Stand By...

[floydraser]

Earlier this week someone on the BBC news said there may be food shortages. Tuesday lunchtime news someone said supermarkets may struggle with staff isolating. Niether of those seemd to work so on the radio news at 11 the headline contained someone saying there well may be am lack of food on the shelves soon. Give them their due, they are giving it a damn good go. Bog rolls and beans anybody?

[grendel]

Well thats very helpful of the BBC, dont you just wish they would stop reporting in such an alarmist manner, at this rate they will start another round of panic buying . (I am lucky, I topped up on bog rolls the other week and got a 24 pack) i bet shopping will be fun saturday.

[Hylander]

This is terrible.   Frightening folk like this.   How are old folk supposed to compete with a load of people, not keeping their distance scrabbling around for items that they dont really need , just because some Twit comes out with this rubbish.    This has been an oncoming problem for weeks,  for weeks the Transport Industry has been saying they needed for drivers, in fact I would say at least 2 months now.   As far as I am aware they are training drivers as quickly as they can.   Bring in our troops again please and someone give Downing Street and its occupants a month off so normal people can get this country moving again.      

Iceland is advertising for more staff.   Life goes on.

 

[OldBerkshireBoy]

Restricted fuel supplies to a few garages say BP along with restricted opening hours for some supermarkets both due to staffing levels. 

Rough calc on back of fag packet says a 24 pack of toilet rolls would last me a year. 

[Cal]

All joking aside we have noticed on our quite a few of our home shopping deliveries that we are getting more and more missing items. I think we will stop with the home deliveries soon and start doing our shopping in person again so we can choose alternatives rather then have items missing.

[Mouldy]

A question was asked on here a few weeks ago on another thread regarding why there is a shortage of lorry drivers.  I saw this analogy on FB, relating driving to an office job.  It does make interesting reading and perhaps explains why the average British school leaver takes a body swerve when offered the opportunity of becoming a trucker.

[floydraser]

Having worked for a supermarket I can tell you that there is no such thing as a weekend. There's 24 hours in a day and sometimes it's dark, that's how your time works. I did get to the high status of having a regular start time 12.30pm and every other weekend off, but the other days off varied week to week on a rota. I was told that if I didn't take voluntary redundancy my start time would be moved by 12 hours to 12.30am. So there's no respect within the company either.

I was lucky to get out when I did and I don't care if I never see the inside of another lorry for the rest of my days.

Money used to be good if you stayed healthy but enhanced payments for overtime and Bank Holidays is slowly being eroded away.

[TheQ]

51 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

A question was asked on here a few weeks ago on another thread regarding why there is a shortage of lorry drivers.  I saw this analogy on FB, relating driving to an office job.  It does make interesting reading and perhaps explains why the average British school leaver takes a body swerve when offered the opportunity of becoming a trucker.

A bit out of date on the wages , the average salary of a lorry driver is over£29,000 and HGV over £32,000 

There is however a better reason for a school leaver not to become a lorry driver...

In a few years the lorry driver will be a computer..

[Mouldy]

2 minutes ago, TheQ said:

A bit out of date on the wages , the average salary of a lorry driver is over£29,000 and HGV over £32,000 

There is however a better reason for a school leaver not to become a lorry driver...

In a few years the lorry driver will be a computer..

Don’t forget that the quoted average salary is probably for a working week in excess of fifty hours and will include shift and weekend working.  It’ll be a long time before computers will take over from human beings to drive lorries.  44tonnes out of control on the public highway can do a great deal of damage.

[scaniaman]

And now to make it worse, the drivers hours regulations that were brought into law on safety grounds have been suspended by the government. So drivers can now work longer hours still.  Anybody for a 25 hour 8 day week???

[TheQ]

2 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

Don’t forget that the quoted average salary is probably for a working week in excess of fifty hours and will include shift and weekend working.  It’ll be a long time before computers will take over from human beings to drive lorries.  44tonnes out of control on the public highway can do a great deal of damage.

it's still a lot more than £10 and hour though and any school leaver today is looking at 52 years till retirement, I'm sure computers will be in use long before then..

[Mouldy]

9 minutes ago, TheQ said:

it's still a lot more than £10 and hour though and any school leaver today is looking at 52 years till retirement, I'm sure computers will be in use long before then..

I worked for one of the largest UK contract hauliers until last August.  Their drivers were on a salary of £28000 for a 48 hour week, excluding breaks which were unpaid. That rate included shift premium for all start times with the exception of those starting between 20:00 and midnight and were for any five from seven, so included weekend working.  Compared to a lot of jobs, not exactly exciting.  And yes, perhaps in time computers will take over, but until then everything you use, eat and drink in the property you live in was delivered by road.  The issue is immediate and something other than extending drivers permitted working hours (which has been done to help alleviate the problems) needs to be done.

[gancanny]

6 minutes ago, TheQ said:

t's still a lot more than £10 and hour 

   on a 60 hour week,  overtime rate at time and half after 36 hours still gives over £30,000,  that is at £10 p hour

  not many of todays young people want to put up with the conditions, aggro and pure torment for £10 an hour

   

[Hylander]

1 hour ago, gancanny said:

not many of todays young people want to put up with the conditions, aggro and pure torment for £10 an hour

More's the pity that they can be so picky.  

Reading the posts,  the country always managed to makes a bad situation even worse by listening to rumours and reading social media.  This will sort itself out,    we have our forces to rely on and when have they ever let us down - never.

 

[Vaughan]

The official driver's hours are only the start of it. When I was driving, my working day would normally start around 0400 and including driving, clearing customs, loading and unloading, would never be less than 12 hours and often more than that.

I was quite well paid but I was on a bonus system based on how much the lorry earned. Much more like running a business.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

5 minutes ago, Hylander said:

More's the pity that they can be so picky.  

Reading the posts,  the country always managed to makes a bad situation even worse by listening to rumours and reading social media.  This will sort itself out,    we have our forces to rely on and when have they ever let us down - never.

 

They aren`t rumours though and I doubt how many have a licence to drive the big trucks on public roads.

[ExSurveyor]

Media hype in action again, say food will be short and people will panic buy, creating a shortage, then the media can claim they were right.

[Ray]

It's an interesting point, are the media saying there will be shortages or are they reporting industry spokespeople saying there will be shortages.

The whole covid thing has made me even more careful about what reports actually say and what they want you to understand from them.

A report can be factual and misleading at the same time, quite easily it seems!

[AndyTBoater]

I have stocked up on hose pipes.

Just in case there is a ban this summer. 

[Heron]

I am not a great believer of burying ones head in the sand!

The Road Haulage Association estimate a shortage of 60000 to 100000 HGV drivers in the UK. I wonder why? Look a bit wider than the pandemic!

I did the A14 from J1 to the A11 on Monday, the primary route to the southern east coast ports. Quite a lot of trucks on the move, but nothing like it was a few months ago.

 

[CambridgeCabby]

I used to work for Abbey Hill on the car transporters delivering and moving cars around the country for the hire companies ,Avis , Hertz etc at first I got a bonus per unit drop and if a full load of between 7 and 12 cars dependant on vehicle size were to a single destination then I could earn good money ; the company changed to a day rate which not only gave me longer hours but reduced my monthly income by 20% on average suffice to say ,I moved on .

I used to get mail frequently asking if I wished to return as there was a shortage of class one drivers with the training and skills required to drive an HGV with the overhang sweep encountered with transporter trailers , we used to have to get the police to stop oncoming traffic in some areas to allow us to turn into some streets , in fact if I remember correctly Kimbolton went so far as to ban car transporters from the city center 

[Vaughan]

2 hours ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:

and I doubt how many have a licence to drive the big trucks on public roads.

That is very true.  In the old RCT (Royal Corps of Transport) now the RLC, all drivers will have a class 4 HGV - for a rigid 4 wheel lorry.  Some will have HGV 2 - for a rigid 6 wheeler on 3 axles.  The Army only trains up HGV 1 drivers for specialist units such as tank transporters.

Some infantry regiment soldiers will have HGV 4 but not all that many.

[floydraser]

4 hours ago, Ray said:

It's an interesting point, are the media saying there will be shortages or are they reporting industry spokespeople saying there will be shortages.

The whole covid thing has made me even more careful about what reports actually say and what they want you to understand from them.

A report can be factual and misleading at the same time, quite easily it seems!

They are not compelled to report it. There is nothing positive to gain by reporting it. I do sometimes think there is another agenda.