Heya folks I am doing my class 1 next month and want to get onto stage truck, fly by night or somethimg similar. Will I come up agaimst the whole 2 year thing all over again? Any advice is greatly reciced thanks!
I would of thought someone with 2 years experience would struggle to get a start with them. But you never know.
hgvhgv:
Heya folks I am doing my class 1 next month and want to get onto stage truck, fly by night or somethimg similar. Will I come up agaimst the whole 2 year thing all over again? Any advice is greatly reciced thanks!
You may get lucky in maybe 10 years time.
hgvhgv:
Heya folks I am doing my class 1 next month and want to get onto stage truck, fly by night or somethimg similar. Will I come up agaimst the whole 2 year thing all over again? Any advice is greatly reciced thanks!
Don’t try to run before you can walk 
you’ve very little chance at the moment.
get some UK experience, try someone that does a mixture of maybe flatbed, low loader, and fridge work.
you’ve got a lot of mistakes to make yet. you don’t want to be making them 2000 miles from home.
the experience you’ll get in the UK can’t be matched anywhere else.
we have very congested roads, you’ll tip and load every day, you’ll do more reversing in one day than you’d do in a month on european work.
limeyphil:
you’ve very little chance at the moment.
get some UK experience, try someone that does a mixture of maybe flatbed, low loader, and fridge work.
you’ve got a lot of mistakes to make yet. you don’t want to be making them 2000 miles from home.the experience you’ll get in the UK can’t be matched anywhere else.
we have very congested roads, you’ll tip and load every day, you’ll do more reversing in one day than you’d do in a month on european work.
Very sensible advice ^^^^. I’d phone around agencies and get some city center multidrop. A year slogging around London and the M25 will prepare you for just about anything!. When I started out I’d volunteer for runs that I knew were difficult. I did a lot of building sites in congested cities with lots of tricky reversing. When you’ve got the experience you can approach the tour trucking companies and hopefully get the job you want.
Good luck 
Okay thanks for the info I will bear that in mind! I dont suppose class 2 counts towards experince for class 1 so its like starting over again?
hgvhgv:
Okay thanks for the info I will bear that in mind! I dont suppose class 2 counts towards experince for class 1 so its like starting over again?
In a way but not entirely 
There are far to many experienced euro drivers and far to few jobs. Some of those jobs and the pay are stunningly bad 
It’s not impossible but you will need to think outside the “driver” box a bit. A lot of small exhibition companies for example go abroad but you will be required to lift,carry, assemble, get the coffees etc etc and probably be in the factory helping out when there’s no driving to be done. A lot of euro drivers are just that. Steering wheel attendants only interested in the big shiny artic. Consider also removals companies. Lot of graft but a foot in the door, so to speak. You would be very surprised to see what gets on and off the ferries on UK plates these days. There’s plenty of stuff that isn’t haulage artics 
We’ve got an 18 tonner that spends probably 30-40% of it’s time all over Europe, in fact it just got back from Spain.
You’re really fighting an uphill battle to be honest so you need to load the scales in your favour as much as possible. Be enthusiastic, honest (the days of blagging it are long gone) and smart. The companies that will give you a chance will probably not be general hauliers but rather the specialised, high value or own account types who operate within a rate structure that allows them to give you easy schedules and mentoring. We have a young lad we took on last year. Started him on non LGV and then put him through his class 2 and then his 1. However even though he was known to us he was never let loose on his own straight away, he was always double manned with one of us to begin with. I took him on his first Euro trip to the South of France in the 18 tonner 
Then later on his first class 1 UK in mine. Not many companies can afford or have the inclination to do that these days though.
So difficult but not impossible if you don’t go for the obvious
hgvhgv:
Okay thanks for the info I will bear that in mind! I dont suppose class 2 counts towards experince for class 1 so its like starting over again?
Class 2 will help build your basic skills but when you call a company asking for class 1 work they wont even ask about class 2. Do some hard class 2 work first, london multi drop, builders merchant etc or work company that pushes you real hard, speaks to you like ■■■■ etc, then straight on to class 1 asap.
If you don’t mind going away for three or four months at a time, I might be able to get you onto a roadshow next year. Not making any promises but I normally hear about a few that are looking for a driver around Easter and they normally rate enthusiasm over experience.
Harry Monk:
If you don’t mind going away for three or four months at a time, I might be able to get you onto a roadshow next year. Not making any promises but I normally hear about a few that are looking for a driver around Easter and they normally rate enthusiasm over experience.
So you would put someone that you’ve never met, that you know absolutely nothing about, up for a job 
Not just any job either, but one that entails being away for three or four months
Unbelievable
I do hope that you’re a bit more selective if you ever get to the point of hiring a second driver, unless you don’t really mean what you just said and are trying to give it the big 'un on here
No, if hear about anything going away then I will put the OP onto it and then it’s up to him to apply for it in the usual way. Can’t really see where my post implied anything different to that really.
Harry Monk:
I might be able to get you onto a roadshow next year.
That’s the part that did it for me
You did say you wouldn’t make any promises, but your post did suggest that you would put a good word in, not as you said in your last response that you would give the OP the number of the firm doing the work
Yes, I would say to someone looking for a driver “I don’t know him but he seems enthusiastic, I’ve given him your number”.
And in fact, in the last half hour I have replied to a PM from someone looking for a very specific type of specialist work, and sent him a link to the company website, suggesting he applies. If the company in question asks me what I know about him, I would say exactly as I said above. Can’t give any more detail than that as PMs aren’t to be discussed in any detail on the forum, but if you wish I could ask him to visit this post to confirm the above?
So what you’re actually saying is ‘I know a few firms that have European work’ in which case you might want to say just that, to avoid any confusion
As it was first written it sounds as though you can get people jobs on a European Roadshow that lasts three or four months
You could PM the OP if you don’t want to put the firms name out for everyone to see, or if you/they ain’t too bothered about that you could post a link to their website and people could contact them that way
I have previously got a TruckNet member a long run of work, including several exhibition jobs after he sent me a PM, but I don’t see the point in discussing this any further, sorry.
No need to apologise Harry, your post was a bit ambiguous, now it’s all clear, glad to have been of assistance in helping you clear that up
I’m doing some exhibition work next month, this will be the first bit of “own work” I’ll have done but I’ll be seeing quite a few people that I know and obviously I’ll be touting for more exhibition and show work for myself, but I’ll also be finding out what tours are coming up and what the requirements are and if I can give the OP some pointers I will.
With tour work things like the ability to speak a foreign language, read a schematic or service a generator count for as much as experience, as well as a willingness to get stuck in and do anything required to make the tour run successfully. A lot of blokes say “I don’t make the coffee” or “I don’t do cleaning” and while that’s fair enough it isn’t what a client will be looking for no matter how much experience a driver has.
I’ll ask some questions and if the answers are any good to anyone I’ll pass them on.
Thanks Harry that would be awesome if you could thanks alot!
That’s better Harry
I’ve done a bit of tour work myself and you hit the nail on the head there, when doing it the answer to any question you’re asked has to be yes, the driving part of any tour is important and you will get respect for what you do, but the real work is done on site, building a relationship with the crew is essential
There can be a lot of extra work involved, one of the ones I did used rather old trailers and the extra work on those involved changing punctured tyres on a daily basis 
Helping with set up can earn you extra money, most tours provide food and accomodation too, it’s very different to normal lorry driving, better in some ways and worse in others, so it doesn’t suit everybody