Do you sometimes get really frustrated when things seem to have such an obvious solution?

nanna8

Can you use those long road trains like we have here or is the traffic too heavy?Longest one here was 113 trailers. Mind you wouldn’t want to be stuck behind it! Usually they belt along though.

Roads arent big enough am afraid. Our roads wouldn’t cope at all. Small country compared to yours - space wise ??

My son told me recently that some companies are offering a £1000 signing on bonus for HGV drivers . I’m not sure how true it is .

As the Mother in Law of an HGV driver, I know that they work very long hours, for not a lot of money and mostly go unappreciated. I also know that the majority of British drivers are law abiding and get very angry when they see continental drivers, flouting the rules, driving dangerously and giving HGV drivers a bad name.
It’s time we gave our drivers credit for what they do, and better wages. Maybe more people would apply to train.

The existing drivers needs to be given a decent wage. Those new to the role should be offered a minimum graduated pay scale no matter which company they work for. The European drivers left because of the pathetic wages and the complicated and expensive process of applying for 'visa" type papers to enter/work in UK. Had the wages been worthwhile perhaps more would have stayed or UK workers would have taken HGV jobs in the first place without the need of those from Europe.

I think the chancellor will stop the money he has been giving to people to stay at home .I think it is next month, then more people may be wanting a job

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202108/medium-131328-0a2bd24d-e10f-4597-99c5-47837a4bb191.png https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202108/medium-570245-5a191fdc-cab3-4d53-b133-76d6a5f871cc.png

This article is interesting, it is not just the U.K. that has a shortage of HGV drivers

It's unreadable, GG13. Do you have a link to it please?

While we may not be the only European country with a shortage of drivers we seem to be the only one with a resultant shortage of food...

I tried to link but it didn’t work, the article is from Global Cold Chain News easily found online, I hope that helps MaizieD

Thanks, GG13. I'll try to find it

(nnnnn8uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu This is what happens when the cat decides to help with writing a post )

GG I can read it fine on my iPad

www.globalcoldchainnews.com/driver-shortage-is-pan-european/

Shinamae

GG I can read it fine on my iPad

Tablets work differently, I think. I can't enlarge it enough on my lap top.

Looking back at the title of this thread Do you sometimes get really frustrated when things seem to have such an obvious solution?

I am reminded of the saying ^ For each and every problem there is a simple solution. It is almost always wrong.

My late husband was an HGV driver. When he learned many years ago he could take his HVG1 test and then drive 'anything anywhere in the world except a military vehicle or a bus' BUT then the rules were changed. Drivers then had to go through the stages 3,2,1 which it took longer and cost an awful lot more which put people off.

The hours are long and arduous but still legal. Every fortnight he had to take a certain amount of hours as 'rest' but he still felt tired 'like a zombie' much of the time. The job is anti-social and lonely. It depends on which firm you deliver for whether you also have to unload or have a warehouse person do that for you.

Because of the bad traffic they battle to get there on time. Even if they are five minutes a late an uncooperative warehouseman might make them go to the back of queue. It's not unknown for a lorry driver to get to his destination and burst into tears - but don't say I told you that. They were once 'kings of the road' but that is long gone. I wish my DH had done something easier for a living as I'm sure the stress contributed to the illness which killed him.

I wouldn't advise anyone to do it. Sorry to put a damper on this. Very long hours are what break people - look at the burn-out in the health service. No-one wants to admit it but firms expect their employees to 'live the job' which causes a lot of problems.

I am reminded of the saying For each and every problem there is a simple solution. It is almost always wrong.^

Ha Ha! Like running a referendum on the membership of a complex and poorly understood institution just to stop votes leaching from your party ???

I am reminded of the saying For each and every problem there is a simple solution. It is almost always wrong.

I am always frustrated and amazed that people bowl in with 'obvious solutions' about something so complicated, and often in an area requiring training, specific knowledge and years of experience, and they imagine that their solution is so wonderful that they can't imagine why someone doesn't just set about putting it into action. Perhaps the reason is that some are genuinely wiser and humble!!

Great post lovebeigecardigans1955, and very illuminating. Thank you.

Rail freight is OK, up to a point, buti t is being assumed that the railway network goes near the places that need the goods and that there is sufficient capacity on the network to run all the extra trains.

Many of the lorries on the roads are taking bulk loads long distances. We are hearing a lot of supermarket shortages, but if you want to have home grown vegetables on the shelves then you need to be able to pack vast quantities into very large lorries that can get from Lincolnshire to the supermarket warehouses and that they in turn can pack vast quantities of food of all kinds into a lorry to deliver to one store.

Imagine the inefficiencies that would arise if you used 10-20 white vans instead of one lorry. To begin with, instead of 100 lorries on the roads you would have as many as 2000 white vans tootling up and down, or rather the road system would be in total gridlock, not to mention the environemental cost in emissions.

Do not kid yourself that electric vans are any better. Most of the electricity they consume will come from gas-fired power stations and the extra environmental cost of making electric vehicles rather than conventional engines is the equivalent of driving a petrol fuelled vehicle 100,000 miles. Mainly due to manufacturing the batteries that use an array of rare and highly polluting chemicals and metals, many coming from area of the world where children work down mines, often without protection or decent pay.

From 2018. Germany weren’t much better off than us.

www.bifa.org/news/articles/2018/dec/truck-driver-shortage-crisis-now-spreading-across-the-whole-of-europe

We were parked up in a lorry park in Hungary. Next to us was a driver from Bulgaria. Having lived there for 5 years we got talking.
He hadn’t been home for 7 months because he couldn’t afford to. ?

Very long hours are what break people - look at the burn-out in the health service. No-one wants to admit it but firms expect their employees to 'live the job' which causes a lot of problems.

This shouldn't be happening, though. There are rules and laws which limit the hours a driver can undertake and vehicles are fitted with tachographs to ensure these are adhered to.

I hope that pay and conditions will improve and I understand at least one supermarket has done this already.

It was interesting to watch Undercover Big Boss recently when the 'Big Bosses' were faced with the reality of working conditions of their staff, including the drivers.

Employers pay low rates because the supermarkets are constantly putting pressure on all its suppliers to cut costs to keep food cheap,cheap, cheap. and those rates then roll across the whole transport industry. The rates Hermes pays its delivery staff are abysmally low and they ahve to use their own cars.

While there are enough people to take these jobs in order to have employment, they were stuck, but now there is a shortage, the boot is on the other foot, supermarkets caught between higher wage rates or no deliveries are paying up and I think the time is right for a charter of decent conditions for drivers, including not just working hours, but days at home, they should only work five days a week, the rest days should be at home, but if this is not possible they should get home leave in lieu when they get back.

The government response to the shortage was to increase permitted driving hours, but what else would you expect?

The change of tax code is the main reason according to a friend in the business. Not Brexit. Although some want to use that handy peg.

It is not that easy, you can train people to have a HGV licence but if they have no previous experience, companies would be reluctant to employ them, as the insurance would be very high.

There are rules and laws which limit the hours a driver can undertake and vehicles are fitted with tachographs to ensure these are adhered to.

The rules are Byzantine and also cover working time, which isn't the same as driving time. If you are a long distance driver you can be forced into rest breaks far from home. Trying to track the hours is a skill in itself. The rules are a good thing, but they can cause unintended consequences.

driverhours.co.uk/drivers-hours-hgv/

Many companies have monitoring systems on top of the tachos that track exactly where you are at any given moment, some even have in-cab cameras to track your movements, even your eye movements. It all adds to the complexity and the stress.