Career in HGV driving

I've just come back from my annual CPC training day. Been a few good debates & points raised during today.

After reading this thread I don't think that I'll be leaving my employer anytime soon. OK I'm not exactly treated like royalty, but I think there are a lot worse employers out there with regard to the rules of the road.

I do have to commend the vehicle inspectorate/VOSA/DVSA whatever they are called these days to enforce the law & to protect UK drivers from firms who put profit before their legal responsablities.

I'm on OTE of about £23-24K PA (It would be about 10% less if there wasn't any TUPE regulations in place) Seems to me I'm paid a bit higher than average for the job that I do, I've seen OTE of £32K for class 2 work but I would have to take my class 2 licence (I have a Class D licence & have done for 20 years but never driven a bus/coach for a living)

I can't see a huge benefit in that TBH, I have a weekly round with the same vehicle driving to the same places & its not in London, I know where to go & what to do when I get there. I'd rather earn the money I do now, than earn the extra & not know where exactly to go & what I need to do or who to see when I arrive at my destination.
 
Scania said:
I ran out of time at 19:30 at Donnington park services and by the time I had been picked up and driven back to Stoke it was nigh 10pm when I got home!
Click to expand...

Presumably you are still on the clock and paid for that? Do you get an overtime rate out of interest?
 
norm said:
Presumably you are still on the clock and paid for that? Do you get an overtime rate out of interest?
Click to expand...

I was paid, yes, we don't get overtime as such just day rate between 6am - 6pm and night rate 6pm - 6am.

Shorter day today, "only" 10.5hrs
 
norm said:
What were they running out of? Glass bottles?

How long from you getting the call until delivery?
Click to expand...

RPC Containers is an acronym for.....

Reed Plastic Containers

If you or your family bought a squeezy plastic bottle of ketchup in the 90's it's an almost certainty I delivered that bottle into Heinz.

The Journey from our depot takes about 1 hour 45 plus time to get dressed and get to the depot plus time it took to find the Truck ignition keys because the bell end temporary replacement driver hid them in a non standard place.

I was lying under the damn wagon in the pitch black trying to find where the pillock had moved them to !!

A fact you might find funny is that..... About a week after I left the company employ some PMT'd female employee at RPC (on nights) had a major row with a chargehand and then set fire to one of those industrial balls of string... and rolled it into the warehouse !!

I got a phone call from RPC...... "Paul...Paul... QUICK.. come and move the trailers away from the building...It's on FIRE! !!!

So .. I raced into my old depot and ... technically stole a wagon, drove to Corby and moved four trailers away from the building. When I got there the fire crews had got it under control but still wanted the trailers moving away.

I got nothing for that AT ALL !!
 
Last edited:
[TW]Fox;14914840 said:
The hours are long and the pay is beyond terrible - less than £10 an hour which for a proper career job is pittiful. It's an important job but I dont envy the poor guys who do it.
Click to expand...

£10 an hour is dreadful?
 
chaparral said:
Lorry drivers are normally payed somewhere between £12 to £15 per hour (in daytime hours between 7am & 6pm) over here...
And that driving much smaller lorry's..
Click to expand...

Think I might be moving soon! :p


I can't see the market for Channel island HGV drivers being a large one though nor there being a great number of drivers there to take advantage of it tbh.
 
Isn't HGV driving set to be a dying career? Self-driving HGVs should be on the road within a decade. I expect the big haulage companies will replace their fleets pretty quickly once the technology is here as a human driver simply cannot compete. The self driving HGV is possibly more important than the self driving car.
 
You amongst many are under the illusion that all a Lorry Driver does is drive.

He is also the front line ambassador of his and who he is contracted to's company.

He is the one who explains and smooths over delays, damages, discrepancies etc. He is the one who bends the rules slightly to accommodate an awkward (but important) customer. He is the one who after arriving at designated delivery point then finds the customer actually wants it 10 miles further down the road or in the back of Mordor !!

Lets see your automated delivery vehicles do all that !
 
Outcast said:
You amongst many are under the illusion that all a Lorry Driver does is drive.

He is also the front line ambassador of his and who he is contracted to's company.

He is the one who explains and smooths over delays, damages, discrepancies etc. He is the one who bends the rules slightly to accommodate an awkward (but important) customer. He is the one who after arriving at designated delivery point then finds the customer actually wants it 10 miles further down the road or in the back of Mordor !!

Lets see your automated delivery vehicles do all that !
Click to expand...

No, I'm not under any such illusion. I'm simply suggesting that the inevitable move to automated vehicles will cause a major shift in the role of the HGV driver. The role is likely to become redundant, replaced with newer (lower paid) roles that will address your above concerns.

The point being, it's likely to be a short lived career for anyone starting out now. Expect to be loading/unloading/refuelling and acting as security for an automated vehicle by 2030.
 
Last edited:
satchef1 said:
No, I'm not under any such illusion. I'm simply suggesting that the inevitable move to automated vehicles will cause a major shift in the role of the HGV driver. The role is likely to become redundant, replaced with newer (lower paid) roles that will address your above concerns.

The point being, it's likely to be a short lived career for anyone starting out now. Expect to be loading/unloading/refuelling and acting as security for an automated vehicle by 2030.
Click to expand...

Automated lorries are coming sometime soon are they?
 
reading this thread just makes me think of Ray from trailer park boys tv show ... "it's just the way of the road boys" **** jugs etc lol
 
satchef1 said:
No, I'm not under any such illusion. I'm simply suggesting that the inevitable move to automated vehicles will cause a major shift in the role of the HGV driver. The role is likely to become redundant, replaced with newer (lower paid) roles that will address your above concerns.

The point being, it's likely to be a short lived career for anyone starting out now. Expect to be loading/unloading/refuelling and acting as security for an automated vehicle by 2030.
Click to expand...

Automated lorries? That's the first I've heard about them.

Don't see how machines are going to be able to compete with humans in terms of judging dangers such as animals, people etc. walking out into the road. A computer could detect when something is in the road but unlike a human it wouldn't be able to see the signs of someone preparing to walk out infront of a HGV.
 
Hotwired said:
Automated lorries are coming sometime soon are they?
Click to expand...

Define 'soon'.

Limited self-driving automation (i.e. trucks that can, for example, handle the motorway part of the journey) are expected this decade. Full self-driving automation is expected to follow by 2025.

On the self-driving car front, Google and others are starting to talk confidently about their fully automated vehicles hitting the market this decade, with any delays expected to be legal rather than technological in nature.

While trucks will be a few years behind cars, the take-up is expected to be fast once they hit the market. There are significant savings and efficiencies to be made from an automated fleet (lower wages, longer journeys, fewer stops etc.).
 
Last edited:
The day when an automated Lorry can pull onto a Building Site park wherever the site manager points to, gets the Moffett unattached, drops the side boards and neatly stacks 20 packs of bricks and get out without getting bogged down is the day when Skynet has taken over and they are building for themselves :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom