Hi All,
I’m keen to find out what it was that sparked your interest to start your career as a lorry driver?
What are your thoughts on why people aren’t applying for these roles now a days?
Thanks for your input!
Probably like many others I did it because I like driving,especially the challenge of driving large trucks,and travelling long distances on open roads,preferably through spectacular scenery.
IE the very anti thesis of most of the types of jobs on offer within the UK transport scene, especially in recent years.Which probably answers your second question. 
I agree with Carryfast. I would add that a fascination with transport from childhood was another motivator. One of the attractions for me was the mastery of the controls of a heavy lorry which I felt set us apart from other motorists because we took a pride in honing those skills. If you didn’t, you failed the test and would probably never get the lorry out of the yard! Again, this answers your second question. If lorries drove themselves like they do today, I don’t suppose I’d have shelled out for the course.
A third element is that of independence. We used to leave the yard and get on with the job, occasionally ringing base from telephone boxes. Now you’ve got cameras in your face and computers micro-managing every ■■■■ and breath. The fourth element is gross over-regulation which is strangling transport: it was bearable when I passed my test. Robert (retired)
Because when i was a small child a builders merchant wagon came through the back of my dads car showering us in glass. the guy felt that bad he gave us a lift home.
i dont remember the cause of the accident but i know we were waiting to turn right onto a side street.
the driver was a proper gent. calling me sir (at the age of 3 or so that was a huge deal i felt so grown up) was very apologetic and helped my dad move the car out of the way then empty all his stuff out of it and dropped us at home helping us unload dads stuff again.
was my first taste of being in a wagon and i loved it. a year or so later i got to ride in a fire engine after helping put a fire out which probably involved me throwing a spade of sand on a bush but my dad blagged them to give me a lift round the corner.
every driver i spoke to after that was so helpful and passionate about the industry. its all ive wanted to do for as long as i could remember.
more recently at the age of 17 -21 hitch hiking around the country ive found wagon drivers to be so helpful and friendly. The camradrie was one of the main things that drew me to the industry.
So as you can imagine that once i passed my class 1 and started driving i had a massive shock to find that all i mentioned above has been for the most part left in the past. most drivers barely grunt at each other let alone help each other out anymore.
i remember at a services years ago seeing a driver struggling to blindside an artic into a space and 4 drivers got out to watch him back. last week i saw the same senario but the wagon drivers either laughed at the struggling driver or closed windows to cut out the irritating reversing bleeper.
my dissapointment aside i adore this job. not many people get to do their dream job from their childhood but ive been one of the luckyones who has managed it.
i get paid to see this countries amazing scenery. i meet new people every day and no 2 days are alike. and i get paid a bomb for my age and area.
Grew up around lorries and when I was unemployed at age 23 did my class 1.
Keep going back to it and may do again.
Helpfully you chose the title you did as I can answer truthfully.
I did drive many years ago when HGV licences were new. I did so because I had always grown up around lorries and did enjoy driving and navigating them into and out of tight spots. That was always a challenge. And there was a bit of money to earn whilst I did what I enjoyed. My father and uncles had been in and around transport for years so it felt natural.
But my father was very disappointed when I chose to do so! “Once a lorry driver, always a lorry driver” he told me, repeatedly. He had left driving years before and was then successfully running a garage. After a year or so of driving I learned that, whilst I was enjoying myself, I was never going to become comfortably off if I did continue driving. Fate then took a hand and served me up something very different that, whilst taking me away from lorries and the road, gave me what I could use to vastly increase my income and lead to a long term career. I can only say I am glad I took it up.
Now that all sounds very disparaging to others on this forum. I most certainly do not mean to be rude or critical of anybody. I read this forum simply because the posters mostly seem to be wonderful people who have done exactly what they wanted, be it as a driver or a creator of an enterprise, and all seem to have loved it. I guess I am slightly different.
But I think all who visit this forum have a common interest in heavy vehicles, their history and engineering.
I was brought uo among wagons, Two of my great uncles were haulage men, Smiles for Miles, & T.Boiston & Sons, I used to go with them on my school holidays & messed on in both their garages The first wagon I drove at 19 years old was an Austin 3 tonner, I then went on to work for a couple of other firms, When I was 21 years old I got a job driving for Baxters Road Services on Newcastle Quayside, I drove a three wheeler Scammell mechanical horse for a while then I was promoted to a Type A Bedford on long distance runs mainly Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, And as years went on I got a brand new 4 wheeler Atki running further afield at times, I drove a MK 5 AEC 8 wheeler for Smiles running mostly London & South Wales . Then in 1972, I bought a S20 Foden 8 wheel tipper & went on to run 4 more with my two sons who served their time as fitters before joining the family business which lasted 28 years, Regards Larry.
Like many others I spent all my summer holidays in the cab with dad but he always said don’t do it son but I was facing redundancy from my warehouse job but the boss said the if I took my class 1 he would find a job for me, which I did and I could see dads point about being away from your family but there’s something about driving that gets in your blood.
Starting as an 8 year old sitting on the bonnet of either a 1950 Leyland Beaver or a 1954 Leyland Comet and then later in the passenger seat of firstly a 5ton Trader which was then replaced with a 7 ton Trader. Went all over the North of England and Southern Scotland, lapped it up, “this is for me”, and it was ! 
Cheers Bewick.
Was working in a warehouse aged 24 fancied a change thought lorry driving looked easy enough so did my licences,no childhood story here I’m afraid.
Brought up with a lorry driving father, became a commercial vehicle fitter at 15 and then switched over to driving at aged 32 as it was (a) better for my health and (b) there was far more money driving them than repairing the things and less hours spent out of the house. However, before redundancy, I ended up both driving AND mending it, best of both worlds and would do it all over again given the chance.
Pete.
robert1952:
I agree with Carryfast. I would add that a fascination with transport from childhood was another motivator. One of the attractions for me was the mastery of the controls of a heavy lorry which I felt set us apart from other motorists because we took a pride in honing those skills. If you didn’t, you failed the test and would probably never get the lorry out of the yard! Again, this answers your second question. If lorries drove themselves like they do today, I don’t suppose I’d have shelled out for the course.A third element is that of independence. We used to leave the yard and get on with the job, occasionally ringing base from telephone boxes. Now you’ve got cameras in your face and computers micro-managing every ■■■■ and breath. The fourth element is gross over-regulation which is strangling transport: it was bearable when I passed my test. Robert (retired)
+1 that’s about the total answer required with my own proviso,i was mad for tar…after a brief 3 trips to Saudi and a few years around Europe then chasing prozzies in the clowes,preston or Liverpool docks didn’t exactly compare… 
Again like others on this forum I grew up around lorries and general haulage. My first journey was at 5 years old in 1954 in the cab of a 1942 Leyland Lynx. After a varied career in and around transport and distribution,including a spell in my twenties scratching the particular itch of driving, I am still managing a transport business in my mid-sixties. There is no way on this earth that I would want to drive a truck every day now, for the reasons given by Robert and others, I feel that my generation had the best days of the job, warts and all. In my time I have worked for the very biggest of privately owned transport and distribution companies and I enjoyed every minute of it. Nowadays at the end of my career the company I work for is probably not very typical of most, in that we do have some young drivers in their twenties, and it is very much a family business, with fathers and sons, brothers, cousins and other distant relatives of the owner and employees employed. Our Class 1 drivers range in age from 20 to 67. I’m probably about the only one out of 30 employees not related to somebody else, so it is an uncommon company. The young drivers are trained to handle powder tankers, flat trailers, fridges, and curtain siders, and they enjoy the variety of work. The owner keeps a smart fleet and we have a few trucks finished to show standards for drivers interested in that side of things. Earnings for drivers here are above average, we are busy with work, and I have a waiting list of potential employees, so we must do something right!
I always loved lorries, when other kids bought New Musical Express or Autocar, i used to buy Commercial Motor and Headlight.
Soon as old enough started driving vans and moved on to 7.5 tonners, then when 21 got me artic licence and have been at the helm ever since really, got 5 years to go before retirement and hoping i can see me time out doing what i always wanted to do.
After 13 years or was it 11?, can’t bloody remember now, of mixture of general and bulk/rolonoffs etc, i had a good break which put me in place for one of the best night trunking jobs of the 80’s, when redundancy saw that end i got a chance on car transporters and did near enough 20 years on those with a few years on Kwik Save in between, luckily i managed to find a good tank job on a very old family own account operator 5 years ago so unless they twig i’m a useless bugger i’ll hopefully see me time out here.
Overall since the 80’s i’ve stayed at the top end of the earnings for drivers so had my fair share of luck, and you do need to make your own luck in this game if you don’t have someone to open doors for you.
I wouldn’t do it again now with the automation and the monitoring and spying involved (which is destroying the industry if they did but know it by the ethos of lowest common denominator), i only wanted to be in full control of a real lorry not attend a steering wheel and now we get the lorry to brake for us, soon it will be taking over the steering
But then that was then and this is now, i suppose the old steam lads wouldn’t have wanted any of the last 40 years either, we’re all in our own time warp i suppose and maybe we all think our time was the best.
The lads starting out now will tell youngters in 40 years time how good it was in 2016 in comparison.
I have no complaints, i don’t have the mentality for working in an office/warehouse/factory environment, don’t like people that much to be honest prefer dogs and cannot play office politics, if someone is a twerp they’re going to get told so sooner or later, i made mistakes left jobs i shouldn’t have…made life choice mistakes i shouldn’t have, haven’t we all.
I blame my Dad,As a kid he used to take one of us to work in a Bedford bonneted tipper around the Forest of Dean,he was a bricklayer by trade but used to fetch the sand.bricks etc.Its not a job now its a disease you cant cure. I retired some years ago but cant give up looking at tippers when out and about.
I also blame my dad. I even got ran over when I was about 3 running Accross the road to see my dad as he had brought the unit home. My head did more damage to the car than the car did to me lol. And then as I got a little older my dad even took me to Europe with him and I knew all through school that’s what I wanted to do and I did it…and then you go to your first rdc job and get spoken to like dirt and no other drivers will help you out they would rather just ignore you.
my dad bought a bus around the time I was born, then a lorry, then another bus , then another couple of lorries , and so on and so forth , so I don’t really know anything else. this is me and thames trader number 3 , if I wasn’t in a lorry , I was in a bus.
When I was but a child 
the father of one of my mates drove an 8 wheel Octopus, I thought “that’s the job for me when I grow up”. I went to grammar school (wasted my opportunity,I was a square peg in a round hole) I just wanted to be a lorry driver. When the time came I started at the bottom (van lad), worked my way up, and got 100% satisfaction from my working life. Sure, there were crap days, but there were many many good days. I started on lorries at 16 and I finished on lorries at 65.
I don’t think I’d want to do the job now, horrendous congestion on the roads, EU regs., mobile phones, very little skill and trust needed etc etc etc.
No, we were a different breed back in the day and I’ve no desire to go back. How many of todays young drivers can tie a double dolly with their eyes closed ■■?
grumpy old man:
No, we were a different breed back in the day and I’ve no desire to go back. How many of todays young drivers can tie a double dolly with their eyes closed ■■?
Might be able to…spent all my holidays in the cab with my Dad, first in a tipper then a flatbed hauling lime out of Dove Holes Quarry and potatoes at night, so I learned to rope and sheet in the 70s. Not roped and sheeted for about 30 years though. Loved being out with my Dad, the thrum of the engine, running up to Aberdeen during the night - too young to understand the hours and the toll it took on my dear old Dad. I learnt to read via maps there, learnt that being polite got you a lot, lot further than being a pain in the a***. Proper University of Life stuff.
Probably shouldn’t answer this as I never got round to doing my Class 1. Started as a forkie, then onto vans and 7.5s, went round the UK and Europe with those for a few years. Couple of years in an office with a top bloke for a boss then left and started on my own with a couple of vans. Crept up to a 7.5 then artics. During which time I twice got my provisional, first time was when you could just move straight to artics instead of faffing with Class 2. Running your own business means no time though, so it never happened and seems pointless now.
But in the spirit of the OPs question, I still love the haulage industry as a whole and given that I’m more practically minded than desk minded, and that I could never never work for a big corporate firm, it gives me the best chance of making some half decent money. It also means that I can run the business a bit old school. I think that means that my lads will still behave like drivers should, not overly insular, OK to give you a dig out if it’s needed.
I can’t see me ever taking my Class 1 now, no need and trucks these days aren’t the beasts that I knew and loved, too much automated gubbins. I am about to take an old Scania 580 off the road and pondering about downplating her and running her as a pet project. nearest I’ll get now.
Sorry wandered off topic a bit there.
I wouldn’t feel guilty about not taking your class 1 Albion, I never needed to as all we ran (at the time of my training and test, Winter '76) were rigids so the company I worked for taught me in an eight wheeler Foden and their training school artic remained parked up for the two weeks of my training. If I could make decent money driving something that didn’t bend in the middle and being home every night then that was good enough for me, I was content just reversing my caravan and trailer and never wanted to get involved with sheeting and roping either so I can’t tie a dolly knot!
Pete.