Trucking, is it worth doing my licence or is it a job

[Justin Cyder]

I did years on the other side as a traffic clerk & then into management. FWIW, I think driving HGV's is a seriously under rated occupation, much more highly skilled than people give it credit for. You don't see it so much these days, but if you get a chance to watch Ernie the ERF driver roping and sheeting a load of steel coils, you'll be watching an artisan.

Anyway the point I want to make is nowadays, 90% of traffic going through the average haulier is general, palletised stuff, and most of that is into the supermarkets. No one takes more freight inthe UK than the supermarkets, it's where the work is now we don't actually make anything anymore.

That work is less skilled than the old days, it is chock full of delays, the margins are thin & it comes & goes on a customer's whim. If you can get away from that, then go for it, but otherwise, eyes wide open on general haulage, it's not what it used to be.

[Life Saab Itch]

black1 said:

you can get more stacking beans at tesco,but then you need brains to work at tesco !

Does anyone know who our resident Mod is? Do we have a specific one? Is there a vacancy?

[Panda76]

No idea,but the blokes clearly an idiot.
The kind of idiot that looks down on the job and drivers then spits tea out everywhere when they find out what the salary is.
Bit like when the fuel tanker driver salary was pretty much made public,lots of whiners came out of the woodwork declaring that they work in [insert self important job here] and they don't get paid that much and it's digusting and moan moan moan.

Fools

[Humper]

I reckon he's bitter due to being unable to pass the HGV test and ended up stacking shelves at Tesco.....

[speedchick]

FunBusMk2 said:

speedchick said:

He gets just over NMW, you could earn more stacking shelves. And he is a tramper

Really? The company I'm contacting to at the moment pay their day men £10.50 an hour. That's in Nottinghamshire. As a tramper, surely your OH could do better?

We are in East Lancs, he struggled to get a company that would take him without the magic 2 years experience, he applied to loads of places, and finally this one, went up for a chat, that night was on a test run and started the week after, has been tramping since his 2nd week.

He is kind of looking for something else, but its the kind of company where you have to seriously screw up to get sacked, or you leave of your own accord, one of those that don't just sack drivers for the fun of it (which is nice) and they don't mind the drivers having passengers... a lot of companies won't allow that these days.

[R0G]

speedchick said:

... he struggled to get a company that would take him without the magic 2 years experience...

For those reading that may not realise .... that means having the licence for two years !!

Without having that magic two year period from when they passed the test and also if they happen to be under 25 really find it super hard as most insurers will load the excess by so much that companies will not take the risk

Edited by R0G on Sunday 25th March 08:27

[martin mrt]

I have been a class one driver for the past nine years, i was fortunate enough that the company i worked for initially as a Transit driver put me through both my class 1&2 tests, at their expense,

I do mostly local work in the oil and gas sector, I've had a brief spell on an 8 wheeled hook lift and i spent 4 years pulling a scrap bulker, which was an interesting job but got rather repetitive and unfortunately rather tedious.

I love the job that i am in, I'm home nearly every night, there is a big variation in the daily duties from flats, fridges, curtains, bulkers and extenders, and its this that i enjoy most, granted i work long hours but it provides me and my family with a nice life and i don't mind working long hours to do this.

I did move out of driving for a few months at the end of 2010 to midway through 2011, i worked as a semi skilled mechanic for both an Oil company and a VW Dealership, i hated both jobs and i was glad when i left the dealership and climbed back behind the wheel of a truck again, the fact that i can earn a considerable amount more driving than i could as a semi skilled mechanic was a mere bonus

[philmots]

I love the job but there's always a compromise, even within the easy jobs like mine...

For example, it's around 00:15hrs, Saturday night and my alarms just gone off as I'm working Sunday morning!! Zzzzzzzz

[rumple]

Like others onhere I love the job, however, the job ain't the same anymore, I work for a general haulage outfit, so I do day work no shifts no weekends, I earn 30k a year, good money for my area, been doing class 1 19 years, the problem is its dying on its feet, I earn less money now than in the 90s, just look at most over the water jobs now, its all channel hopping earning 500 a week, successive goverments have killed it, 10 years ago a foregn truck in the UK was fairly rare, now look . In some ways driving is better and regulation protects the driver more, but we are at the arse end of road haulage in the UK, I'm glad I'm not starti.g out now, can be a great job , but good jobs are few and far between.