8 months on since I started this career.
Discussion
So i've had my licence and have been driving artics since early november now and i think i've largely got the hang of it. It's been a fairly steep learning curve and i was definitely thrown in at the deep end but i now love my job, my boss likes me and has put me in his best truck, a pre adblue, manual gearboxed v8 r500 topline scania. he's even bought me some eminoxes and fancy lights hes going to put on it when i go on holiday next month.
i know a lot of people come on here complaing about this, that and everything else but also a lot of people come on here looking for advice about starting up in this job and i'd like to throw some balance into the argument and state some things i've learned, some musings and some tips.
1, expect to work a lot of hours 60+ hours a week. however, more hours - more wage.
2, its not that hard to be legal(ish) i work for a dodgy farmer and have een pulled in by vosa plenty of times. so far managed to dodge any fines etc. be nice to them, have a good attitude with them, a smile goes a long way.
3, not everybody you speak to hates you (as many people on here/seem to think), a smile goes a long way, as does being nice in the goods in/out window, be nice to them, make them smile and laugh, they will be nice to you.
4, when you are approaching the back of another lorry and dont want to cancel your cruise control, the following cars will not let you out
-vauxhall insignia the worst offender by a country mile
-vauxhall vectra
- any other vauxhall (says the man who drives a vauxhall monaro)
- audi a3
- almost any peugeot
- small asian cars - though chances are its you overtaking them
- any dawdling van
5, you will overtake more small cars with nervous drivers and small vans than you will lorrys. you will then have to listen to other drivers complaing about "elephant racing"
6, the people from the point above will also wait until they get in your blind sport, before deciding to match your speed, sometimes for miles, blissfully unaware of the danger they put themselves in. They also like to hover around the back of your trailer, unaware that you cant really see that they are actually a car length behind you.
7, when your overtake other lorrys on flat and level ground. some people will drop their cruise control by a single kmh, some wont, i call these people d
heads.
8, when cars pass you, you will naturally have a look inside them. a massively high proportion of drivers will be playing with their smart phone, only attractive girls will look up for awkward eye contact before presumably complaining about leering truck drivers.
9, Lynn Bowles and sally traffic are gods.
10, pre-dawn radio is awful.
11, coaches full of school kids are best ignored, you can pull faces at them all you want but when traffic slows, of course you will be parked next to a buss full of kids gawping and waving at you, trying to get you to blow the horn unaware that there is a timecand place for it.
12, sleeping in lorry is actually quite nice.
13, a clean interior is a happy interior, i go through a packet of tesco kitchen wipes a week, they cost almost nothing and always seem to pick up a lot of dirt. i cant understand why some lorry drivers choose to live like pigs.
14, the wage doesnt have to be as bad as people say. my brother is a train driver, they earn 46k+ a year for 35hr weeks, and they all complain, people will always complain, i earn nearly as much but work many more hours. however, he passes 1 red light by 1 metre and his career is over, i get to have the radio on at work, dont have to wear an awful (or any) uniform, i get to stop and pee wherever i want, i get to manage myself, chat st on handsfree all day, see different scenery all the time, and if it all gets too much, i can have a nap midway through my day.
15, marks and sparks at the motorway services is your friend, quality (ish) food for ginsters money.
16, before starting your job, get the best smartphone and data package you can justify. your will often be given the wrong address/details for somewhere, being able to figure this out yourself is a godsend, and to be able to sattelite view a farm/factory/narrow road before arrival is a godsend
Anyhow, dont know if that will be of any use to anyone but i felt the ned to have a blab.
i know a lot of people come on here complaing about this, that and everything else but also a lot of people come on here looking for advice about starting up in this job and i'd like to throw some balance into the argument and state some things i've learned, some musings and some tips.
1, expect to work a lot of hours 60+ hours a week. however, more hours - more wage.
2, its not that hard to be legal(ish) i work for a dodgy farmer and have een pulled in by vosa plenty of times. so far managed to dodge any fines etc. be nice to them, have a good attitude with them, a smile goes a long way.
3, not everybody you speak to hates you (as many people on here/seem to think), a smile goes a long way, as does being nice in the goods in/out window, be nice to them, make them smile and laugh, they will be nice to you.
4, when you are approaching the back of another lorry and dont want to cancel your cruise control, the following cars will not let you out
-vauxhall insignia the worst offender by a country mile
-vauxhall vectra
- any other vauxhall (says the man who drives a vauxhall monaro)
- audi a3
- almost any peugeot
- small asian cars - though chances are its you overtaking them
- any dawdling van
5, you will overtake more small cars with nervous drivers and small vans than you will lorrys. you will then have to listen to other drivers complaing about "elephant racing"
6, the people from the point above will also wait until they get in your blind sport, before deciding to match your speed, sometimes for miles, blissfully unaware of the danger they put themselves in. They also like to hover around the back of your trailer, unaware that you cant really see that they are actually a car length behind you.
7, when your overtake other lorrys on flat and level ground. some people will drop their cruise control by a single kmh, some wont, i call these people d
heads.8, when cars pass you, you will naturally have a look inside them. a massively high proportion of drivers will be playing with their smart phone, only attractive girls will look up for awkward eye contact before presumably complaining about leering truck drivers.
9, Lynn Bowles and sally traffic are gods.
10, pre-dawn radio is awful.
11, coaches full of school kids are best ignored, you can pull faces at them all you want but when traffic slows, of course you will be parked next to a buss full of kids gawping and waving at you, trying to get you to blow the horn unaware that there is a timecand place for it.
12, sleeping in lorry is actually quite nice.
13, a clean interior is a happy interior, i go through a packet of tesco kitchen wipes a week, they cost almost nothing and always seem to pick up a lot of dirt. i cant understand why some lorry drivers choose to live like pigs.
14, the wage doesnt have to be as bad as people say. my brother is a train driver, they earn 46k+ a year for 35hr weeks, and they all complain, people will always complain, i earn nearly as much but work many more hours. however, he passes 1 red light by 1 metre and his career is over, i get to have the radio on at work, dont have to wear an awful (or any) uniform, i get to stop and pee wherever i want, i get to manage myself, chat s
t on handsfree all day, see different scenery all the time, and if it all gets too much, i can have a nap midway through my day.15, marks and sparks at the motorway services is your friend, quality (ish) food for ginsters money.
16, before starting your job, get the best smartphone and data package you can justify. your will often be given the wrong address/details for somewhere, being able to figure this out yourself is a godsend, and to be able to sattelite view a farm/factory/narrow road before arrival is a godsend
Anyhow, dont know if that will be of any use to anyone but i felt the ned to have a blab.
Edited by bigfatnick on Friday 6th June 09:18
when loaded to max gross weight, on the slightest incline, i will try my very hardest to not cancel the cruise control/drop from the speed limiter, it doesn't take much of a hill for you to drop a lot of speed. you learn hills and on many will drop a gear before you even get to the hill. if you have to slow mid hill, not only do you lose the speed you had for the hill, but you also lose revs, your boost drops off, (which unlike a car turbo, actually takes a good chunk of time to build back up) and can often mean the difference between coming over the brow of the hill at 48mph, or something like 44mph, with everything overtaking you and having to drop mutiple gears. The lightweight supermarket truck you just passed having regained its position in front of you meaning you have to spend more time in lane two, getting in peoples way.
I dont think any truck driver wants to intimidate the cars in front of them, but it becomes a game of all or nothing to lose as little speed as possible. I remember once getting caught up behind an erratic driver at the bottom of the big eastbound hill on the a66 leaving cumbria, i'm convinced i used an extra 2 litres of diesel and lost a minute or two of driving time just from that one small thing, not to mention getting in loads of peoples way, and the girl in the focus who did it, no doubt had no idea she had disrupted so many peoples journey.
I dont think any truck driver wants to intimidate the cars in front of them, but it becomes a game of all or nothing to lose as little speed as possible. I remember once getting caught up behind an erratic driver at the bottom of the big eastbound hill on the a66 leaving cumbria, i'm convinced i used an extra 2 litres of diesel and lost a minute or two of driving time just from that one small thing, not to mention getting in loads of peoples way, and the girl in the focus who did it, no doubt had no idea she had disrupted so many peoples journey.
GEARJAMMER said:
Oh and welcome to my 'I drive a Scania for work and a Monaro for play' club..... now consisting of 2 members, lol.
I'd be a member of that club apart from the Scania bit.Jeremy Clarkson did a truck episode of Top Gear a long time ago. Driving a Scania.
Stated there are 2 types of truck driver, those that drive Scanias and those that want to drive Scanias.
bigfatnick said:
So i've had my licence and have been driving artics since early november now
14, the wage doesnt have to be as bad as people say. my brother is a train driver, they earn 46k+ a year for 35hr weeks, and they all complain, people will always complain, i earn nearly as much
Who are you working for that pays a newcomer, "nearly as much as 46k a year"?14, the wage doesnt have to be as bad as people say. my brother is a train driver, they earn 46k+ a year for 35hr weeks, and they all complain, people will always complain, i earn nearly as much
bigwheel said:
GEARJAMMER said:
Oh and welcome to my 'I drive a Scania for work and a Monaro for play' club..... now consisting of 2 members, lol.
I'd be a member of that club apart from the Scania bit.Jeremy Clarkson did a truck episode of Top Gear a long time ago. Driving a Scania.
Stated there are 2 types of truck driver, those that drive Scanias and those that want to drive Scanias.
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