HGV drivers

[Black Knight]

Many on here?

Enjoy it?

Easy to get work?

Would you change career if you could?

Best and worst parts of job?


Considering working towards my licence, just wanted some guidance on whether its a savvy move.

Thanks
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Where does a turn end? 'Where you can do anything with the gas you want to, where you are brave again, where your attention is free from the turn, where you are sure you can do it better next time; that's the end' - Keith Code.

[colin1]

If phoenix doesnt see this, pm him.

I've got a bit of knowledge of it, as I worked as a recruitment consultant for lorry drivers.

The good points are that its skilled or semi-skilled work, so pay is better than for unskilled jobs anyone can do. However, its often unsociable hours and you are often expected to do a lot of hours, not knowing when you are gonna finish work.

Lorry drivers moan its a lot less money than it used to be, and foreign drivers have driven down prices. This is true, but its still better than a lot of jobs anyone can just walk into. If nothing else because, there are fewer people who can do the job, so its easier to get work.

Agency work can give you flexibility to try for other jobs, or give you control over when you work.

How good a job it would be for you, would depend on your circumstances, and what other jobs you could get by comparison.

Although phoenix got his first lorry driving job quite easily after getting his license, some people might struggle to get experience after getting it. He'd done a lot of van driving work which may have helped him.
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colin1 is officially faster than god

[sniff6]

It depends on what kind of HGV you drive after you've passed your test. I've been driving HGVs for too many years, its all about driving hours max 4h 30 mins driving then a rest of 45mins. then off you go again.But i could'nt work in a factory, i just love the freedom (sometimes)
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'Great Britain' Love it https://img43.imageshack.us/img43/3967/67004290.gif or Leave it

[dodsi]

Rick, our old lodger is a truck driver, I can put you in touch if you want?

Don't know if you ever met him?

[MinhDinh]

My friend is looking into this and said that the license is something like 2 Grand :o
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Hit the G spot.

[WildGoose]

[Itchy]

[WildGoose]

Today was a fairly average day, went something like this.

0415 Alarm
0425 Leave the house
0445 Arrive at yard, find truck, hook up to trailer, transfer all my crap in (potentially five days worth of clothes and supplies). Walkround and check for vehicle defects, and make sure the right stuff is on the trailer.

0505 Leave the yard, heading for High Wycombe with a load of paper, 1 hours drive.

0610 Arrive high Wycombe, wait around in the cold for 20 minutes for someone with a forklift to appear. Open the trailer and faff with the curtains while forklift unloads you.

0700 Leave empty, heading for an Office furniture supplier back in Oxford.

0750 Arrive at furniture place

0800-0850 Loading furniture with a pump truck and dragging it up the lorry bed. Planning to head to Harlow with it, once it has loaded.

0855 Office rings with a cock up, I wasn't supposed to be doing this job. They tell me to finish loading, and wait for a sub contractor to turn up with an empty trailer, swap over trailers, and let him take it to Harlow, and I'm to go back to Wycombe with the empty to load food.

0950 Back in Wycombe, loading food, easy load on just pull the curtains and they stack in on.

1040 Leave and head back to the yard at Didcot with the load.

1145 Arrive back at the yard, drop the loaded trailer. The warehouse guys go to work unloading the trailer I just brought back, and distributing the pallets about as they are all for different destinations.

Go to office to hand in accumulated paper work and find out where i'm going next. I'm to pick up an empty and head to Trowbridge with the intention of a quick swap for one they have already loaded down there.

1215 Leave for Trowbridge.

1405 Arrive in Trowbridge. Yard is all clogged up with people trying to get in an out, so we commence dancing around with the truck and trailer trying to stay off the road and also stay out of everyone elses way. All the loading bays are full, so I can't do a thing until someone pisses off.

1425 Empty bay presents itself, so we drop the empty on there, disconnect and hook up to the other trailer that should be loaded. Go in to collect the paperwork and they decide that they have made a mistake, and they need to take two pallets off. These two pallets happen to be at the front, so the whole lot has to come off again This collection was supposed to be early AM so they have had all day to get it right, but they don't seem to be arsed until you actually want to go somewhere.

This is my first enforced sitting on my arse time of the day, so I ask him how long he thinks, and then retire to the cab. I give them 30 minutes of noise making opportunity and then go back to reinspect. Boss is in my ear several times during this period reminding me what I still have left to do when I get back. Driving time for the day is currently 6 hours of a possible 10.

1505 It's ready now, and the paperwork has been left for me, but it's shift change and they have all buggered off without disconnecting the trailer from the loading bay equipment, very considerate. So we run about trying to locate anyone with the necessary qualifications to press a button on an electric panel so I can get the hell out of there.

1515 The bay is closed and i'm free to go. On the run back, another phone call informing me, that I won't have this truck the rest of the week as I was originally told, so can I make sure it's full and take all my crap out for the next guy.

This means trying to locate a Shell garage, of which the network for HGV's suck, so we go south on the A34 at Newbury for 10 miles to Tothill services which is the nearest. Even though we wanted to go North on the A34 to take us home.

1730 Pulling back into the yard after the run around for fuel. Back to the office with more paperwork and to find out the score. Driving time is at 8h15 now, so not realistically got enough left to do anything useful today. Nearest customer is an hours drive away.

Told to shunt some trailers around, and put the correct units on the correct trailers, so they guy in the morning using the truck I was in today, can get away quickly. No such courtesy was extended to me this morning, but such is life. Paid by the hour, so I duly oblige.

1800 Pull the tachograph out.

Totals for day
8h15 drive.
1h50 recorded as "other work"
3h10 recorded as "break" (actual break/rest time, very little to none )

483km's.

Lie in tomorrow, 0600 start. Off to Wycombe first thing, back to the furniture place to deliver to Northampton, then run empty to Luton to pick up booze. Though best laid plans and all that, it will probably all have changed my lunchtime.
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So in other words, he stopped you for being flagrantly in posession of a motorcycle in direct contravention of the Hippies, Darkies and People Whose Face I Don't Like The Look of (Police Powers) Act. 1976

[FURBAR]

My mate drives a lorry, hours OK and about 4/500 a week ... some good jobs out their and more bad ...

My other mate does similiar ... by now they both have plenty of experience and got their frist breaks by having a free HGV from the army ... goes down well starting out when you've driven tanks accross deserts ....

IMO .. get HGV and suffer for experience, then don't stop searching for the top end jobs ....'


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Fuk um !!

[ian789]

Might not be helpful but channel 5 have a series going shadowing Eddie Stobart truckers,

https://www.youtube.com/show/eddiestobart

Gives a good insight.

[WildGoose]

[Phoenix]

Well once again Goose gives you the raw uncensored version of the realities of trucking, i've been doing it pretty much the same amount of time as him, 3 years, and I agree on everything with barely any exceptions.

The main issue with it is, as mentioned, the illusion that it is well paid. Compared to other manual or semi-skilled work then yes it can be well paid but compared to a pen pusher who sits in an office 9-5 and manages some fictional problem then you're earning peanuts even though your salary may be the same. 24-26k is about average for a half decent job but you will be doing 50 hours a week minimum to get that and it'll be in your contract. You can earn more by working for an agency but you will be risking periods of no work, you can however keep your hours to your liking.

Day work is generally hard to find, work in general is very easy to find in my opinion and i've never had an issue there but only if you're prepared to work days, evenings and nights, weekends especially will land you work.

How hard the job is really depends on what you are doing, my experience is limited as I tend to only drive refrigerated artics, it's about the easiest job there is though as you rarely have to load or unload yourself, there's lots of waiting and it's a 'clean' job. Only other thing i've done is trunking on curtain sides which is what i'm doing now and I work about 12-13hours every night, do 4hours driving and get to watch films or sleep for the other 8, it sounds great but it is boring and so are the other people who do it.

It's a difficult job to do if you have some intelligence and are used to that being taken for granted because it's considered to be an idiots job, people will often assume you are mentally retarded and treat you as such, it's easily sorted by telling them to hang themselves and not letting it bother you for a second, sometimes it gets to you though. Thankfully not all truckers are thick and many are just ex professionals who have had enough of offices and bosses and wanted out, that's the minority though.

Driving is the other issue that may stress you out, the roads around the UK are getting worse every year, congestion and more specifically car driving abilities have pretty much vanished, you will be cut up, intentionally blocked and slowed down by psycopaths, come close to killing people because they are oblivious and you won't get an inch when it comes to performing any kind of multiple move manoeuvre in a road. It can stress you out massively, the job itself rarely stresses me but driving standards do.

Ultimately you'll never know if you like it until you try, if you've done any kind of van driving or courier work then it's just the same but involves a wedge more skill, planning ahead and responsibility. It's pretty satisfying and almost fun for the first few months but it wears off very quickly unless your the sort who's childhood was spent wanking over truck posters and driving a scania with customized curtains and a set of shiny air horns is your wet dream come true, they're about.

I have to complete my 35hours of CPC by 2014 to continue driving, I won't be doing it as I plan to move on by then, never saw it as a career but simply a stop gap and hopefully i'll be out of it by next year. It's always a fallback position though, unfortunately because of the CPC it'll cost a bundle to get back in later on.

Licence will cost you about £2000, more if you fail practical tests, which you may well do as they're not easy. I'd budget a grand for each category (C and then C+E) and with the right company that might just manage to cover you for one retest. I've no idea what the additional costs are for the CPC you need to find that out. The medical can be had for £25, don't use a GP (£150), theory is another £30 or so I think.

This is a good link for info on the new driver CPC, you need to do the initial CPC now as part of your licence aquiaquisitionl https://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?r.s=tl&r.l1=1081597476&r.lc=en&r.l3=1084756387&r.l2=1082103262&topicId=1082123038

[ian789]

[Phoenix]

More posts since I started writing mine (turned into a spiel). The Eddie Stobart series I only found out about yesterday.

I watched the first two and actually would say it's fairly realistic surprisingly. I worked for them until April on the refrigerated job and know the 3 drivers featured so far (yes that Mo bloke is an obnoxious arse) and nothing appears to be distorted except the serious overexaggeration of how fragile cream cakes are and if she thinks the road down to that farm is bad (used to go there all the time) she needs a reality check, and how dangerous Mr Diesel tanker's trailer is, 6 months training, don't believe it for a second, more like 6 days max.

[Itchy]

[Ariel Badger]

[colin1]

[MarJay]

[sniff6]

I used to do long distance, general haulage when i left the army.Only did it for 18 months then got a job in waste disposal. Home every night and the money is ALOT more than general haulage spending 3or4 nights in the lorry.Only trouble now alot of drivers have twigged its a good thing so now jobs are few and far between.I think its Grundons in the Oxford area.
General Haulage is so cut throat that hauliers have to cut margins to get the jobs.
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'Great Britain' Love it https://img43.imageshack.us/img43/3967/67004290.gif or Leave it

[Skudd]

I was thinking of doing HGV a few years ago but I have ZERO brain cells when it comes to route planning. I can never remember motorway numbers or where they go, Sat-Nav was invented for the likes of me. I'd be the one though, that takes an 18 wheeler down a cart track.
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Famous last words of Humpty Dumpty. " Stop pushing me "
Petty Anarchists look at "1984".............. The Visionary looks at "Animal Farm".

[Black Knight]

Thanks all.

Its more of something to fall back on at present. About to enter yet another reorganisation so preparing for the worst. Better to get my licence now whilst i'm working than whilst i'm not.

Driven before. Have a small removals business for a few years (3.5t) and have done Private Hire.

Wouldn't go back into taxis but would consider driving.

I'd budgeted about £2500 for the ticket and have identified a training provider if I am to go ahead.
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Where does a turn end? 'Where you can do anything with the gas you want to, where you are brave again, where your attention is free from the turn, where you are sure you can do it better next time; that's the end' - Keith Code.

[tvchimp]

[Im-a-Ridah]

[Phoenix]

[sniff6]