing the few lucky ones and/or the good liars bsing their way into the job.Often to the disadvantage of those who’d bought all the bs about working your way up from the bottom often to be found among the pages of unlucky hopefuls.Some of which also obviously decided to resort to trying to bs their way into the job.
Carryfast:
Harry Monk:
Carryfast:
Firstly Harry seems to have found a sort of parallel universe in which you could walk into a long haul international running firm’s office and say I’ve been driving a taxi up to now can you put me on a run to wherever far flung foreign place starting Monday.To be met by the answer no problem we can do that where would you like us to send you to.Not a parallel universe but that is how it was in east Kent in the mid-1980s. I personally know someone who passed his Class 1 in the morning and was on his way to Italy that afternoon. In fact, it was harder to find a UK-only job than continental work.
As I’ve often said previously I applied and got an interview for an international job with I think from memory European who were based in Military Road Dover where Port Shipping depot is now.That was with almost 10 years of rigid and artic UK plant and general haulage and trunking behind me.Was told I’d got the job although having no international experience was ‘difficult’ for them but,after my comments regarding no job no experience,would be sent out on Italian etc runs when I started after handing in my notice.Luckily my gut feeling said wait and see and as expected soon got the phone call sorry we can’t do the job we offered you but will you be ok with doing UK work out of our Northampton depot.To which I ‘politely declined’ the offer.Going by the apologetic nature of the call my guess is an under manager having been over ruled on the bs experience issue.With it being quite likely,that possibly like your example ?,they chose instead someone who was a good liar and weren’t that bothered about confirming/validating references ( unlike today ).
On that note I’ll ask Dean B again if he could possibly post some of the situations wanted ads in his large collection of Truck magazines which might bust the myth about new,or even experienced UK,drivers walking into international work in the day unless they were very lucky,were bleedin good liars with dodgy references,or preferably both.It’s my guess that you’re confusing the few lucky ones and/or the good liars bsing their way into the job.Often to the disadvantage of those who’d bought all the bs about working your way up from the bottom often to be found among the pages of unlucky hopefuls.Some of which also obviously decided to resort to trying to bs their way into the job.
So to summarise, you applied for one job which didn’t result in a job offer and from that you conclude that it wasn’t possible to get continental work without lying or providing fake references? Why didn’t you try applying for more jobs?
In the past maybe it was body language and confidence making first impressions that made the difference
I had a brief period hiring drivers for ME work in the mid 70s and if i didn’t know or know of them, then those first impressions were really important.
On one occassion I was interviewing/chatting with an ex para applicant & my business partnet popped hi shead round the door, afterwards he said “You didn’t hire him did you, what if we have an argument over wages” i replied that we needed drivers who were polite but would not be intimidated and can stand their ground without losing their rag.
Harry Monk:
So to summarise, you applied for one job which didn’t result in a job offer and from that you conclude that it wasn’t possible to get continental work without lying or providing fake references? Why didn’t you try applying for more jobs?
To be fair Harry that was just an enquiry which even resulted in an interview.Most if not all were stopped before that point with the usual wording must have international ‘experience’ either in the very rare advert or more often at the phone call stage that’s even if there were any vacancies.Forget all about trying IPEC/TNT in that regard for one example.We’ll put you on the waiting list yeah right.
The fact is if it was that easy to walk into and not the elitist self serving scam for some that it really was the agencies would have been full of such work.With drivers then asking the agencies for some of the numerous local work so they could get some home life as a balance.Instead of which as I’ve said we had some bored out of their skulls on a constant diet of local zb from building deliveries to 7.5 t multi drop and at best night trunking and others moaning about being away too long on constant international turn arounds to see their families.Now nothing has changed except the fact that the UK international running sector has been replaced by cheaper third country East Euro operations and trunking work has now turned into Hub system and RDC type dross to add to the building deliveries and multi drop type crap.