Can’t imagine kids being that interested in “modern” haulage anyway. The odd times I’ve taken friends out in the truck they’ve been amazed upon first climbing into the cab (wow! It’s enormous! etc. etc.), thrilled upon first venturing out onto the road (look at all the cars! Don’t they look small?) and bored silly after the first hour staring at the motorway (how do you manage this for a whole shift?).
Bottom line is, if you’ve got the right temperament for this job - which I seem to have - you’ll enjoy it, if not, you won’t. But I agree that back in the day being taken out in the cab for a day would have been responsible for setting a lot of kids on the path to driving trucks.
Rhythm Thief:
Juddian:
Ok, i’ll bite.As a lad i wanted to drive proper lorries which needed skill and strength to operate correctly, i never wanted this modern crap and i still don’t, so i wouldn’t be coming into it now cos its too bloody easy and any bloody fool can and does do it.
As a young driver i was mentored by a few old hands, they taught me the right way to do things, i enjoyed roping and sheeting (and took a pride in it) and all the hard graft, the day you gained the respect of the old hands was a day indeed, puppy with two tails time.Whats missing most though is pride, pride in the job, pride in themselves and that driver common courtesy and mutual respect shown willingly to one another, all but bloody disappeared now.
Yes, to both these points. I’d give anything to go back to driving an ERF E series with a twin splitter. Or failing that, just something with a clutch pedal. Modern trucks are soooooo dull.
Yes ALL of the above is so right,well put by both of you.
I’m not sure if attitudes are different over the water when it comes to young people considering a career in the trucking industry, but I seem to see quite a lot of younger truck drivers when going to visit the in laws in Holland.
This guy seems to have done all right? He’s the son of a truck driver which is where he probably got his interest from? Apparently, he got his licence at 18 and got a job driving at the same firm his dad works for. Now, he’s 21 and driving a tidy looking truck from the video. Good on him !
Simple,not many people these days want to spend good money out to do a job that by tradition has been long hours and poor pay and now has that many rules and reg`s to contend with,and still be frowned for being one of them juggernaut drivers who block the road
When I turned 21 I expected a decent pay rise.
I got 50p per week putting me on £19 before deductions for a 5 1/2 day week.
I saved up out of that and got myself a class 1 for £180.
It was 1976 and not easy back then to get a driving job without experience
and especially not being from a haulage background.
I started at National Carriers and my first wage there was £45 mon - fri.
But of course there wasn’t all the ■■■■■■■■ and other bs about the job then.
Even so, I’m just doing this first round of dcpc which will take me up
to a couple of months shy of 65 and that will do nicely.
One reason it is declining is because the rubbish rates of pay that are on offer.
Just heard from a company I applied to late last year.
Class One work on an early Tuesday to Saturday or Sunday to Thursday.
The reward for giving all your weekends up not to mention your bank holidays?
A life changing £23800 before stoppages.
Yeah right.
Leave that one for the flip flops.
rivits:
I know you guys will find this incredible to believe but I will be 46 this year so it was nearly 41yrs ago when I started primary education. During my 7yrs at primary school on occasion the class teachers would ask the question ‘what do you want to do when you grow up?’ Well the answers would range from the usual air headed girls wanting to be air hostesses or models ( generally the uglier they were the higher the aspirations lol ) to some of the boys wanting to be professional football players or be the next James Bond however the more sensible ones would quote more realistic ambitions such as to be joiners or engineers, plumbers etc and I would say approx 3-4 out of 10 boys liked the idea of being a Lorry Driver. Fast forward 35yrs or so how many kids would want to do this job for a living?? Not many I will bet. I have read various conflicting reports on the matter but it would seem that the average age of the lorry driver is fast approaching 40yrs old which suggests there is no young blood coming into the industry. Why is this?The kit we use to do the job nowadays is immeasurably superior to what we veterans started out on, who would have imagined even 20yrs ago 600+ BHP , air conditioned cabs, automated transmissions etc etc, the modern truck is on par with most luxury cars however where the tackle has got better the rules and regulations have gotten to be absolutely ridiculous.Nowadays we have to contend with the most ludicrous practices in order to make a living such as…
(1) Digital Tachographs… We had a perfectly good system of paper charts but oh no, that could not be left alone, in comes new legislation demanding we all have to buy smart card and along with that ridiculous bureaucracy that came with it.
(2) Tachograph Legislation… A system of draconian rules and regulations ruthlessly enforced by various government agencies such as VOSA and the Police that can see an otherwise law abiding citizen procecuted and given a criminal record or possibly even jailed for minor offences that at one time would have been dismissed as a waste of the courts time.
(3) Speed Limiter Legislation… We can be trusted to carry freight worth several thousands of pounds in equipment that costs thousands but we cannot be trusted in where we position our right foot. As usual more rubbish out of Brussels that sees our speed limiters set at 4mph less than our legal motorway speed limit and off course vigorously enforced by the powers that be.
(4) Prehistoric Pay Rates…Putting up with all of the above for shocking pay rates not to mention awful working conditions. How many drivers do you guys know who get Bupa Health care, full pay when off sick or in general decent working conditions.
(5) Licensing Authorities… In any other walk of life if you commit a driving offence of any kind, you are caught and dealt with by the courts and that is the end of the matter but drive a lorry or a bus for a living you are hauled up in front of a government appointed civil servant in an ivory tower who then hands out additional punishment. Is that not a clear cut case of a violation of a drivers human rights being tried and sentenced for the same crime twice, disgraceful.
(6) Absolutely no respect… Whether it is a cheeky traffic clerk or cheeky awkward customers, it is not unusual to be spoken to like you are garbage from minions who wouldn’t have a clue how to do your job to them at the top of the tree who think its there right to look down their nose at the workforce who keep their business alive.
(7) High Taxation… The way the government hammer the industry with rip off road tax and fuel duty ensuring our wages are kept so lowly and the funny thing is, they go on about wanting freight off the road and treat us like garbage but the money grasping swines need our industry to keep the country alive.
(8) The Cost LGV Driver training… It costs an absolute fortune to train for an LGV license. They even had the cheek to abolish the right to go straight for a class one but brought out a new rule you had to sit a class 2 first doubling the already ridiculous cost of gaining an LGV never mind the medical cost and all the other rubbish that goes with it.
(9) Driver CPC…Another rip off, As I call it the Deplorable Cash Producing Con that sees experienced drivers who have worked in road haulage without incident all their lives suddenly now require to attend 35hrs of training every 5 yrs or they are adjudged to be unfit to do their job anymore. A system that sees the lucky candidates relieved of their hard earned cash to sit through the same garbage module 5 times to get a small plastic card to ensure they can continue to pay their mortgages. What other industry would put up with this? The unions attitude? Oh good you can pay us for the modules. The enforcement authorities attitude? get caught without it and we will hammer you into the ground. Oh and when we get this ‘professional qualification’ will professional pay rates follow? I doubt it very much.So if you have managed to read this without falling asleep does it surprise you in anyway why no young blood seem to be coming into the road haulage industry? Why put up with all of the above when you can stack shelves in a supermarket for more money and less hassle. I have never been fully able to understand why such an essential industry as the Road Haulage Industry is treated so badly by the government,its various agencies, its customers and the public at large. It makes me very sad that this proud industry seems to be dying on its knees.
I only hope sense can prevail and this industry be recognised for keeping the country and the economy moving but I wont hold my breath.
Just read some of the comments on the Bob Crows Dead thread and that’s why in my opinion in over 40 years in Road Transport why the industry has gone to the dogs
Both my late grandfathers were lorry drivers not truckers my Dad was a lorry driver as were his brothers I became a lorry driver after serving my time a City and Guilds qualified mechanic and so did both my brothers become lorry drivers
I’ve got 2 sons and thankfully they never followed the family tradition into Road Transport as neither did any of my 9 nephews
I think there are many reasons for a decline in interest by young people in being a truck driver.
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When I was a youngster, truck drivers were better paid and seemed to be held in higher regard by other people, especially those doing European. I think now it just not an attractive job to a youngster, especially as they’ll still unlikely to actually get a driving job until they’re 25+.
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The European thing it was still an adventure to get a truck across Europe when I was young and perceived as such by many as many people didn’t travel abroad a lot. And also there just aren’t the European jobs out there to tempt the more adventurous into te industry.
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Being around truck when younger, doesn’t happen so much now.
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Being independent, with tracking etc, you’re no longer your own boss when you leave the yard.
In Motorsport I seen plenty of young lads who drive trucks, the difference from haulage is often the teams pay for it, they’ve probably sat in the cab travelling round Europe with an old hand for a few years and the conditions they’ve experienced are better than haulage.
Your first indicator to answer your own question is that driving a truck has never been a “Career”, it’s a job. It is simply open to market forces of supply & demand as to how much we get paid.
I am 56 so have had 10 years longer in the indutry than you have, so therefore drove lorries 10 years older than you, the other poster whose Father is 76 drove lorries 30 years older than you, but they were still modern lorries in the day
rivits:
The kit we use to do the job nowadays is immeasurably superior to what we veterans started out on, who would have imagined even 20yrs ago 600+ BHP , air conditioned cabs, automated transmissions etc etc, the modern truck is on par with most luxury cars however where the tackle has got better the rules and regulations have gotten to be absolutely ridiculous.Nowadays we have to contend with the most ludicrous practices in order to make a living such as…(1) Digital Tachographs… We had a perfectly good system of paper charts but oh no, that could not be left alone, in comes new legislation demanding we all have to buy smart card and along with that ridiculous bureaucracy that came with it. We had log sheets and then log books before we got paper charts, all of which are open to abuse.
(2) Tachograph Legislation… A system of draconian rules and regulations ruthlessly enforced by various government agencies such as VOSA and the Police that can see an otherwise law abiding citizen prosecuted and given a criminal record or possibly even jailed for minor offences that at one time would have been dismissed as a waste of the courts time. The Ministry man used to sit on an overhead bridge with a note pad and take down registration numbers, he would then visit the company and see the log sheets, he would compare the time he saw you to the time you wrote on your log sheet, so if you were asleep in Glasgow, and he saw you at Scotch Corner, you would end up in court, just the same.
(3) Speed Limiter Legislation… We can be trusted to carry freight worth several thousands of pounds in equipment that costs thousands but we cannot be trusted in where we position our right foot. As usual more rubbish out of Brussels that sees our speed limiters set at 4mph less than our legal motorway speed limit and off course vigorously enforced by the powers that be. Speed limits are much lower in Europe for lorries. Brussels have not made us drop our speed limits, our Motorway limit was introduced to save fuel not lives. Of course speed limits are vigorously enforced in Europe too, perhaps more so than the UK.
(4) Prehistoric Pay Rates…Putting up with all of the above for shocking pay rates not to mention awful working conditions. How many drivers do you guys know who get Bupa Health care, full pay when off sick or in general decent working conditions. Some drivers do get BUPA care, salaried drivers normally get full pay when off sick and everyone has better working conditions than the 76 year old did when he first turned a wheel.
(5) Licensing Authorities… In any other walk of life if you commit a driving offence of any kind, you are caught and dealt with by the courts and that is the end of the matter but drive a lorry or a bus for a living you are hauled up in front of a government appointed civil servant in an ivory tower who then hands out additional punishment. Is that not a clear cut case of a violation of a drivers human rights being tried and sentenced for the same crime twice, disgraceful. The Traffic Commissioner does not sentence you again, he cannot fine you, he cannot touch your car licence, what he can do is remove or revoke your vocational or operators licence until you learn that you are a professional driver / operator and you are paid / charge more to be better than a commuter.
(6) Absolutely no respect… Whether it is a cheeky traffic clerk or cheeky awkward customers, it is not unusual to be spoken to like you are garbage from minions who wouldn’t have a clue how to do your job to them at the top of the tree who think its there right to look down their nose at the workforce who keep their business alive.
Queueing down the dock road in Liverpool for two days while the dockers had an extra cup of tea, went home to do the garden, put a bet on, or came to work ■■■■■■ and sat in their hut while you handballed everything off their pallets onto the the lorry bed, and then sheeted it up with a heavy tarpaulin, which you alone had to lift on top of the load because the crane driver had gone for mugga.
(7) High Taxation… The way the government hammer the industry with rip off road tax and fuel duty ensuring our wages are kept so lowly and the funny thing is, they go on about wanting freight off the road and treat us like garbage but the money grasping swines need our industry to keep the country alive.
VED and fuel duty is not the drivers problem, if the boss you work for isn’t passing on the cost of fuel to his customer or able to do simple sums before quoting for a job, it is the boss who has the problem and natural selection will put a stop to that.
(8) The Cost LGV Driver training… It costs an absolute fortune to train for an LGV license. They even had the cheek to abolish the right to go straight for a class one but brought out a new rule you had to sit a class 2 first doubling the already ridiculous cost of gaining an LGV never mind the medical cost and all the other rubbish that goes with it.
I was unfortunate enough to work for a company who only ran rigids, so I had to take my class three followed by my class one. The cost to me was a months wages. I don’t see much difference in the cost today.
(9) Driver CPC…Another rip off, As I call it the Deplorable Cash Producing Con that sees experienced drivers who have worked in road haulage without incident all their lives suddenly now require to attend 35hrs of training every 5 yrs or they are adjudged to be unfit to do their job anymore. A system that sees the lucky candidates relieved of their hard earned cash to sit through the same garbage module 5 times to get a small plastic card to ensure they can continue to pay their mortgages. What other industry would put up with this? The unions attitude? Oh good you can pay us for the modules. The enforcement authorities attitude? get caught without it and we will hammer you into the ground. Oh and when we get this ‘professional qualification’ will professional pay rates follow? I doubt it very much.
The car mechanic who has to buy his own tools to go to work with will probably disagree with the above point, the gas fitter who has to keep up his certification, the plumber who needs paperwork to work in his chosen industry, the construction worker who needs an epic card or a safety passport may do. The operator of a bulldozer or 360° excavator needs a certificate to drive it as well as experience. Even the taxi driver has to pay the local council for a medical and a licence before he can earn any money.
So if you have managed to read this without falling asleep does it surprise you in anyway why no young blood seem to be coming into the road haulage industry? Why put up with all of the above when you can stack shelves in a supermarket for more money and less hassle. I have never been fully able to understand why such an essential industry as the Road Haulage Industry is treated so badly by the government,its various agencies, its customers and the public at large. It makes me very sad that this proud industry seems to be dying on its knees.
Someone mentioned a shelf stacker who was earning £8 per hour, another mentioned a toilet cleaner on £9 per hour, these jobs are available, but they are not for a week or 40 hours, they are probably for 8 or 16 hours per week. There are thousands of jobs that pay more per hour than lorry drivers, but if you read pro rata in the job description, you need to dig deeper before jumping ship.
I only hope sense can prevail and this industry be recognised for keeping the country and the economy moving but I wont hold my breath.
The tyre manufacturer pays a basic factory wage to his employees, the girl behind the fuel service counter who is selling charcoal and coffee to a customer while you are trying to hand over your fuel card is on minimum wage, without them, or without tyres or fuel you are not going to work. HATO and DVSA officers earn less than you do, the civil servant who operates the camera on the road network doesn’t cause the accident and subsequent blockage, he may get the blame because you are late home, but he gets home late too, and it was all the fault of a professional lorry driver who hit a bridge, or overturned, or lost his load of sheep, beer, jars, timber, agricultural plant, or simply hit the central reservation.
Quite a rant whilst looking in on our vocation. When I started school, only one in ten houses had a refrigerator and one in three had a family car. 
Steve66:
One reason it is declining is because the rubbish rates of pay that are on offer.
Just heard from a company I applied to late last year.
Class One work on an early Tuesday to Saturday or Sunday to Thursday.
The reward for giving all your weekends up not to mention your bank holidays?
A life changing £23800 before stoppages.
Yeah right.
Leave that one for the flip flops.
Another reason is an increasing number of colleagues who can’t mind their own business and whinge when you start early, whinge when you finish early. They also whinge when you get back after them but leave before them, because they’re hanging out of the boss’ arse like a ■■■■■■ great turd.
This sounds familiar to us, Steve. 
Just this morning been ‘issued’ with 2 A4 sheets of paper that tells me how the job has to be done ‘going forward’ and its all to improve driver efficiency and better truck utilisation. The first paragraph started 'you MUST ring in the day before your first shift for your start time…
Oh well, the queue for my job is getting longer apparently so I think I’m going to let them have it!
Could this and other such crap and a whole lot more be the reason?
One reason I’ve packed up drivng tippers (apart from the money 
) is that you just can’t think for yourself anymore (although some tipper drivers aren’t capable). Recently was on a muckshift where I had a good clean load of chalk; I called office to ask if any farmers would want it and was pretty much told to do as I was told (ie take a perfectly good load to the tip and dump it, costing our customer £60 in tipping fees).
Got a phone call a short while after, asking if I’d go back on the flour deliveries; More cash, plenty of weightlifting/keep fit, chance to travel the UK and complete freedom to do the drops anyway I like. Never thought I’d go back to handball work again but the tipping game is FUBAR thanks to co-working arse holes, health and safety and tear arses.
Wheel Nut:
I am 56 so have had 10 years longer in the indutry than you have, so therefore drove lorries 10 years older than you, the other poster whose Father is 76 drove lorries 30 years older than you, but they were still modern lorries in the dayrivits:
The kit we use to do the job nowadays is immeasurably superior to what we veterans started out on, who would have imagined even 20yrs ago 600+ BHP , air conditioned cabs, automated transmissions etc etc, the modern truck is on par with most luxury cars however where the tackle has got better the rules and regulations have gotten to be absolutely ridiculous.Nowadays we have to contend with the most ludicrous practices in order to make a living such as…(1) Digital Tachographs… We had a perfectly good system of paper charts but oh no, that could not be left alone, in comes new legislation demanding we all have to buy smart card and along with that ridiculous bureaucracy that came with it. We had log sheets and then log books before we got paper charts, all of which are open to abuse.
(2) Tachograph Legislation… A system of draconian rules and regulations ruthlessly enforced by various government agencies such as VOSA and the Police that can see an otherwise law abiding citizen prosecuted and given a criminal record or possibly even jailed for minor offences that at one time would have been dismissed as a waste of the courts time. The Ministry man used to sit on an overhead bridge with a note pad and take down registration numbers, he would then visit the company and see the log sheets, he would compare the time he saw you to the time you wrote on your log sheet, so if you were asleep in Glasgow, and he saw you at Scotch Corner, you would end up in court, just the same.
(3) Speed Limiter Legislation… We can be trusted to carry freight worth several thousands of pounds in equipment that costs thousands but we cannot be trusted in where we position our right foot. As usual more rubbish out of Brussels that sees our speed limiters set at 4mph less than our legal motorway speed limit and off course vigorously enforced by the powers that be. Speed limits are much lower in Europe for lorries. Brussels have not made us drop our speed limits, our Motorway limit was introduced to save fuel not lives. Of course speed limits are vigorously enforced in Europe too, perhaps more so than the UK.
(4) Prehistoric Pay Rates…Putting up with all of the above for shocking pay rates not to mention awful working conditions. How many drivers do you guys know who get Bupa Health care, full pay when off sick or in general decent working conditions. Some drivers do get BUPA care, salaried drivers normally get full pay when off sick and everyone has better working conditions than the 76 year old did when he first turned a wheel.
(5) Licensing Authorities… In any other walk of life if you commit a driving offence of any kind, you are caught and dealt with by the courts and that is the end of the matter but drive a lorry or a bus for a living you are hauled up in front of a government appointed civil servant in an ivory tower who then hands out additional punishment. Is that not a clear cut case of a violation of a drivers human rights being tried and sentenced for the same crime twice, disgraceful. The Traffic Commissioner does not sentence you again, he cannot fine you, he cannot touch your car licence, what he can do is remove or revoke your vocational or operators licence until you learn that you are a professional driver / operator and you are paid / charge more to be better than a commuter.
(6) Absolutely no respect… Whether it is a cheeky traffic clerk or cheeky awkward customers, it is not unusual to be spoken to like you are garbage from minions who wouldn’t have a clue how to do your job to them at the top of the tree who think its there right to look down their nose at the workforce who keep their business alive.
Queueing down the dock road in Liverpool for two days while the dockers had an extra cup of tea, went home to do the garden, put a bet on, or came to work ■■■■■■ and sat in their hut while you handballed everything off their pallets onto the the lorry bed, and then sheeted it up with a heavy tarpaulin, which you alone had to lift on top of the load because the crane driver had gone for mugga.
(7) High Taxation… The way the government hammer the industry with rip off road tax and fuel duty ensuring our wages are kept so lowly and the funny thing is, they go on about wanting freight off the road and treat us like garbage but the money grasping swines need our industry to keep the country alive.
VED and fuel duty is not the drivers problem, if the boss you work for isn’t passing on the cost of fuel to his customer or able to do simple sums before quoting for a job, it is the boss who has the problem and natural selection will put a stop to that.
(8) The Cost LGV Driver training… It costs an absolute fortune to train for an LGV license. They even had the cheek to abolish the right to go straight for a class one but brought out a new rule you had to sit a class 2 first doubling the already ridiculous cost of gaining an LGV never mind the medical cost and all the other rubbish that goes with it.
I was unfortunate enough to work for a company who only ran rigids, so I had to take my class three followed by my class one. The cost to me was a months wages. I don’t see much difference in the cost today.
(9) Driver CPC…Another rip off, As I call it the Deplorable Cash Producing Con that sees experienced drivers who have worked in road haulage without incident all their lives suddenly now require to attend 35hrs of training every 5 yrs or they are adjudged to be unfit to do their job anymore. A system that sees the lucky candidates relieved of their hard earned cash to sit through the same garbage module 5 times to get a small plastic card to ensure they can continue to pay their mortgages. What other industry would put up with this? The unions attitude? Oh good you can pay us for the modules. The enforcement authorities attitude? get caught without it and we will hammer you into the ground. Oh and when we get this ‘professional qualification’ will professional pay rates follow? I doubt it very much.
The car mechanic who has to buy his own tools to go to work with will probably disagree with the above point, the gas fitter who has to keep up his certification, the plumber who needs paperwork to work in his chosen industry, the construction worker who needs an epic card or a safety passport may do. The operator of a bulldozer or 360° excavator needs a certificate to drive it as well as experience. Even the taxi driver has to pay the local council for a medical and a licence before he can earn any money.
So if you have managed to read this without falling asleep does it surprise you in anyway why no young blood seem to be coming into the road haulage industry? Why put up with all of the above when you can stack shelves in a supermarket for more money and less hassle. I have never been fully able to understand why such an essential industry as the Road Haulage Industry is treated so badly by the government,its various agencies, its customers and the public at large. It makes me very sad that this proud industry seems to be dying on its knees.
Someone mentioned a shelf stacker who was earning £8 per hour, another mentioned a toilet cleaner on £9 per hour, these jobs are available, but they are not for a week or 40 hours, they are probably for 8 or 16 hours per week. There are thousands of jobs that pay more per hour than lorry drivers, but if you read pro rata in the job description, you need to dig deeper before jumping ship.
I only hope sense can prevail and this industry be recognised for keeping the country and the economy moving but I wont hold my breath.
The tyre manufacturer pays a basic factory wage to his employees, the girl behind the fuel service counter who is selling charcoal and coffee to a customer while you are trying to hand over your fuel card is on minimum wage, without them, or without tyres or fuel you are not going to work. HATO and DVSA officers earn less than you do, the civil servant who operates the camera on the road network doesn’t cause the accident and subsequent blockage, he may get the blame because you are late home, but he gets home late too, and it was all the fault of a professional lorry driver who hit a bridge, or overturned, or lost his load of sheep, beer, jars, timber, agricultural plant, or simply hit the central reservation.Quite a rant whilst looking in on our vocation. When I started school, only one in ten houses had a refrigerator and one in three had a family car.
That is a shame your 10yrs older than me, you may have rubbished everything I have said but at least I have youth on my side Oh and I think you will find the 76yr old driver mentioned is in fact MY FATHER!!!
I’ve always wanted to drive since the first time someone asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. My first memories as a child were sat on the bunk in my Dad’s FH12 tramping down to Italy. The thing that made me fall in love with the road was the ole’ fish run from Lochinver down to Bilbao and Santander, what a run that was. I’m currently on a 3 and a half month countdown to doing my C, C+E licenses of which my work are putting me through (cheers for that Thomas Hardie Truck and Bus!), and then there’s the CPC which I’m not fussed about because you can do the same course as many times as you want. At the end of the day I’m just looking forward to coming out of my time as a spanner monkey and getting on the road full time, as much as some of you may want to argue that (seems as you all have something to argue about whatever the topic may be) but it wont change my mind. I love trucks, full stop. 
i find it has gone down hill i think/fear there will be even more this that after cpc also the cost of training is a issue theres good and bad but i remember learning in a right old shed i got into driving as wage was decent jobs were there but everything now is agency i think job security is also a issue along with sadly well why pay somebody this an hour when we can pay less…
driving isnt easy and some of the traffic planners should stick there aa map they got free with there petrol where the sun dont shine…respect sadly in the haulage industry towards drivers is shocking…i no we here well if i new now what i no now etc but i wouldnt recomend somebody at a young age get into it…the wages are nearer some 9-5 jobs… the end of the day companys agencys etc forget without drivers there nothing…i still want my class one as its always been a childhood goal…
My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that, as said a few times on here, is that you aren’t allowed to take the kids with you anymore. Most kids would be more than happy to follow their fathers into work, assuming they aren’t listening to him whine on about how bad it is. My dad was in the navy at the back end of the war, couldn’t settle when he got out, joined the Army & served in Korea, Cyprus & Aden. I used to love seeing him in his kit, was so proud when he let me help him clean it, boots & belts etc. so no surprise when I joined, as did my brother & daughter, also had 3 sisters married to soldiers.
Now you cannot take them for a jolly, they are encouraged to stay at school, onto college, never an option in my day unless you were very clever or well off, so they don’t get into work until 18 or so. Then they cannot drive HGV until 21, then they need 2 years experience, then they won’t be taken on until 25 for insurance. It’s no wonder they don’t want to get into the job.
it actually starts from your schooldays,when in a careers lesson one day at 15 our careers teacher was asking all of us what we want to do when we leave school [as you said in your post] some pupils had their say and he discussed it with them,when he came to me and i said lorry driver without hesitating he went straight to someone else,totally blanked me because of what i said, hows that for ignorance,for all he knew i could [or any of us for that matter]have become a haulage boss and had my own fleet,if that had of happened i would have personally drove one of my lorries into the school some years later with my name on the side just to prove a point to him and to show how ignorant he was in assuming that you would not get anywhere by being a lorry driver [mind you, he was right,lol]
How right you are, when i was in school, five years old , we were all asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. I at that time wanted to be a bus driver, i was completely ignored and teacher went on to next child. When i sort of grew up i decided i did not want a whole load of people behind me i would rather have a load, so became a lorry driver, learning how to rope and sheet at a local transport yard. That was 1969.
