In the UK I think its more a case these days of its amazing what people won’t do unless you dangle a carrot.
I don’t know that it’s ever been any different. Most of us commenting here have been at small firms and done continental, that was always a different world to the likes of Stobarts or the Supermarkets.
I had what was reputed to be the best job there was at Solstor and there was tons of ■■■■■■■■ going on there.
Everyone wanted to do the Greek job as it was a proper doss, a day hanging around in Brindisi before the boat, 36hrs on the boat and then you were almost always on a beach or in Glyfada for the weekend before another doss in Patras and another 36hr boat crossing.
You should’ve seen the looks you got when you got given a load down there, get two on the spin and quite a few “mates” wouldn’t talk to you for months 
Personally I liked a Paris or a Dijon, at a push a Chalons or a Corbas for Monday am, get that on a Friday and I used to park in my mate’s yard, be in my local and my own bed on Friday and Saturday and ship out Sunday and give it big licks down the road, I earned the same money as the rest of them and they were all giving it large portions to get somewhere decent for the Sunday shutdown, while I had the easy life 
You dont get many real drivers in the uk nowadays just steering wheel attendants that cant even do that right.
Theres no fun in the job now as most will have there grub and shower and retire to the tin can with there tablet or laptop.
Walk into a truckstop nowadays and unless it busy everyone will be sat at seprate tables instead of comunicating with each other and finding out what is happening up or down the road traffic wise that may save them an hour and a gallon or two of fuel.
wow i can remember running to brindisi for chris simpson (as an od) on my 1st trip i asked where the electric hook up was as running out of fuel in the trailser and got blank looks!
was given some black fuel and told to run the fridge for the trip 
I wouldn’t get to carried away it’s just 90% of the forum users are the 5% of big mouth ■■■■■■■■■ you will meet in real life driving lorry anywhere in the world.
Back to the original point yes there’s a driver shortage. Partly due to the CPC few older drivers who were doing a few days here and there have jacked it in but there’s been a shortage of younger drivers for various reasons but mainly as its a pretty crap job for the last 20 years.
Zero hour contracts and using agency employees is the root of half the problems for many jobs for the UK not how much of a supertrucker anyone is
Those are problems for the existing driver pool, the lack of new entrants is a bigger problem.
Imagine being a kid now, you couldn’t go out with your Dad in the lorry, too many rules and regulations preventing that at most firms. Even if you could, what would you see? Traffic, poor facilities, all the HSE BS and even when you were out on the road you have speed cameras every 5mins, or safety partnership vans hidden away in a bush trying to take your money and license off you at every opportunity.
Add to that Kevin’s input, zero hour contracts, agencies blah blah.
You’d have to be a special kind of idiot to want to get involved in that on a daily basis.
Mark has hit one nail right on the head, It was only me riding along as a kid that got me interested in the first place, I also took my son along every Friday night (until that ■■■■■ vanished with him and his sister, along with her boss) I got him back though 
I’m only in the job today because I grew up with it. I started going with my dad from the age of 5 all over Europe and from the age of about 8 onwards his boss promised me a job when I was older, obviously not expecting me to take him up on the offer. Many years later at the age of 21 I took him up on the offer and that was that. Did a few months on UK only and then 3 years of mainly Swiss and Germany with the odd week in the UK and from the age of 25 I’ve been here in Canada. I do miss the UK and especially European driving but so much enjoyment has been taken from the job for the reasons that Mark says above that really that job is just a memory, rather than anything that could be relived in any proper way.
In a way though, my childhood in trucking has made me very inflexible to new ways of doing things in the UK. My head is stuck in the 90s when I do think things were done a hell of a lot better, but because I’ve being taught a certain way and witnessed things being done a certain way, that’s how I want and expect to do them now and unfortunately that’s just not compatible with great swathes of UK transport. There are still plenty of small firms around who leave you to get on with the job without all the BS but they’re getting fewer and I hopefully have quite a few years ahead of me yet. This is one of the reasons why I gave it a go in Canada, I see no future in the job in the UK for someone with my mentality and my utter refusal to bend to how they want things done now.
I’m only in it coz came out of the army in 99 with a young family and no real prospects. Landed a job doing car recovery in a FL6 5 car transporter all over Europe and never looked back. Got bitten by the bug I guess.
I followed my Dad, who followed his, so when I started my education in 1970 things were very different to what they were when my Dad started going with his Dad in the 50s, by the time my boy came out with me in the 90s it was a totally different world and as each generation had done a bit better than the last the expectations of the next generation were higher.
For example at the end of my Dad’s career he was a tanker driver, pretty much top of the food chain in driver’s wages. Following him my own path took me over the water, one for the money, but also for the adventure, although mostly for the money. Then I bought my own lorry and ended up running a few, my own son was obviously used to a certain standard of living and by the time he was old enough to follow in my tyre tracks there was no way he could maintain his standards driving a lorry, so he had absolutely no interest in the job at all. He had been out with me in school holidays to loads of exotic places and enjoyed it very much, but as a job, no way.
100% agree h&s has ruined the flow of younger drivers coming through because they went with dads/grandads etc. when they were young.
why else would a young adult want to get up at 3am be treat like scum by tranposrt managers/planners/flt driver/joe public etc? for about a £1 an hour more than an office job?
dont get me wrong i work in an office now and miss some of the sights and place we used to go but dont miss the attitude of rdc’s etc.
have looked several times at canada but see too many people who go and come back within a couple of years! is it really any better?
Is Canada better? I would say yes, those that have been and gone back would say no.
So many things can make the dream become a nightmare, so it really is a huge gamble to take.
No tacho rules or dcpc, not even full adr on the Isle of Man, but you may go round in circles 
paul IOM:
No tacho rules or dcpc, not even full adr on the Isle of Man, but you may go round in circles
Not ‘long haul’ there then LOL
I was 21 and fishing out of Plymouth, came back in with our catch late at night and there was a truck there waiting for us. We had to load it the next morning.
I made some breakfast for the driver and we got chatting and he told me about the job. We went home for 2 days off, I booked driver training and test for a fortnight’s time, packed in the fishing job and never looked back.
From what I’ve seen on tv that deep sea fishing is a hard life. Driving a lorry must be like a holiday compared to that.
Is Canada worth it?? I would say yea sure but it’s not for everyone.
Some don’t like the weather and some don’t like the long hours and can’t get on with the distances involved
The problem is that truck driving in the uk has become like a 9 to 5 for some.
Drivers who enjoy a challenge, enjoy the responsibility, being left alone to get a job done no matter what are getting scarce.
Lots of them want to be handed keys, a route plan, a timed delivery and a finishing time before they leave the office and just put in the bare minimum to get the day done.
It’s not all there fault though, it’s the way some sectors of the industry want it, supermarket work for instance.
Still lots of good drivers about though, we just tend not to get involved in the bitchiness of it all and just get on with whatever needs doing to get the job done.
I always enjoyed a challenge also, that’s why I was the first Tesco driver to quit what had to be one of the easiest and best paid jobs in the UK and go and work for a show company, driving for one to 4 days then setting up the show and display somewhere, I got time in hotels if it was a long show, it was very hard work setting things up but the job satisfaction was good.
newmercman:
From what I’ve seen on tv that deep sea fishing is a hard life. Driving a lorry must be like a holiday compared to that.
They’re only part timers out of Plymouth, got in late at night and had to unload next morning ■■? Why the delay ! I started my sea going career fishing out of Lowestoft doing 13 day trips and then 48hrs off but then fancied going fishing of Iceland and did one trip … ■■■■ that ! then decided to go lorry driving among other things and become a lazy ducker.