HGV Driver Shortages

[the other bob wilson]

I have all the licences. HGV and PCV. Companies, work friends, lots of people have been phoning me. How much do I want? £100, £200, £300, name your price. Am I going to do it? No.

The days of me driving all over the country, sleeping in the cab, nowhere to park, toilet is a field or the back of an industrial estate, stuck in traffic on some motorway somewhere and VOSA waiting around the corner because you've gone 5 minutes over your tacho - those days are over.

In any other occupation, if you were required to drive all day to some place far away you would probably be offered food and accommodation. Truck and coach drivers rarely get anything.

My licence expires in April 2022 and my CPC in 2024. I am not wasting any more money on CPC and I doubt if I will bother with the medical next year.

Thanks for an interesting read - welcome to the forum

[celever]

Sadly, I am also old enough to remember what life was like before we joined the EEC/EU.

We had fruit and veg that was in season. The chip shops put a piece of paper in the window 'now frying new potatoes'. Everything had a time and place. Strawberries in the summer and sprouts at Christmas. Over the last few decades we have become used to being able to buy everything all year round.

If you wanted a decent pasty, you went down Coombes' shop. Was it in Broadway or Clifton Street, I can't remember. Now the pasties are made in a mega-factory in Plymouth and a fleet of trucks transport them all over the country.

My local village pub will run out of beer tomorrow. The beer comes by truck from mega-breweries in Burton. Again a fleet of trucks.

We are heading into a new era. Global warming, too many emissions. I see a return to a more local, less polluting economy is approaching.

[the other bob wilson]

Sadly, I am also old enough to remember what life was like before we joined the EEC/EU.

We had fruit and veg that was in season. The chip shops put a piece of paper in the window 'now frying new potatoes'. Everything had a time and place. Strawberries in the summer and sprouts at Christmas. Over the last few decades we have become used to being able to buy everything all year round.

If you wanted a decent pasty, you went down Coombes' shop. Was it in Broadway or Clifton Street, I can't remember. Now the pasties are made in a mega-factory in Plymouth and a fleet of trucks transport them all over the country.

My local village pub will run out of beer tomorrow. The beer comes by truck from mega-breweries in Burton. Again a fleet of trucks.

We are heading into a new era. Global warming, too many emissions. I see a return to a more local, less polluting economy is approaching.

You reminded me there that, although I like them now, new potatoes were a reason to dread the summer when I was a kid because my mum was so restricted in what she could do with them and we had to wait until it got colder and wetter before we could have proper chips, roasters and mash.

[Forest Green Bluebird]

What a mess.

Is recruiting from Europe the answer.?

Bring in the Army ... and ensure they are paid for both roles?