New found respect for truckers

mejinks

mejinks

mejinks

Soldato
Joined
28 Oct 2002
Posts
5,037
Location
Hiraeth
I was talking to an oldish bloke recounting his years on the old 50s trucks and he was talking about jake brakes, aux boxes etc, so I did some research on youtube.. :eek: I'd like to see modern day car drivers do that.
 
I think modern trucks have something similar to an aux box if i remember correct but it's used via a switch on the gear lever. I may remember wrong though.
 
Iamzod said:
I think modern trucks have something similar to an aux box if i remember correct but it's used via a switch on the gear lever. I may remember wrong though.
Click to expand...


Yes thats right, its just a switch you flick to get into high or low range.

The actual driving of a truck is easy, in a straight line anyway, its the corners where the problems arise for most people.
 
It's a walk in the park in a straight line, especially when nothing is in front - you don't have to second guess others and not have to worry about your weight, mass and speed.

Modern trucks are manual, auto, semi auto, auto's with clutches, crash boxes, single or twin split gearboxes.

Truckes can jump into cars and drive with no problems.

The vast majority of car drivers would not figure out how to get the rig moving, never mind have any clue how not to crash it once having got it going.....

:P
 
I remember being in my cousins car in Virginia when a truck came up behind us and he used his Jake Brake. I have to admit I pooed a little it was so loud.
 
R420LA6X2/4MNA said:
The vast majority of car drivers would not figure out how to get the rig moving, never mind have any clue how not to crash it once having got it going.....

:P
Click to expand...

Which is a good thing for truckers because if it was that easy then their salary would be on par with a supermarket shelf stacker!
 
lordrobs said:
Which is a good thing for truckers because if it was that easy then their salary would be on par with a supermarket shelf stacker!
Click to expand...

When you consider I work for one of the biggest & best known hauliers in the UK, my basic rate of £7.75 - between 06:00 - 18:00 - per hour makes the supermarket job seem relatively well paid.

HGV driving only pays through working absurd hours. The hourly rate is ****, especially given the risk/ reward ratio and the training costs involved to obtain a class 1 (C+E)

It's not often you hear of a shelf stacker killed at work whilst doing his job, yet, for a little more pay,it's commonplace in this line of work, as you'd soon discover should you frequent any trucking related forums.

People often assume trucking pays well, they are ,in the main,very wrong in this assumption.
 
Last edited:
I thought you were only paid for time driving, not time spent away from home in the truck. Do you not do a normal ~40 hour working week in that respect?
 
R420LA6X2/4MNA said:
When you consider I work for one of the biggest & best known hauliers in the UK, my basic rate of £7.75 - between 06:00 - 18:00 - per hour makes the supermarket job seem relatively well paid.

HGV driving only pays through working absurd hours. The hourly rate is ****, especially given the risk/ reward ratio and the training costs involved to obtain a class 1 (C+E)

It's not often you hear of a shelf stacker killed at work whilst doing his job, yet, for a little more pay,it's commonplace in this line of work, as you'd soon discover should you frequent any trucking related forums.

People often assume trucking pays well, they are ,in the main,very wrong in this assumption.
Click to expand...


I hear you on this .... we have a small fleet here in the US, one week paupers, another week Kings - and they are on the road, away from home, for sometimes weeks at a time.
 
tummelv said:
I thought you were only paid for time driving, not time spent away from home in the truck. Do you not do a normal ~40 hour working week in that respect?
Click to expand...

I'm paid for my time worked, which is upto 15 hours in a given 24hr window 3 days per week and upto 13 hrs for the remaining 2-3 days depending on how many shifts your working that week....

We get £22.50 tax free for the task of sleeping in the truck overnight, and £13 again, tax free, as a meal allowance per shift worked.
Holiday pay does not include such extras, and is pretty poor as a consequence.

I take home circa £550 - £600 per week, pretty poor given the hours worked and time away from home IMO.
 
Last edited:
R420LA6X2/4MNA said:
People often assume trucking pays well, they are ,in the main,very wrong in this assumption.
Click to expand...

Rubbish.
It doesn't pay like the good ol' days (or so I am told) but it still aint a bad wage.

Most HGV driving jobs that I know of (that aren't salaried) are paid like this, basic low hourly wage, that is bumped up with different bonus etc.

Then if you do night out you normally get a night out rate, so yes while I agree you have to work a lot of hours to get it, it isn't quite as badly paid as you make it out to be.

And just so I have my facts straight am I right in thinking that passing an HGV test nowadays will set you back ~£1800 ?
 
DogsBody said:
Rubbish.
It doesn't pay like the good ol' days (or so I am told) but it still aint a bad wage.

Most HGV driving jobs that I know of (that aren't salaried) are paid like this, basic low hourly wage, that is bumped up with different bonus etc.

Then if you do night out you normally get a night out rate, so yes while I agree you have to work a lot of hours to get it, it isn't quite as badly paid as you make it out to be.

And just so I have my facts straight am I right in thinking that passing an HGV test nowadays will set you back ~£1800 ?
Click to expand...

I hardly consider being paid £22.50 to sleep in my truck as any kind of bonus tbh, neither the meal allowance - you try to feed yourself 3 meals per day on£13, bearing in mind your limited with places to use when you have a six axle vehicle to park....

Putting it another way, I wonder how many other groups of workers are expected to work upto 15hours, upto 10 of those hours spent driving, then expected to rest, wash, eat & sleep in an industrial estate or a lay-by for 9 hours and then do it all again (quite legally)?

The wage,for what your expected to do, with the responsibility that goes with it, not to mention the relentless E.U. Drivers hours rules & regulations you have to follow make it far from "not bad" IMO, but hey, I've only been trucking for 14 years, what would I know?? ;)
 
Last edited:
R420LA6X2/4MNA said:
I take home circa £550 - £600 per week, pretty poor given the hours worked and time away from home IMO.
Click to expand...

While i realise that you do spend time away from home, and the conditions i am sure are less than ideal, the crux of it is that you actually earn the equivalent of a £35k annual salary assuming standard coding. (I am assuming that you have included your meal "profit" and sleeping allowance in those weekly figures.)

That isn't bad going really? That is a lot more than you would earn in retail for example.
 
Jez said:
While i realise that you do spend time away from home, and the conditions i am sure are less than ideal, the crux of it is that you actually earn the equivalent of a £35k annual salary assuming standard coding. (I am assuming that you have included your meal "profit" and sleeping allowance in those weekly figures.)

That isn't bad going really? That is a lot more than you would earn in retail for example.
Click to expand...

Having worked in retail prior to my driving job(s) I would point out that in retail you don't generally work upto 45 hours in 3 days!

Yes,I include everything in my figures, if I got circa £35k p/a for say a 40 hour week, I'd be happy, alas, the hours can easily be twice that and are, frequently.

Retail workers don't risk their lives generally, nor have the responsibility of controlling a very effective killing machine and they won't be prosecuted for working too hard.

I stand by my view that shop workers , by comparison , are on a pretty good screw IMO!!
 
Would a shop worker have the ability to scale their hours in order to increase their salary to what yours is, though?

If they would...then i agree, i would have thought that retail over trucking is a no brainer if the financial really are comparable...
 
I've been doing this mullarky 26 years.

Heck of a lot harder back then but much more skilful but the "old sweats" were in the cream jobs and they weren't leaving anytime soon !!

Peace of pee now but the job has lost it's soul.

Oh.. I do a "job & finish" night trunk to our own depots Sunday night to Thursday night with one friday in every three weeks as overtime for 30K

I start at around 18:00 and finish around 02:00
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom