I will be vilified for this and told I am ■■■■-holing up to VDB and the Den Hartogh boss. I can confirm that the carriage of ADR regulated goods is very low in Erp and Amsterdam from my own experience.
It is a very one sided documentary which tries to shock, no mention of the Dutch driver who fell asleep on the A67 after using a magnet, no mention of the English drivers who kept hitting a railway bridge. The film shows drivers cooking in and around their trailers with open flames, it shows them drinking around the trailers, but it doesn’t show the two companies mentioned on that part. How many drivers in the UK are cab catering, living in a lay by and ■■■■■■■ up the wheels because it is too far to walk to the toilet.
I worked at Norman Lewis who had his office & trailers registered in Holland to be able to get permits, the main work was from Germany and I know drivers who had done that job for 30 years and were quite proud of the fact they only spoke English. If you rang the Dutch office, it was unmanned, a PO Box no which had a bank account attached to it.
One company that was shown but not featured was Bertschi who have been using Eastern Bloc and Russian drivers for at least 25 years. They too used to travel by bus to the East German depot. Bertschi have lorries registered in every state of the EU despite being Swiss owned. They have very few Swiss registered lorries apart from the likes of Furrer AG. The system in BASF was geared up to the fact that there were drivers from all over Europe, who only spoke one language, but it wasn’t a safety issue.
There is nothing new on this film that hasn’t been happening since I started lorry driving. English drivers working for Italian, French, Dutch and German companies. I have worked for the Belgians, the Dutch, French and Germans using British documents, a simplified ADR exam and 20 hours driver training. Their own drivers had to sit through regular training sessions and diplomas.
I have loaded from companies in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and have met some great local drivers along the way, those who would help you in the factories and explain the procedure, even if it was with a few grunts, hand signals and drawings. We have had it our own way for a long time, the East are becoming stronger, their infrastructure is improving, many companies who were big names in Western Europe have relocated to the East because like Caledonia Dream has mentioned, you, me, your mother and grandparents want more affordable goods.
We are just going to have to accept that we are too expensive as drivers, road transport is too cheap and there are far too many lorries on the roads fighting for part loads.
It isn’t the Polish companies that are filling our supermarket shelves with horse, it is the shareholders greed who own the suppliers in Ireland and the UK who are buying it in. To be honest the best thing has happened with these meat scares. I went to my local butcher as I normally do and the place was full of customers, they will trust local suppliers, we have just had a local greengrocer open a shop using local produce and not buying it in from South Africa or Africa. Obviously his Oranges and Bananas are coming from Spain but the more local stuff we buy and use will help negate the need for cheap drivers.
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