I don’t know if it’s been asked before, but…
If you’d known then what you know now, would have chosen the haulage industry as a career path…
Or was it that you had a bad case of truckitis and it was easier to get sucked into the pit of darkness than rebel with a tie in the office while doing
a 9 to 5…
I know there can be good and bad days…and attitudes can change from day to day, or even moment to moment, but you get that in every job…
Jeff…
an easy one to answer in my case…i didn’t listen at school,so i’m glad i chose the HGV path.i wouldn’t have the reasonably good standard of living i have by stacking shelves in a supermarket 
my dad was in the Royal Navy as a young man,and tried in vain to get me to join up…but i do sail on the IoW ferry regularly 
Like carryfast, I find it easy to answer.
I entered the transport industry in 1960 after being demobbed from the army.
I enjoyed the variation in the work plus being your own boss to a certain extent.
I graduated from being a driver to being a partner in one of the haulage companies I worked for.
I then became a director in a new company we formed in 1974 to take advantage of
General & Refrigerated Transport to Europe and the Middle East.
I enjoyed my time in the industry was successful and I retired in 1988 aged 51 and have enjoyed my retirement and still do.
If I had to make the same decision now that I made in 1960 about my career path.
I would not repeat my decision to go into the transport industry as there are to many rules and regulation now,
many that are unnecessary in my opinion.
Grammar school lad here and I wasted the opportunity, I should have gone for mechanical engineering BUT…all I wanted to do was get out of the place and go for a life on the road. I enjoyed my working life, I got job satisfaction, it got me a family and a comfortable life. I regret not taking the opportunity that was there but with hindsight would I have changed anything.?..nah, it was a good working life. 
Electrician me but always fancied the road, co piloting my cousin did for me.Did 8yr n went on opencast site, big toys for boys , better money n no hassle. toyed with going back on the road but the regs n amount of traffic put me off. Wouldn,t mind a quick blast now though
Mate of mine been at it 45yrs(drives for Pallex now,) says if he never got in another ever again it would be too soon !! The novelty,s worn off for him bless
grumpy old man:
Grammar school lad here and I wasted the opportunity, I should have gone for mechanical engineering BUT…all I wanted to do was get out of the place and go for a life on the road. I enjoyed my working life, I got job satisfaction, it got me a family and a comfortable life. I regret not taking the opportunity that was there but with hindsight would I have changed anything.?..nah, it was a good working life.
Just like GOM, I was a grammar school lad, then technical college, served my time as an engineering draughtsman, finished up with Lord knows how many certificates and qualifications and letters after my name - HATED EVERY MINUTE OF IT!!
Got into transport by accident - helping out a mate (before the days of HGV licensing) whilst on holiday - and LOVED every minute of the next 40 + years!
Nowadays - would I do it again? - not (ZB) likely!!! Hidebound by too much red tape and no fun left in the job today. My son-in-law is taking his HGV test (or whatever it is called now), wanting to become a trucker as he calls it. I genuinely feel sorry for him because it is no longer the job it was (in the olden days, as my Grandpup calls it). He will never have the freedom or job satisfaction we all used to have. I can honestly say that it was a pleasure to go to work every day; experience the sunrise over an open road at 4 or 5 on a summer’s morning, being out and about meeting different people every day - even FLT drivers were cheerful and pleasant then. No H&S to worry about, either!
Steve
Just like GOM, I was a grammar school lad, then technical college, served my time as an engineering draughtsman, finished up with Lord knows how many certificates and qualifications and letters after my name - HATED EVERY MINUTE OF IT!!
Got into transport by accident - helping out a mate (before the days of HGV licensing) whilst on holiday - and LOVED every minute of the next 40 + years!
Nowadays - would I do it again? - not (ZB) likely!!! Hidebound by too much red tape and no fun left in the job today. My son-in-law is taking his HGV test (or whatever it is called now), wanting to become a trucker as he calls it. I genuinely feel sorry for him because it is no longer the job it was (in the olden days, as my Grandpup calls it). He will never have the freedom or job satisfaction we all used to have. I can honestly say that it was a pleasure to go to work every day; experience the sunrise over an open road at 4 or 5 on a summer’s morning, being out and about meeting different people every day - even FLT drivers were cheerful and pleasant then. No H&S to worry about, either!
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as above,same for me,fee paying school,wasted the lot,licence at 21,mad for tar,and never came home…few times to saudi,then europe…left it and went into different occupations,bought and sold a few companies,property,etc,done well and more than solvent,then ended up in the land that time forgot,and now prefer to run with the hooligans when it suits me as its a dying breed and i like the craic,plus its just sooooo satisfying blowing past everyone else…its a job for braindead lemmings now with no self respect or ability to think for yourself with certain excetions especially if your a newbie…speed limited,h&s ,cameras,trackers and treated like crap everywhere you go(though not so bad abroad)…your welcome to working like that,and id never recommend it to anyone nowadays…fools to yourself.but the newbies wont see it like that and they will start like they continue…
Definitely NOT… I wouldn’t be a HGV driver if I had another chance to start again.
I started as an apprentice carpenter and jacked it in because the money was rubbish!
Well it would be wouldn’t it… I couldn’t see that once I had served my time the money would
follow as a fully qualified tradesman If only I’d had the maturity and wisdom to grasp that
at such a young age!! Oh well hindsight is a wonderful thing!
With my older ( and Wiser! ) head now though, I probably wouldn’t be a Carpenter either…
I’d get into computers and technology or something that involves selling as those seem to be
where the money is these days!
Always wanted to be involved in road transport. I started as a HGV fitter for 17 years and then went driving as I had back problems, and also there was no money in repairing the things but a drivers wage was vastly superior. Would do it all over again given the chance.
Pete.
As some earlier posts, ex grammar school lad got half a dozen ‘O’ levels left at 16, in those days the secondary school lads left at 15 btw, started as an apprentice motorcycle mechanic, progressed to apprentice car mechanic on rubbish money. Meanwhile my secondary school mates were earning good money in the building trade because the adult wage was paid at 18 (unlike in a garage where it was 21) so I went on the building site progressed to onsite plant, no certificates needed then, and into lorry driving at 21, but it only lasted 45 years . Would I change anything? NO, not the way it was but if I was starting out today perhaps with the rules and regulations I would give it a miss.
I wanted to do the job from the time I left school and knew I wouldn’t ever be able to stick an office factory etc type job at that point.Which was then actually confirmed to an even greater effect than even I’d realised when I had no choice but to start work in a factory or nothing. 
Which luckily actually worked out to the good being a truck manufacturing operation which by lucky chance gave me the opportunity to be a driver,as I wanted,there rather than making the things.
After that,while the job unfortunately didn’t provide the international driving opportunities I wanted,on the whole I’ve got no regrets and the majority of the work I did wasn’t too bad and still miles better than ever going back to a job working ‘inside’ where 40 hours per week actually ‘seems’ like at least double that.On that note you’d need to have actually experienced that feeling of being locked in a boring monotonous alien indoor working environment and thinking you’ve had enough and want to go out and see the outside world but the clock says it’s still at least 3 hours to lunchtime let alone finishing time.
While with hindsight and ‘changes’ within the long haul sectors I’d probably be even happier now with driving a multi lift rigid bulker on refuse/recycling work as when I started out.
I started off driving tractors and assorted machinery with my father, then dossed about for a bit…then the lure of the road hit me. First as a porter with a removal firm, then moved onto Pickford’s who put me through my HGV…did a good few years with them. Depot closure followed, so I went to Solaglas, then a local electrical firm delivering around Kent, Sussex and Hampshire, then Church’s Shoes…following depot closures again, it was onto the local council driving dust carts for eight years, and the last ten years on a sweeper.
Would I do it again? Too bloody right I would…
I cannot understand how men who were young and had a good education obtaining o-levels .going to crammer school can say that they had the lure of the road .i am talking of the late 1960s driving was the the fall back job you had drifted into because there was nothing else if you lived in a rural area.
.I would say publicly that there was no one ever!! recommended anyone to go into driving unless a family concern ,drivers were classed as rough and ready [as we were] you had to put up with all the hard work long hours, low money. all you men who like me in their 70 +years of age and started driving when they were 21 know all about Graft I am not talking shop delivers vans.general haulage ,you would not do it again…
However it got as you got into a routine and got used to work ,and muck, loading 3.500 bricks[ London brick lorries from Bedford were loaded by loaders not the drivers and stewartby.] contract drivers like…us/me used to have to load 15 tons in the morning all covered in ash right next to the kiln.still warm and to delver to a building site and off load your self then get home and do it again and again because you had no other options ,No you really did not, 15 tons hand ball fertiliser load your self,most goods were hand ball no crane,…So no i would not do it again…i envied boys who had that little bit of education …and some threw it away…
why conform…always best to know you did what you wanted to do,and do it the way that suits you…anyone in my school would end up being doctors,solicitors,heads of council,accountants and the like…until i was about 12,the only job i fancied if i thought about it was to be a scaffy on the bins.( this was when it was metal proper bins that i wouldnt be able to lift ).other than that,there was nothng better on a rainy day,than to go out into the street with the hard brush and sweep the gutters…i wanted to be the guy that walked about with the electric cart thing with the sliding doors,at the same time,having absolutely no idea of what would be forseen the next day career wise…once i was 21,then the day i passed the class 1,it was loaded with timber at lunchtime,and away down the road after i got someone to show me how to tie a dolly,.big j4 with a 180 gardner,5 gears,no power steering,no brakes,no heater,the passenger door welded shut as it was hanging off,no alternator,just 4 batteries in the pit and dont use the lights unless it was desperate,and mirrors nicked from a budgies cage.a year of that,then saudi in another guy,folowing the boss in a transconti,then because i left him for dead on the road back,i turned and did the next couple in his tranni…bounced round dubious fleshpots of europe for 10 years,then diverted elsewhere.either its in you or its not.mad for tar…about 8 years ago i had the misfortune to try and calm down doing agency work n belfast,and finally realised my lifelong goal…i did some shifts for the council on the bins with 3 mad mental ■■■■■■ binnies…now,i do trips for the donegal mafia and similar…flat to the mat on trip money surrounded by bling…live the dream my man…live the dream…
aye peggydeckboy that is one o the most truthfull things I have seen written on here in years aye in rural areas driver jobs were the fall back jobs
I was brought up on a farm dad was the tractorman /driver for a big in them days farming outfit all over the south Scotland borders with haulage ,milk,cattle,sheep grain 3 slaughterhouses., and I couldn’t wait to get away in a float to help…anyway left school ,day after I turned 16 hated school and the teachers thought I could do better,farm work,started a heavy goods apprentice lasted a few months jees no money couldn’t even buy a pushbike, self employed in the forests (late 70s ) driving a ford 4x4 winch then Maggie T fkd up my local area and I had the chance o a job as a machine operator (aged 19) with the local highways department ,passed my class1 did my time working up the SHT pole to low loaderman… 
.Then I just walked away to do a long distance job on a lhd drawbar outfit, after a few years worn out and feed up with the world (a chip on both shoulders)and working for some right cowboys landed a job quite by chance I stuck for 21yrs not the best money but it was stable enough to get married /family …times got hard again a chance to move to Canada came along and we grabbed it with all hands. Would I do it again yes parts of i 
t but I would have been an old worn out/bad tempered highway worker now and missed the chance o starting a new life in Canada.
My maternal grandfather pushed me to being a driver like he did on 100 ton Scammels. Dad was a driver who said he would throttle me if I ever went driving, stand by there’s time yet, he’s still a big lad!
Grandad hauled out of Liverpool docks and used to say " when we get our own wagon son…"
Would I go into road haulage/transport industry again?
Not a chance! Far too many rules for this and that.
As I say to my grandson now…
… When we get our wagon son…
Hey, easy and not easy to say, if you were good at school, then it would have been stupid.
For me, think was made in a lorry and born with a steeringwheel in my body , it was only the way to go, and never
liked school even hated. Was more in the yard and dad’s truck as at school.
But has been very happy today, that I have stopped driving sinds several year.
As a driver here today you are hunted (by police) and seen as a big malefactor.
Every haulier who still work with Belgians is afraid to see his old drivers to retire.
And sure, the youth is cleverer not to go for driving today.
There was a time fathers said here, if my son wants to go in de coalpits as I did, I would cut off their hands.
Today lots of driver are saying the same, and I too.
Eric,
I really don’t think I had much of a chance, as far back as I can remember I’ve had truckitis, I even applied for driving jobs while I was still at high school… I’ve tried to escape a few times but never felt right doing anything else… Sometimes it’s not the best job in the world… and I’ve been through some crap and not just at the start…but it’s taken me to places I didn’t even knew existed… I’ve seen and done things that most folk wouldn’t believe… Most of my career path has been a cross between dumb luck and a naive blunder … It’s almost killed me on more than a few occasions… I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up…
Going by what most of the rest of you have said I think I did the right thing by coming down here… yes we have OH& S but in most places we go to it’s not that strict… There are a few places that are totally over the top… but at the other end of the stick we still run log books, and there are still vast areas where there is no kind of mobile phone service…
They say that Australia’s 15 years behind the rest of the world, and Tasmania is 15 years behind Australia… so I guess we’re still in the 80’s …
I still get to drive big HP trucks on dirt roads… most days that’s good… some not so much…most of the time it’s just get on with the job and do it the best you can, keep going until you finish…
You can’t have it all good, and with out the bad times you wouldn’t appreciate the good, there are things that as a knee jerk reaction I would like to change, but if I hadn’t gone through them I wouldn’t be where I am now…
I don’t think I could have done some kind of 9 to 5 at the same place every day… but when I’m out and about at all hours of the week and weekend looking at normal folk getting one with their family stuff, or going on pre planned holidays it does make wonder…
If I knew the future back then… 85 % yes… 15 % probably… but 6 numbers for next weeks lottery would be equally as good…
Jeff…
Well school wasnt my thing,i have dyslexia and when i back in the days if you had dyslexia you were stupid they said,well atleast here in Sweden… So grandpa was a farmer and dad a trucker so i have diesel in my blood… My son have dyslexia to but to day its a whole new ballgame,he al the help he can and doing great in school witch make me werry happy! The only truck he like is our old lb 81,he wash it and i cant evan start it with out him. But his not going to drive trucks he says.
But i just love my job and would do it al agin 100%
Danne
I was driving small pickups and graduated to Class 1 and had a great twenty-five years on artics before having to leave the profession when both hips needed replacing at the same time. If I knew then what I know now would I do it again? You bet, but with one difference. After driving the sealed roads of Australia for many weeks at a time in a campervan I would have emigrated in my early twenties when it was very easy to do so and would have spent my life driving road trains over there. I’ve had long conversations with many road train drivers in Australia and never came across one who regretted what he was doing. In fact, when asking one driver what his wife thought about his being away from home for many weeks a a time, he said ‘I’ll do this job until she gets fed up with it, then she’ll have to go’! If you can’t say that it’s diesel and not blood that runs through your veins, then it wasn’t really the job for you!