[News] A lorry drivers view of driver shortage, fuel shortage and Brexit.

[nicko31]

Anyone found any issues with all the driver shortages in Europe yet? We can't just rely on the Daily Mail, they are failing us...

 

[CheeseRolls]

They were discussing this on the radio, the stat quoted was that there is a shortage of 100k drivers, we've lost 20k European drivers after Brexit, but there are 40k looking to move into the industry but can't work due to covid and the cancelation / reduction for training and testing to get those waiting into the role

Many have re-evaluated their working situation during the pandemic, some have realised that working as say, a fuel delivery tanker driver is very poorly paid for what they do and they can earn more money elsewhere and have quit and moved to work for other companies like supermarkets as drivers who pay more, or into different lines of work and left driving completely

Not that long ago the latest 'shortage' issue was beer to pubs and clubs, again deemed down to a lack of drivers and led to the usual cries of Brexit's to blame, but a combination of the the pandemic, furlough and those doing the work realising how poor they are rewarded for their efforts (for example the dray who deliver the beer barrels to the pubs having to manually move heavy barrels, and the realisation that they don't have to do this to get by, in fact they can move to another line of work, requiring far less physical work and earn more, so why stay employed as a dray?

Society has been undervaluing those that do manual work for a very long time, and rewarding those who can work a computer (when it was new then fair enough as not many could use one, but now most can) what we are now also seeing is that those in manual labour roles are moving away from manual labour as there are far better options out there and often paying more, so why stay?

It's just arrogance and a very dismissive attitude by those blaming everything on Brexit that fails to consider so many other things, such as what is happening in the jobs market and it's big upheaval caused by people reflecting on their career, their work / life balance, etc and making changes to their life to improve it and instead they'd simply like to blame one thing, something that suits their own (political) agenda

I don't know and maybe I am misinterpreting your words, but it almost sounds like you have reached the conclusion that not everything is the fault of too many foreigners and EU regulation? It would have been really useful to have got there, say 5 years ago, but it feels good to be finding some common ground.

 

[Seasider78]

Cannot remember which programme it was on but there was a expert saying the average age of a lorry driver is 55 in the UK and the industry was simply not attracting either women or younger workers who are not prepared to work long days and nights and sleep in their cab. He mentioned this was in large part an issue with the industry who have not reformed to meet modern workers demands and salary levels.

It feels like the perfect storm for the haulage industry and there will need to be pretty radical change to resolve in the longer term.

 

[NooBHA]

View attachment 140705

''Of course none of us can drive a f#ckin lorry - If they could then one of us would be driving a lorry and the rest of us would be hiding in the back of it instead of sitting freezing our bollocks off in the middle of the English Chanel on this tiny rubber dingy you daft c#nts''

 

[Thunder Bolt]

You know Shapps said reversing would be taken out of the HGV test?

https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2021-10-21/lorry-reverses-into-bristol-harbour-live-updates?