HGV Drivers

[Keith at Tregenna]

Just read that:

Waitrose lorry drivers are earning more than lawyers and architects as salaries soar above £53,000 amid national shortage

The supermarket chain is offering up to £53,780 annual for 'critical' LGV drivers: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-shortage.html

[Des Taff Jenkins]

What is wrong with reinstating the railways, Cheaper, can take greater loads, and less pollution, all those trucks on the roads in Britain must make for some heavy pollution. I know, I know, trucks here drive for thousands of miles, but once these politicians get off their fat arses ad start putting fast trains across Aus, the country will be better off.
Des

[happy daze john in oz]

Truck drivers here in Oz, the professional ones not the cowboys, are great.
They still have in may instances to sheet an rope their own, though many of the big ones are now taught liners.
B Doubles are some of the biggest along with many of the supermarket ones.

Drivers are under strict regulations for number of hours they may drive with controls in the cab to ensure they comply.

We could run more railways but the problem here is the vast distances some have to travel.
Rail heads are fine but they are only between two points, at some time the cargo will need to go by road.
Double handling also comes into that equation.

Most of the big ones have a sleeper cab which is needed when you have a journey of maybe two or more days to make.

[Keith at Tregenna]

#15: Des, a fair few lines have reopened but the HS2 - high speed railway line
under development set to run between London and Birmingham, Manchester
and Leeds may yet be cancelled.

K.

.

[Ivan Cloherty]

As a freelance truck driver who supplies the truck????

From what I read a lot of truck drivers own the tractor units and take trailers that offer the best rates, Felixstowe is experiencing a shortage of HGV tractor units to move container trailers out of the port, as the driver/owners are getting better rates hauling Supermarket and Amazon trailers around which normally weigh less and thus put less wear and tear on their tractor units, the tractor units with these light loads are now averaging 12/13 miles per gallon as opposed to 8/9 miles per gallon when hauling 40' containers, makes hell of a difference when filling up a 100 gallon tank, that's an extra 300 miles per tank.

For John in Oz, our HGV drivers and truck hours are strictly regulated with tachographs and have been for decades and break the rules and lose your HGV licence is not an option many would risk. It now costs over a thousand pounds for HGV training and getting a licence and a lot more for for articulated HGV's. Whilst we have a shortage of HGV drivers, we also have a shortage of HGV Examiners due to covid plus the closing, hopefully temporary, of HGV testing sites. We have friends who have spent thousands on training and cannot get a test for 8 - 12 months.

Difficult times at present.

[J Gowers]

My Son has just done his training and passed the class 2 HGV loads of jobs out there he was offered three or four the day he passed his test. (he paid for the training and test himself with a little help from the bank of mum and dad). In an early posting it was mentioned 'freelance drivers' maybe this should been called agency drivers as this seems to be the way to earn the most money. The agency hires you out to varous trucking companies. At the moment he had no problem getting the actual driving test in Glasgow but had to go the Leeds to do the theory test as all theory test sites closer to home had a long waiting time

[Keith at Tregenna]

Heck of a way to go for tests from Scotland but,
at least sounds all was worth it.

Regards,

Keith.

[J Gowers]

#20 It was either wait until the end of the year or go to Leeds his girlfriend went with him and did her car theory test or she would have alos had to wait untill the end of the year.

[Keith at Tregenna]

Prob, current health situation has affected much but, glad
they got all sorted even with the trip South.

K.

[happy daze john in oz]

Ivan, just like you in UK we too have a shortage of HGV drivers.
WE do have a large number of self employed who will do some of the rough stuff the big companies do not want.
Most of our Supermarket drivers are with the one company who looks after them well.
He began in the 50's with one truck and now has the biggest fleet in the nation.

One of the biggest problems here is distance, that puts a lot off, too long away from home.
But the money can be great if you are prepared to stick at it.