Winseer:
The increase in traffic is more about “too many people on the roads for free” rather than any particular upturn in the economy.
If it’s cheaper for you personally to use a road vehicle to get about - you’re going to do that.
Vans on self employed, company cars, reps on expenses - none of these represent the “transport industry” do they?
…Nor public transport come to that.
Motoring should not be made cheaper for those who are already on a good wage in the non-transport sector in my view.
If we all had to pay full price for our fuel, insurances, maintenence, and actual driving qualifications - there would be a whole lot less traffic on our roads full stop!
Sounds like you are saying the road network should be for trucks only and every other vehicle should be banned from them !!
The road should be for businesses that have paid to use it, and individuals that have paid to use it. NOT individuals and businesses that have charged the taxpayer to use it.
Who are you thinking about??
I’m thinking of someone on a salary of £50k+ who gets paid the full expenses for things like fuel, maintenence on the car, luncheon vouchers used at MSAs, and as a consequence also upholds daft high prices at the same - then submits a tax offset for the whole lot. The rest of us mere mortals might get a deduction of 20p in the pound for fuel and grub if we’re lucky - not the entire cost of the motoring.
Look into vehicles passing you on the motorway…
Are they on their own? More often than not “Yes”.
Do they look like they are at working or taking a leisure spin?
When the traffic grinds to a halt - those on their own time can take detours, go off-route, etc as befits them. Those working are more restricted, and will probably have to sit in it. If they sit in it - the traffic jam becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s the back roads that get snarled up with the “own expense” traffic.
“Rush Hour” traffic starts when the afternoon school run traffic hits the roads, and ends when the bulk of people who’ve finished between 5-6pm have got past. That’s a lot more than an hour.
Commuters who have to pay to go to work - are shelling out a fortune if they use public transport - but not so if they get a tax offset vs their own driving.
HMRC says you can’t claim for a regular commute - but I reckon this is one of the most fiddled tax offsets in the book, since a fuel receipt doesn’t even show where you’ve been - let alone what you were using the vehicle for.
If tax offsets were not available - more people would go back to public transport, fuel prices everywhere would be closer together, and MSA’s would start giving you change out of a £20 note when you buy a couple of bits and bobs in the shop.
Thanks for everyone’s input. After careful thought, I have decided I won’t be taking up this particular job offer.
Nights out are one thing if you are doing tramping or way up in Scotland beyond any reasonable chance of returning within ten hours, but don’t want to run out of hours within 30 miles of base, which could potentially be the case with this particular role.
LIBERTY_GUY:
Thanks for everyone’s input. After careful thought, I have decided I won’t be taking up this particular job offer.
Nights out are one thing if you are doing tramping or way up in Scotland beyond any reasonable chance of returning within ten hours, but don’t want to run out of hours within 30 miles of base, which could potentially be the case with this particular role.
Why not find somewhere suitable and safe to park with in that 30 miles, and base your car there. Half an hour’s drive home one gallon of diesel a day, and get paid a night out , another £120 a week …everybody’s happy.
Oh, and the answer is Yes it has. My mate came off the road for 10 years, came back and told me he could not believe how traffic had increased since.
Where as I had not noticed, as the change for me was gradual.
LIBERTY_GUY:
Thanks for everyone’s input. After careful thought, I have decided I won’t be taking up this particular job offer.
Nights out are one thing if you are doing tramping or way up in Scotland beyond any reasonable chance of returning within ten hours, but don’t want to run out of hours within 30 miles of base, which could potentially be the case with this particular role.
It would only be in extreme cases that you would be nighting out though. You must be based Notts/Lincs area? You should make it easily within your time even with the roadworks at Leeming Bar. You could say the same about any run throughout the country, look at the M62 chaos today.
LIBERTY_GUY:
Thanks for everyone’s input. After careful thought, I have decided I won’t be taking up this particular job offer.
Nights out are one thing if you are doing tramping or way up in Scotland beyond any reasonable chance of returning within ten hours, but don’t want to run out of hours within 30 miles of base, which could potentially be the case with this particular role.
It would only be in extreme cases that you would be nighting out though. You must be based Notts/Lincs area? You should make it easily within your time even with the roadworks at Leeming Bar. You could say the same about any run throughout the country, look at the M62 chaos today.
Sadly a bit further away than that… South Staffs/West Midlands area. Its over 50 miles just to get to the M1, via the A38. Took me over five hours last October to get to Newcastle in my car, courtesy of endless 50mph limits on roadworks everywhere and that was on a Saturday morning.
Trouble is, I have found hauliers will tell you anything at interview nowadays to get drivers onto their payroll. The three or four nights out per year just didn’t ring true somehow.
LIBERTY_GUY:
Thanks for everyone’s input. After careful thought, I have decided I won’t be taking up this particular job offer.
Nights out are one thing if you are doing tramping or way up in Scotland beyond any reasonable chance of returning within ten hours, but don’t want to run out of hours within 30 miles of base, which could potentially be the case with this particular role.
It would only be in extreme cases that you would be nighting out though. You must be based Notts/Lincs area? You should make it easily within your time even with the roadworks at Leeming Bar. You could say the same about any run throughout the country, look at the M62 chaos today.
Sadly a bit further away than that… South Staffs/West Midlands area. Its over 50 miles just to get to the M1, via the A38. Took me over five hours last October to get to Newcastle in my car, courtesy of endless 50mph limits on roadworks everywhere and that was on a Saturday morning.
Trouble is, I have found hauliers will tell you anything at interview nowadays to get drivers onto their payroll. The three or four nights out per year just didn’t ring true somehow.
. Keep trying though, there are some jobs out there like that! Just that people like to keep them to themselves. I know of a job where nights out are set every week, max 2 a week, same drivers do them, everyone else gets home every night, all averaging around 40-50hrs per week.
LIBERTY_GUY:
OK here is the way it is. Haven’t driven a truck for a while now and not done distance work for over ten years, probably nearer fifteen. Someone has made me a provisional job offer, driving rigids on general haulage, for which I am told that nights out are only a few a year?
The work includes long distance, but I have real reservations that current traffic volumes would allow me to get them done in a day. i.e. Midlands to Newcastle and back in a day. That took me 5.5 hours in my car last year with all the roadworks everywhere. Being sensible, has the traffic got a lot worse in the last ten years and do many of those runs struggle to get done within the drivers hours now?
I’ll be honest and say I really don’t want to do nights out. The odd one, but certainly not on a regular basis, but not sure the haulier is just telling me what I want to hear, just to fill their vacancy. Do folks think giving this one a miss would be a good idea?
I know you’ve already refused the job, but it would depend where in the Midlands. I once did a night trunk run from Crawley to Northampton, and part of the job was taking a trailer out to Donington to swap with a guy from Newcastle, who could not do the whole run and back in the allotted time. That said, the journey time to the Midlands has probably decreased because of the upgrades to the A1(M) in Yorkshire (and upgrades in the Midlands, e.g. the A50, A46 and A42), so there are fewer roundabouts, but the roadworks on the M1 in South Yorkshire and the Sheffield-Mansfield stretch probably compensate.
In my experience, yes the traffic volumes are much higher as are the regularity of jams.
Worse of all is that it looks as if driving standards have gotten worse too. There are a lot of muppet out there who are less willing give you time or space.
peterm:
Being an occasional visitor to the good old UK, I can vouch for the traffic increase and said muppetry and berkism (waddaya think of that new word)
Nice choice of words bud,sums it up very well:wink:
Yes, the traffic is worse now than it was 10 years ago, it was worse 10 years ago compared to 20 years ago … and it will get progressively worse until something “big” happens to take vehicles/ drivers off the road, whether it be cost, change in technology, catastrophe, alien invasion, whatever. More cars on the roads, people are living longer (I’m sure I heard on the radio today that a 90yo received a 5 year driving ban for killing someone ), loads more vans (buy something online today, a van delivers it in the next day or two), more HGVs of all shapes and sizes and they’re all travelling further than ever daily.
20 years ago you could have an night/early morning/ Sunday run and have long periods without seeing another vehicle, 10 years ago and there’d always be some traffic in both directions, now we’re in a 24/7 society so there are people travelling to and from work along with goods vehicles making deliveries around the clock.
Hiya in 1974 i could leave Leek (staffs) at 4 am. drive almost to macclesfield turn left through Congleton to Holmes Chaple onto the M6 north to Haydock park 1 hour 5 mins. none stop no traffic lights and not see another lorry…there wasn’t any cars around much before 7 am in those day…carrying on past Haydock i would see maybe ten lorries before i got to lancaster. from lancaster to the services at Burton in Kendal 2 hours 20 mins…this was with a 32 ton Foden s39 with a Gardner 180 engine… now a days i’d have 7 speed cameras 4 villages with speed limits which had none 5 roundabouts the wasn’t there and 8 sets of traffic lights all to F …up your day. when i got on the M6 it was up to 60 mph and jam a lump of wood into the pedal and away you went until the first steep part at Chorley. can you imagine that today with lorries sitting side by side at 56mph for miles. one run the coppers stopped me just past the M55 and asked what i was up to. they said they never saw lorries around at that time in a morning. that would be just before 6 am but it was Monday morning. the Scotch lads would have run down Sunday and be in digs at Wigan or Sandbach maybe some at Stoke but that was the limit. the answer to your question is YES stacks more traffic… heres a good one 1974 at Dartford their was one pipe with 2 way traffic and not a lot of hold ups no bridge either.
John
Going back to the late 1970’s, you could go along the M6 Southbound through the West Midlands in the morning rush hour and the M6 would be free flowing. If you were going into Birmingham, you would catch the tailback of the traffic coming back along the Aston Expressway (A38), but the M6 itself wasn’t clogged up. Now that traffic tails back every morning beyond Walsall, beyond Cannock and many mornings as far back as Stafford. About once a fortnight I would do a night run from TRW valves at Wednesbury down to Ford at Dagenham and there would only be a handful of lorries on the M1 late evening.
A lot of factors have contributed to greater traffic (IMHO). Multiple car ownership within families, people commuting further distances to work, traffic moving from rail to road, the national obsession with shopping 24/7, also internet and web sites meaning people buying from further afield.
Not done distance work for over ten years now, but with many hauliers still wanting their trucks back in the yard every night, irrespective of traffic volumes, accident tailbacks, or everlasting roadworks etc. I’m truly not sure it’s somewhere I want to be again. Just keep my eyes open for local or mid distance work, but definitely no shop deliveries.
I’ve noticed it’s got a lot slower than ten years ago if that counts as worse. I blame the managed motorways … or are they called smart motorways now? The gantry will display 60 mph so some ■■■■ will sit in the middle lane doing 50 mph just in case they get flashed and choke up the whole motorway. Unless you try to pass them in lane one. Then they will throw caution to the wind and speed up to 56mph or whatever your limiter is set to.
), loads more vans (buy something online today, a van delivers it in the next day or two), more HGVs of all shapes and sizes and they’re all travelling further than ever daily.