The lorry driver shortage is a genuine national crisis and hauliers are throwing money at the emergency to retain staff and hire new ones. Secret Trucker answers the call. I wasn’t expecting the call because its Tuesday lunchtime. Big Dave’s number usually means it’s the weekend and its beer o’clock.
Freshly armed with a pay rise, Big Dave’s current employer has offered a finder’s fee for any employee who can persuade a new lorry driver to join the ranks. Much like Tesco’s £1,000 inducement. In fact, that is where the idea came from. “Every little helps,” Big Dave concluded after suggesting I return to the open road in the livery of his current employer before proposing: “We could split the cash.” Money. People talk about money as if it cures all life’s woes. To a certain extent it does. It puts food on the table, pays the bills and just about stretches to a round of beers at the Nags Head. Spike Milligan best summed it up: “Money can't buy you happiness, but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.” Out of habit I had renewed my heavy goods entitlement but there were stumbling blocks; the current Mrs Secret Trucker wasn’t keen, I wasn’t keen, and my Driver CPC had expired. I said we’d think about it. This isn’t just about me. I retired to spend more time with the most tolerant of the Mrs Secret Truckers to date. I’d been odd jobbing, socialising, relaxing, reading, cycling (in a fashion), drinking, snoozing, day tripping…in short, I enjoy retirement. The pandemic hadn’t really come into it. The kids are away, and although it was difficult not seeing the grandkids, regular online chats followed by social-distanced gatherings was a workable alternative to being there in person. Next day, Big Dave was back on the blower with an update. “He’ll stump up for the 35 hours,” he wheezed between drags. I had 21 hours but needed another 14. Last time I drove a truck in anger was before the pandemic; absence doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder. I’m double-jabbed and I’m not shielding anyone. And, I had to admit it, I didn’t feel overly confident about returning. The job is hard, relentless, and draining. Still…I was tempted. Day three. Big Dave has become a pest. “Money?” Big Dave replied in earnest: “Depends, £14.50 an hour on days or £180 a day for tramping plus night out money.” When I retired, I was on £11.50 an hour with receipts forever quizzed. Over fish and chips the wife listened as I created the argument for going back to work. The pension is safe; this is extra bubble. Work a two or three day week. I can jack anytime. By the time I rinsed the dishes ‘we’d decided’. I texted Big Dave. ‘I’m in’. The yard was a 40 mile roundtrip with a two hour induction for which I was given £50 (in cash) for me troubles. I was ushered through a one way system, given a temperature check and put into a Portacabin installed in the car park and joined by the transport manager. ‘Days to start with, and then let’s see’, I suggested. “Bring a sleeping bag,” came the reply coated with a grin. The money was as Big Dave said; £14.50 an hour with a minimum payment of 12 hours per shift. I did the maths; £174 a day for a five day week is £870 a week, if I last the year that is £45,240. And they say there is no money in transport. I’m past 66 (a clue) so there is no National Insurance or pension contributions for me just income tax, so I’ll take home £38,708, which is £744.38 a week. Christ on an electric-powered Bike. I felt giddy offered such lavish wages but there was also anger. Years of struggle juggling priorities when a lorry drivers wage was the thin end of fuck all. The money I wasted on booze and fags, the arguments, the bitter recriminations when you were ‘let go’ because of the last in first out policy. And years of being treated with such utter contempt by the likes of the transport manager now so keen to get me back behind the wheel at any cost. For once, external forces means hauliers now pay what I think a driver is worth. Who knows, had it been like this before it may have gone someway to retaining some of those that left the industry in their droves. Money, though, is just a sticking plaster covering the festering wounds beneath. Cost to even enter the industry is eyewatering and the return on investment is curtailed by insurance companies still wanting two years’ experience, then there is the work life balance, how drivers are treated, the disgustingly inadequate road infrastructure and lack of proper truckstops with space, security, food and decent welfare facilities, and then there is the aging demographic. All that passed by in the blink of an eye; £744.38 a week, wait until the Breadknife hears about this. I was booked onto two online courses there and then, and will be back on the road next Monday.
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Returning to work after the festive season has marked my journey as an itinerant trucker from self-martyrdom to apostasy, or in layman terms, getting the work-life balance right. As a jobbing lorry driver working through Christmas and New Year is an occupational hazard. If you haul consumables, chances are you’ll have done some shifts in-between your turkey dinner and amateur-drinking night at the local pub, whose landlord has miraculously replaced all the glasses with plastic alternatives that split even when you just think about taking a mouthful of the insipid craft lager contained within. If you shift anything associated with construction, days start to blur from one to the next as déjà vu déjà vu moments start to occur between Harry Potter films on ITV2. Please, feel free to insert your own transport sector, repetition gag and film credit accordingly. For me, it was construction (already mentioned) and The Hobbit-ses. Clambering into the cab for the first time in two weeks always brings a swell of emotions. As a newly-married tramper time spent with ‘the immediate family’ veered from fantastic to fraught, as the novelty wore off and it began to feel like I was going against the norm. Spouses separated physically for the majority of the week tend to lead separate lives, with weekends consisting of shopping, a night out and packing the bag with clothes and food for the next week (at least it did for me initially before parenting duties took over). Being married to a tramper cannot be easy with a family to raise, which was something I was oblivious to for too long.
Once married with children there was a feeling of elation at getting an extended break through the festive period. Today I recognise it was misplaced as that relief had more to do with the job at the time than a chance to spend time with the family. I had a terrible job hauling all manner of dry goods up and down the country, pushed to and beyond the limits each and every day without gratitude other than knowing I’d be paid at the end of the week. I know, it’s my job to drive lorries up and down the country delivering all manner of dry goods but even the most hardened capitalist must appreciate the effort put in by the workforce. After all, I’d seen Scrooge on the tv and in real life. Finishing on Christmas Eve knowing it would be the New Year before I drove up and down the country delivering all manner of dry goods again, I came home and broke down in tears. I couldn’t explain the relief. Being at home for longer than one night, not having to feel the wrath from the transport office or the boss, not having to manipulate the hours to make up lost time and distance, I couldn’t tell anyone as I didn’t know myself. The wife misread the signs, she took it as me being pleased to be home, and maybe I was but it wasn’t for the right reasons. I didn’t say anything, why would I, as a bloke I wouldn’t know where to start let alone justify it. I vowed not to go back but that was an empty promise to myself. I wept more in the cab on my return because I knew that money was more important to the family than my happiness, which was selfish. By the time the next Christmas came around I was employed somewhere else. The money wasn’t as good. Something drummed into me by the wife constantly as she struggled to make ends meet. But I was in a much better place, at least while I was working. Now the trouble started when I went home. This time finishing on the Friday before Christmas, which was the following Tuesday, and going back in-between for two days before finishing again ahead of New Year wasn’t a chore. It was a welcome break from the family and the rows over money. My wife made her points loud and clear as I left for work. She, with the kids, entertained her parents as I sat at the Western Docks in Dover waiting for the French rail ferry to dock with a trailer bound for Welwyn Garden City (the one and only time I have ever been there). The bitter arguments that New Year and subsequent unease was the beginning of the end of our relationship, which then took a couple of years to play out before she had the courage to finally say ‘enough’. After that, I threw myself into work, if only to avoid the cold stark reality of my situation and by default the duties as a divorcee parent of three growing children. I thought ‘the job’ would save me. Delivering the necessities and essentials to those that required them would give me the sort of satisfaction of a job well done, of people in offices thankful the latest delivery has arrived saving all and sundry from a fate worse than having an empty shelf because I did my job. It was my thankless task of atonement to keep everyone afloat. And that could justify my absence from the lives of people I had responsibility for, after all, they never went short of money. The extra hours paid for impressive gifts that would light up their Christmas day in my absence. I believed it. In those moments when I was alone with my thoughts, when I really had to justify my isolation on the edge of the A1(M) with each passing car crammed full of people and presents rocking my air suspension cab from side-to-side, I wanted to believe it more than anything else in the world. It took a thinly veiled warning, or a timely reminder if you want to sugar coat it, from my eldest to remind me of where my priorities lay. It didn’t matter what I bought with the money I earned working the sort of hours only lorry drivers have to work, my self-imposed martyrdom was little more than a mask. Nothing is more valuable than time spent in the company of loved ones. Gradually, and with a lot of effort and help, I have managed to rebuild my relationship with my family. Friends, the current Mrs Secret Trucker, and support from professionals, all deserve much of the credit. The hardest thing for me was confronting my family and admitting that I had got it wrong. These days delivering construction material means the festive period is essentially a shutdown. For two weeks I get to spend quality time with the current Mrs Secret Trucker, to visit the children and spend time with their children. Today I see Christmas through the eyes of my grandchildren and enjoy every moment of it. Going back to work is now where the disappointment kicks in, which is how it should be. Once behind the wheel, it’ll feel like I have never been away. Sure, job satisfaction is important but so is life outside of work. Tales from the open road, #281; sometimes it’s best not to ask. A familiar-looking lorry inches its way into the yard, stopping outside the warehouse. The engine was cut, and a bleary-eyed and weather-beaten Stan steps from the cab. On hearing the motor our benevolent boss emerges from the warehouse approaching his employee. He eyes the unshaven, dishevelled Stan up and down before inspecting the wagon. He stops briefly to glance at the flatbed. A lone pallet with several bags of animal feed perched on it sits against the bulkhead dollied down. He continues to the back of the truck, giving it a cursory glance before making his way back towards the cab. The boss looks Stan straight in the eye and asks: “Where is the trailer?” For the best part of two years during the 1980s, I drove for a small family business delivering farm machinery, pallets of feed and bedding, and other tools of the agricultural industry. Customers included farmers, retail outlets and wholesalers across the south of England.
A fleet of Iveco Ford Cargo two-axle rigid flatbeds were supplemented by a single two-axle drawbar trailer…with an A-frame. I manhandled a Ford Cargo 1615 that had a 16-tonne gross vehicle weight. Powered (I use that term loosely) by Ford’s own 148hp engine it worked tirelessly (and often in vain) with Ford’s own six-speed synchromesh transmission. What speed was generated by the engine was lost with a single gearchange. Occasionally, it would be hooked to the trailer grossing out at 26 tonnes to maximise potential. Now, I know what you are thinking. Skin and rice pudding; bed and blanket. And you’d be right, the Ford Cargo 1615 couldn’t separate any of them. From the warehouse to Cornwall and back was pretty straightforward; a two-day job. Down in the morning to make two-or-three deliveries, the first couple off the trailer that is then left in a layby. Next day would be one-or-two drops at most, collect the trailer and then trundle back empty. There was always enough time. However, in the summer Cornwall represented something of a challenge. Tourism. In the 1980s Cornwall was a very different place. Although there was less traffic the roads were single-carriageways. Everything backed up as families of four in aged motors towing caravans sought poorly-signposted campsites, or directions to the ‘seaside’. While the South Hams in Devon was already popular with second-home owners, Cornwall was less so. There were genuine local communities living in fully-equipped villages and there were more working farms with smaller acreages. Today…well, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; Cornwall is ruined by the flood of affluent Londoners buying up houses to use for a fortnight every other summer, misguided wealthy second-generations bringing their artisan business concepts to sell to fellow outsiders, all the while choking up the impoverished road network with large, powerful SUVs, sports cars and aged Volkswagen campervans. Anyway, I partially digress. Stan had been taken on a fortnight before. He’d been shown the ropes, and how to rope. His dolly wasn’t bad, but you couldn’t play a tune on it. Initially his role was local work. On the third Monday of his employment he was handed several detailed maps of Cornwall – many with notes as to procedures for farms – and the keys to the 1615, my wagon, which was attached to a trailer. With five drops, one more than usual, he was sent on his way. That would have been me; instead I spent two days traipsing to London and Warwick collecting tractors, machinery and animal feed bound for the warehouse covering a holidaying driver. By Wednesday morning I was to have the keys to the 1615 but Stan had not returned. The boss got on the phone. The feedback was inconclusive. The farmers were out baling but retailers said they had received their parts – so at least two of the five deliveries had been made albeit out of sync. The boss waited all day, but Stan didn’t reappear. He got back on the blower. Stan had not yet been to two of the farms he was meant to deliver to Monday afternoon. It was now Wednesday evening. The boss made efforts to get to the bottom of why it took Stan so long. Seemingly he couldn’t find the first two farms at Yeolmbridge and Treneglos. He made two deliveries of tractor parts to retailers in Bodmin and Helston then showed up at a farm outside St Austell where he spent an afternoon reversing the A-frame trailer back down a lane because he’d missed the turning. To Stan’s credit, and without any experience of using one, he successfully reversed an A-frame trailer 150 yards. The farmer said as much. He got the farmer to transfer the remaining two loads from the trailer to the prime mover, then dropped the empty trailer in a layby to make the last deliveries back at Yeolmbridge and Treneglos. Out of time, he parked up and bobtailed back on Friday morning…without the trailer. No one knows what happened to the maps, why he couldn’t find the farms, or why he transferred the load. Stan took his bollocking without question, then walked to his car and left never to return. However, Stan’s experience did force change on the company. The benevolent boss got rid of the wagon and drag concept and went to an all-articulated fleet. Out went the Cargos and in came second hand ERF B-series 4x2 tractor units previously used to haul milk tankers. As he stated: “Less chance of you buggers leaving the trailers behind!” Applying for a job with a haulier can mean an interview, a driving assessment and a probationary period as well as providing references. For total transparency should prospective employers also provide you with its Operator Compliance Risk Score to show they are worth working for? Big Dave has been waved in so many times by Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) employees that he is on first name terms with most of them.
Many of his impromptu roadside checks came during an 18-month period of employment with a particular ‘haulier’. It got so bad that even Big Dave stopped seeing the funny side of it. Any self-respecting steering wheel attendant will know that when they see a DVSA liveried vehicle on the move there is a moment when the sphincter tightens just a tad pending the yellow lights. Every haulier is listed on the Governments’ Operator Compliance Risk Score (OCRS) database that decides which vehicles DVSA should inspect. They tap in the registration and up comes…well I’m not exactly sure…thumbs? OCRS takes in the operator’s performance regarding the condition of its vehicles and known operational offences. If your employers’ OCRS is high it is more likely you, the employed lorry driver, will be flagged in and given the once over. The OCRS uses data collected over a rolling three-year period based on specific information. There is a distinctive set of criteria and a set-in-stone scoring system split into three; one for roadworthiness, one for traffic (this includes drivers’ hours and tachograph offences, and weighing checks), and these two are combined for an overall third score. This translates into a traffic light system; if green the operator is viewed as low risk, amber is medium risk, red is high risk and grey is ‘unknown operator’. Outside of green and the wagons are more likely to be pulled in. It works off the theory that if the operator isn’t on green then they should be striving for green, so trucks should be exemplary, hence they are pulled in to see if that is the case. If so, all good, if not… Operators know their own OCRS but not that of others and itinerate lorry drivers most certainly do not have access to it in any shape or form. Had Big Dave known that his employer was most likely in the red, I wonder if he would’ve joined the company. At his interview for the job of ‘lorry driver’ Big Dave provided references, had an extensive interview about driving hours and pre-shift checks, and was asked if he’d been stopped, had any prosecutions, fines, points or cautions. Big Dave met all the conditions for employment even if his appearance and personal hygiene doesn’t . He was also asked to put his details into the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) online ‘license holder check system’ to make sure he was ‘legit’. He did so without hesitation. Inside the first week Big Dave was pulled in at Carlisle. His considerably sized sphincter responded accordingly, no mean achievement, and he followed the DVSA highway patrol into the roadside facility. His mind raced back to his pre-vehicle shift and any over-speeds or other ‘offences’ that might have popped up after downloading his digital tachograph. His wagon was given the once over and was sent packing. Pulled over once maybe considered random, twice (this time at Stirling) smacks of intent. Big Dave does self-preservation better than Boris Johnson. He adhered to his pre-shift vehicle check religiously, reported anything that hinted of defect and even queried the brevity of the vehicle check sheet. He began adding his own notes to it to show its minimalism. When he got waved in at Beattock and then Warrington his sphincter barely registered a response knowing he’d done all he could to ensure his vehicle was roadworthy and that any driving offences were little more than misdemeanours or one-offs. During the 18 months he’d been pulled seven times across the country. A tyre on the verge of baldness was, according to Big Dave, the nearest they got to pinning anything on him. It was clear his employer wasn’t the best at maintaining their own rolling stock so rather than risk his livelihood, Big Dave walked. He was lucky. There are thousands of wagon drivers motoring across the country working for employers whose OCRS are less than stellar. Drivers often work in ignorant bliss, only to get wise when caught with a wagon not suitable for the open road. If employers can give you the once over, I think it’s only right drivers can do the same by having access to their employers (new or current) OCRS in the same way Big Dave had to go through the DVLA license check. Big Dave had nothing to hide, if an operator has nothing to hide, they should gladly boast a ‘green OCRS’. Lorry drivers will, to the best of their ability, make sure their wagon is roadworthy but if the operator is on red or amber surely this might make the lorry driver reconsider their options, after all, why play the game fairly if your employer cannot be bothered to do the same? The lorry driver is responsible for the freight they carry and that means they are responsible for the way it’s loaded. Is it time for the driver to share that responsibility with the consignor? On the 14th December 2018, just after midday, the ‘Humber Roads Police’ posted an update on its twitter feed. That’s right. It’s polystyrene. Government advice for ‘lightweight and fragile’ loads is that even if it is polystyrene ‘it’s still important that the load is stopped from moving due to the danger to the person responsible for unloading the vehicle’. Internal straps may retain the load sufficiently dependant on the size of the objects, or ‘some sort of internal frame or roll cage to provide the necessary securing’ with the caveat; ‘make sure the frame itself is secure if you use this method’. Overkill? Well, it brought 256 responses from mainly professional dyed-in-the-wool truckers mostly expressing disbelief and frustration. I concur but rather than shoot the messenger you need to look at who is responsible for this situation. To date I can say that I have not knowingly lost a load from any truck I have driven… Oh, I’ve come close a few times.
And I’ve been stopped a few times too by the haulage police keen on assessing my pallets fastened down with good intentions within a curtainsided wagon. I’ve been lucky, no doubt. In each case I point the finger at me just like Humberside’s finest did to the driver hauling polystyrene. The law states that lorry drivers have sole responsibility for the roadworthiness of the wagon while they are driving it and security of its contents. And it has to be like that because if it wasn’t you-me-us wouldn’t even bother carrying straps or chains or sheets to tie the mother down. But should the lorry driver carry the burden alone? There is a clamour for drivers to have a co-conspirator, a partner in crime, in the shape of the consignor. Imagine, the person or firm (usually the seller) who provides a consignment to a carrier for transporting to a consignee (usually the buyer) named in the transportation documents also taking responsibility for how their goods are loaded. Better known as Consignor Liability. You may not have been aware of it – unless you have been stopped – but we are in the middle of Vehicle load security enforcement campaign week (22 – 26 July 2019). It is a joint effort by the National Police Chiefs' Council with Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) to highlight the risks both to drivers and other road users if goods aren’t transported properly. Safety is its watchword. DVSA uses proactive enforcement to identify unsafe vehicles and take appropriate action. Remember: ‘It is essential that, whatever load is being carried, it is secured properly on the vehicle. If loads are not secured, they can fall from the vehicle on to the road, or move so much they make the vehicle unstable. Unstable loads can also fall out of or off the vehicle when it arrives for unloading.’ And here comes the punchline, the National Police Chiefs' Council adds that: ‘While drivers are responsible for the safety of their vehicle on the road, consignors and vehicle operators are also responsible for ensuring that the load a vehicle carries is safe and secure from the point of loading right through to unloading.’ Under current government advice – endorsed by DVSA, Traffic Commissioners, Freight Transport Association and Road Haulage Association – it is only under the heading 6.2 Double-deck trailers that ‘operators and consignors should make sure that a thorough risk assessment has been carried out to identify the most practicable means of loading and securing goods on the vehicle’. Consignors and operators are encouraged to get involved but only if they want too. No driver has yet taken their employer or their employers’ customer to court over being prosecuted for unsafe loading citing mitigating circumstances like ‘they told me to do it that way’. From my experience the consignor is not interested in safety, they are interested in profit. They turn a blind eye to the extra pallet or scoop from the front loader irrespective of weight, or poorly maintained trailers, overloaded axles or more boxes of fruit and veg than a 14-litre Gardner 8LXB in a Seddon Atkinson 401 could possibly cope with. All justified by the immortal get out of jail card: ‘the last driver took it, drive…’ Introducing Consignor Liability that makes both the shipper and driver accountable for how a trailer is loaded and its weight should already be in place if only to stamp out bad practice. After all, its their shipment and its their property until its sold. So why not ensure it is delivered properly? It’s feasible that polystyrene has been put on different types of trailers without anything ever happening before. It may well be the consignor’s decision to move it like that and agreed by the haulier in advance, after all its just polystyrene. Had the haulier known their duty according to the Operator’s License they would have found a way to secure the load according to their legal responsibilities. Internal roof straps, integral frame… More likely that the load was deemed insignificant and so any old trailer was deployed, that’s how it looks to me. I’ll go one step further. It looks like a tautliner, so an overseas haulier where – more often than not – a lack of legislation means this load would have been fine. I also suspect the driver was stopped for other reasons. An insecure load might well have been a bonus for Humberside’s finest. But the real issue is what happens if the truck is involved in a road traffic collision (RTC). Often the delays associated with RTC are to do with clearing up the mess. Should polystyrene escape it’ll go everywhere, like snow or hailstones. Ultimately if a curtainsided trailer is involved the load has to remain on the bed of the trailer. That is the true acid test; and that is why the police chose to act. The load was not secure. Opinions are like arseholes, everybody has one; the trouble starts when opinions are challenged. "…the only way you’ll get a decent job now is if you’re an immigrant or a…”
Credit where its due, Colin (we all knew it was Colin because he’d written his name on a small card and placed it in front of him for us all to see) stopped mid-sentence before delivering the coup de grâce that would have merely confirmed what we all suspected him to be, a racist. Not that he was alone. He was in a room with others who were also homophobic and misogynistic. What set Colin apart was that he was the first to show restraint. In the vacuum created by Colin’s abbreviated sentence our ‘driver trainer’ tried to wrestle back control of the group. Something he’d freely given up just two hours earlier when he said he’d welcome input from his captive audience. Sat at tables lined up on three sides of the room, are 27 participants of the mandatory Driver CPC course. It is also a Saturday, which seems to put everyone in a bad mood. It is one of the few times lorry drivers gather en masse. For seven of the next eight hours we are to have the fine detail of the Analogue and Digital Tachographs & Drivers Hours Regulations course shown to us on slides, which are then repeated word for word by our host for the day. I’ll call him Derek. Driver trainers tend to spend too long justifying their credentials, deliver time-honoured industry stories and provide a platform for lorry drivers to air their list of grievances. Derek fitted the bill perfectly. Gaz got the ball rolling with a query about the 24-hour working day and wondered if its best to start from midnight. Derek explained that every 24-hour period is best established at the beginning of his shift, say five o’clock, and to work from there to five o’clock the following morning. “That’s a lie in,” cut in Geoff with a twinkle in his eye, “I start at four most mornings – bloody silly o’clock.” A chuckle rippled through the masses bringing Derek light relief, he then took the opportunity to go through a lengthy yarn about starting at 3am and deploying the split-rest solution every day so he got three hours kip at midday, which was the punchline. A core of four or five delegates took up the mantle offering their experiences of early starts. The best of which was delivered by Mike: “I used to start driving again 20 minutes before I finished my last shift…” It was more than half an hour before we got back to the slide show. Then came Period of Availability. Only a few drivers actually used this but POA provided delegates with a chance to turn their ire towards warehouse and security staff where being an ethnic minority was clearly more of a problem to the drivers than being held up for hours on end. In the end both were treated with distain in equal measures. Looking uneasy, Derek decided not to challenge the casual racism and moved onto situations where POA is relevant. Either side of a coffee break the ponderous anecdotes turned to feckless transport managers and clerks, colleagues’ inadequacies, women in the workplace and fellow driver’s poor hygiene. As we got to graduated fixed penalties attention turned to the DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency) highway officers. Here bile rose quickly in the throat as ‘these parasites’ were roundly condemned for being petty, ineffective, hiding up lanes ‘dogging’ or watching mucky DVDs as ‘Johnny Foreigner’ roared past busy watching their own mucky DVDs. After some brief mentions Brexit popped up in its entirety as several confirmed their unswerving allegiance to Nigel Farage and the debate moved swiftly to the flip-flop and white sock brigade, and those who came here looking for work. Colin’s brief outburst proved to be the final straw. It was Gaz who bravely stepped into the breach to counter the wildly unsubstantiated hearsay spoken as unalienable truths. He argued that the industry had to recruit from all walks of life as road haulage has a significant driver shortage problem that British middle-aged men alone cannot fill. Gaz added that being out of Europe isn’t going to help that. It opened the floodgates. Lee (although he might have been called Les as his handwriting was shockingly bad) took us back to warehouses and said that they are usually run as poorly as transport companies so expecting it to be anything to the contrary is simply unrealistic. He also said that bullying colleagues has no place in today’s society. Derek grew a pair and said that DVSA enforcement officers are only doing their job and will act if your boss is less than watertight or you have done something blatantly wrong, after all leaving the yard with a bald tyre is down to you. Another gentleman, with ‘Twat’ written on his card, suggested that we considered the wages (or peanuts as he described it) drivers get for working long hours for scrupulous eastern European hauliers. He added that we would not accept being holed up with a colleague for 24 hours a day seven days a week for a whole month cabotaging across this fetid isle. “It’s bad enough doing it on your own,” he concluded. As things looked likely to boil over Derek wisely sent us out for an early lunch and hoped the fresh air might help restore calm. I’ve been on 10 Driver CPC courses and this was by far the worst. I want to believe that it is the exception and not the norm. As Big Dave pointed out, the Driver CPC is an opportunity for people who don’t usually meet in large groups to interact. “Drivers,” he said, “are a solitary beast, allowing them to hunt in packs means the odd deer might get taken down.” To his credit it’s a fair analogy brought on by his love of Sir David Attenborough. The afternoon dragged. No one shared anecdotes, everyone avoided eye contact and focussed on Derek as he read the slides word for word. As the seventh hour clicked over we left quickly and quietly. The only consolation was that I won’t have another ‘seven hours tuition’ for another five years and by which time I will hopefully be retired. Changing long haul for local work has opened up a myriad of issues, most notably coping with amateur drivers who only nip to the shops and back. The iron railway bridge was an eyesore long before the steel rods that had once carried people and freight from the town into the countryside had been ripped up. Vegetation reclaimed the manmade valley in the years that followed. Next to the bridge was a farm track that led to a barn and a small field. At some point in the 1990s the landowner sold the barn and field to developers and renowned local builders Bildem & Cheepleigh put up several houses. I say houses but if I’d said shed it would have been an insult to sheds. Subsequently, the old farm track became an access road with the resident’s unfortunate enough to have bought one of the shacks asked to try and get out of a blind T-junction next to the bridge. With six-foot-high sides the bridge obscured oncoming traffic from the right. Drivers inched their cars forward for a better view hoping, praying, that those behind the wheel of the oncoming traffic favoured safety over t-boning. A friend of mine, who doesn’t drive wagons, was poised to leave this very side road on his newly acquired motorbike and head back to the village. Leonard, an infamous kitchen fitter, had been to visit a potential customer who disliked his ‘new’ kitchen in his ‘new’ two-up-two-down hovel so much he was willing to replace it with anything. For Leonard it was a chance to try out his new motorbike, which he described as a jet engine on wheels. Even though he was too young to be a member of BABS, born-again-bikers, it had been several years since he’d last owned and ridden a motorbike. “It’s a beast,” he told me not long after buying the two-wheeled behemoth, “where ever I go the bike is there a half hour before I am.” He inched forward from the junction and tried to peer around the sidewalls of the bridge. Confident it was clear he squeezed the accelerator just as a red hatchback appeared travelling at some pace. Leonard hesitated; unable to pull the bike back out of the way he took instinctive action and gunned the accelerator even harder. The car missed him by millimetres. The relief at having avoided the car felt like a high, similar to what he thought an out of body experience might feel like. He was brought back to reality by several rotten fence slats hitting his chest. By the time he’d turned his head back around the bike was already through the hedgerow opposite the junction and was now going down the bramble-covered embankment. He let the bike go. The crash helmet saved his good looks and braincells. His trainers, jeans, t-shirt and lightweight shower-resistant jacket proved ineffective at repelling stiff branches, long thorns and ripe blackberries. He plunged 30 feet and came to rest in a bed of stinging nettles halfway down the embankment. While many injuries were superficial two splinters, one in his knee and the other in his right hand, would later be removed by a doctor at the local Accident and Emergency. As he sat there, a single rhetorical question ran through his mind; ‘Who do I know drives a red hatchback.’ He pushed the bike down to the footpath that had replaced the railway track and walked back to the village past several startled dog walkers. Instead of going home he popped round to see his Aunt Audrey. She wasn’t in, but his Uncle Geoff was. He popped the kettle on an they both waited for her to return from the shops…in her red hatchback. Leonard’s point was that locals, himself included, drive the local roads without due care and attention because they are so familiar with it. Audrey had driven over the bridge and past the junction so many times that she barely registered it anymore let alone considered the blind-exit drivers had to negotiate. It was just part of a journey to town, or the shops. She had no recollection of a near miss with a motorbike even though it had been within the previous hour. And so it goes for me. After the majority of my working life on the trunking networks of Great Britain and Europe, I am now delivering building equipment and products to local building sites, houses and other retail outlets. And it has caused no end of headaches. Headaches I’d not really experienced before. Things like drivers queuing in traffic and blocking T-junctions so you cannot get out. Then, they just stare ahead like their lives depend on it for up to three minutes before traffic moves on again. Getting carved up like a Sunday roast by taxi drivers. This has to be a sport, where they all congregate at the railway station and compare stats on who has pissed off the most people in the town. Cyclists: ‘insert general offensive comment here’. If I had a pound for every time my truck gets surrounded at traffic lights like flies on shit I’d be considering retirement. Then there are the steamboat captains sailing the camper vans up and down the choppy back waters looking for a safe harbour to park up for the night. No ideal of where their nearside is, and I’ve witnessed more 23-point turns than I care to remember. If I ever find the person who limited these sardine tins with an outboard motor to 35mph some plaster would come off the ceiling. And then there are the locals who fall into two categories; those driving everywhere like they’re late for their own funeral and those who drive like they are part of a funeral procession. They all brake in the last 10 yards, tackle blind corners as if gifted with x-ray vision, tailgate like Sebastien Vettel, and only use an indicator if it’s been mistaken for a windscreen wiper. Finally parking; both sides of a narrow street, corners, entrances, exits, you name it, it’s been done. If crap parking can hold you up, then, yes, I’ve been held up at least once every day. Can you find the owner? Unlikely, but usually they show up just as you try to squeeze past within a fag paper of their pride and joy. Don’t get me wrong, I like the job, I enjoy the work, and I am having to learn to be tolerant but every time I see a red hatchback, I realise that familiarity breeds contempt among the locals. Confront them and they are quick to anger, and as such need to be treated with kid gloves. Right now, I am enjoying the work. And, if anything, it’s made me realise just how diverse the world of the truck driver can be. I wouldn’t change that for anything. The road transport industry needs to promote the positives it brings rather than hammer home the tired ‘without trucks you get nothing’ message that predict doom and gloom. Lorry drivers are on the frontline. They are the ones who deal with customers on a day-to-day basis.
They are ‘ambassadors’ for their employer. Not important enough to carry an endless supply of extravagantly wrapped crunchy hazelnut surrounded by a creamy hazelnut filling with a crisp wafer shell covered with chocolate and gently roasted pieces of hazelnut, but important enough not to act like an arse. Big Dave once found this out to his cost. He lambasted a forklift driver who put a stack of empty pallets on his trailer in a less-than-careful manner only to find the forklift driver was also the sole shareholder of the burgeoning wholesale business empire where Big Dave had just delivered. But it’s not just there where lorry drivers are front and central, it is also out on the road. An urban myth exists that a particular green-and-red-chip business missed out on a major contract because one of its drivers took verbal issue with the driving skills of the CEO of a renowned retail supplier. Of course, no one knows if that is really true but it serves as a warning. The more common tinderbox is the fleeting one with the general public out on the open road. Interaction with a tax-paying member of the community stuck behind a truck or has one right them behind only requires a small incident for it to serve as a permanent reminder as to why they loathe lorries and the people that drive them. I spent a period of my life ferrying the eldest offspring to the swimming pool. There, mingling with people from other walks of life, I had a ‘debate’ with another parent over ‘lorries’ and how she saw them as a ‘bloody nuisance’. She regularly battled trucks up and down a dual carriageway on her way to work. This often made her late, and irascible, every morning, she explained. I didn’t go down the ‘without trucks you’d have nothing’ route. Our conversation ended abruptly when I suggested she sets off earlier. Now outed as a lorry driver other parents would occasionally raise the topic of lorries-and-why-I-hate-them with me; one had witnessed a road rage incident with a lorry driver, another parent had been carved up by a truck and another had watched a lorry driver dump their rubbish out of the window including a bottle of what he thought was ‘cider’. It is difficult to defend these situations, and in fact I don’t recall that I did. Like all road users, lorry drivers make mistakes and poor decisions in equal measure. The difference is that they do it in something huge often with a name and a telephone number on it. And, of course, there are some truckers who don’t care what anyone thinks of them and no amount of peer pressure, training or sage advice will make them change their ways. I’ve known drivers spend the summer trying to wobble caravans by overtaking closely and then swerving to create a draft strong enough to cause untold mayhem, others enjoy brake-testing cars, while one wagon driver collected plastic bottles, fill them with mock-cider and lobbed them casually at people or passing cars. Yes, these people exist and drive lorries. And I have not been immune from upsetting other road users and no doubt have gone someway to form or entrench any harden views that lorry drivers and lorries are little more than a hindrance to society. If the road haulage is to change its perception, then it has to do more than merely tick a box for training or put a ‘without trucks you’d have no clothes’ sticker on the back of a trailer. Driver behaviour can be controlled, to a degree, with in-cab cameras; more operators are using this approach and seeing the benefits. Tired messages about ‘without trucks you’d be sitting on the floor’ have never resonated with the general public because they do not link (or care to link) the things they buy with how it arrives in the shop. Affiliate groups, trade bodies and associations that claim to represent our industry need to expand their horizons beyond the membership and the wider haulage bubble and be positive. Get out there, campaign to the general public, push the benefits of haulage and logistics as a career, explain how it shapes society, show how the just-in-time movement of goods work and how technology is used to help make the industry greener and more sustainable. I genuinely believe that those who continue to hammer out the ‘without trucks you’d die slowly because you’d starve as the shops would have no food in them’ message don’t have the capability or imagination to do anything else. They only focus on how institutions like government restrict practice and reduce profits, and suppliers like OEMs fleece operators. Road haulage is more than that. It is the lifeblood of this country. Sadly, Ford claimed the ‘Backbone of Britain’ for its Transit van but it would be better served for the wider freight sector. It’s time those in the industry sold transport to the general public based on its benefits not its necessity. From delivery driver to fighter in the blink of an eye. My last drop was at the civic centre in town; a small arena used by the elected officials to host important events like the opening of an envelope or fundraising coffee mornings. I had a truck full of water bottles for a forthcoming British Brawling Association event taking place at the weekend; no water just bottles. No one was at the loading bay so I wandered around to the front to see if anyone was about. As I opened the door a dog bounded towards me, jumped up and took me down. I had the presence of mind to grab the pooch’s collar and attempt to restraint the canine as it began to lick my face. The dog’s breath was pungent, a hint of marrowbone and cheese. As the dog lost interest I was able to focus on the round silver tag. ‘My name is Buster’, was engraved on one side, on the other was embossed; ‘Buster belongs to The Boss’. An unruly crowd had formed around me shouting encouragement and insults in equal measure before a bald-headed guy stepped forward. He spoke with an American accent: ‘I want to thank you for catching Buster, say, what’s your name fella?’ I told him the first two words that popped into my head. He thanked me again and left with Buster. The facilities manager told me to go to the loading bay and someone would sort me out. The delivery went without a hitch. The following day I got a call from ‘Butch’, who described himself as an ‘agent to the fighting elite’. He informed me that I was now ranked 35th in the British Brawling Association’s heavyweight division on the strength of my performance against Buster. With an official ‘one and oh’ record I was to be matched with some Welsh guy a week Saturday. Apparently, Buster had taken this sap the full three rounds. I was a heavy favourite. I frantically called the British Brawling Association offices but only got an answer machine, so went online via twitter. I explained across several tweets that I was a lorry driver not a fighter, and I’d be on a reduced weekly rest next weekend so would find it difficult to get down to Croydon for Saturday’s contest, even if I wanted to do it, which I didn’t. The next day a British Brawling Association representative called to express his disappointment and talk me ‘round. ‘Let…me…tell…you,’ he said painfully slowly, ‘…you…can…be…a…uh…um…contender.’ ‘Let me tell you,’ I replied, ‘babies take candy from me.’ After a lengthy pause, came the reply: ‘We…could… ... ...match…you…with… ...a... …baby… ...holding… ...a… ...uh…um…lollipop...?’ Sky Sports started running adverts for the big British Brawling Association event in Croydon with me opening the bill against an opponent ‘yet to be confirmed’. So, with few options left, I held a hastily arranged press conference at the A1 truckstop at Colsterworth, once I’d filled out the paperwork and paid for parking, to announce my retirement ‘with immediate effect’ from the British Brawling Association. I thanked my family for their support and felt I was able to look back at my brief but hectic fighting career with pride. ‘I will,’ I said with surety, ‘remain undefeated.’ Subsequent ads on Sky Sports made no mention of my name or my retirement but did announce that Buster would be matched with a wet paper bag over three rounds. Ticket prices started at £70. New to Channel 6, Haulage Nightmares. Colin Pascoe is a hardnose, ruthless, award-winning boss of the biggest freight logistics business ever. He brings his win-at-all-costs mentality to small faltering family-run transport businesses across the UK. Desperate to keep the business afloat, Big Dave and Janice (centre) call for help. HAULAGE NIGHTMARESOn the edge of a sleepy town in the commuter belt is a small family run haulage business that has seen three generations at the helm. Now Big Dave, grandson of the founder Grandpa Dave, is in charge. And the business is failing. Big Dave: ‘When local businesses moved out of the area we had to try and carry on. We employ local people, we could not just let the fact that our long-established customers were no longer in business stop us doing what we do best – transport.’ Big Dave operates eight trucks and trailers. ‘Things have been tough, no doubt, but we are trying to make things work for our loyal employees, and our family because we want to see the next generation to take the company forward, this is their legacy.’ With fewer customers and the company losing money, Big Dave and his wife Janice have had to make the tough call to bring in the experts to try and save their business. Janice says: ‘It’s not easy asking for help; we are very proud. Usually it’s us solving other people’s problems; you got something that needs moving, we can move it. Now we are asking for help. If we don’t turn this company around, it’ll go under. We are haemorrhaging money faster than blood from a haemophiliac with a grazed knee.’ Colin Pascoe is no stranger to turmoil when it comes to road haulage; he grew up mired in blood, sweat and engine oil. He began driving trucks when he was nine. ‘I’ve got diesel in my veins. Once a wagon got a blowout on the motorway, my father wasn’t available, so I set out to recover the truck myself. ‘It had a twin-splitter, which I’d mastered over a bank holiday weekend. I hooked up the stricken truck and brought it back in. I fixed the propshaft, rebuilt the clutch and changed the pistons to get the driver on his way before my father even got out of bed. I was just 11-years-old.’ His mantra is work, work and work. He intends to bring that ethos to Big Dave’s ailing haulage company before it goes out of business. Day one Colin Pascoe arrives at the office and speaks to Big Dave at length about road haulage. ‘…so, I welded a second engine to the chassis and drove non-stop to Munich…’ With the pleasantries out of the way, Big Dave explains how the business operates. ‘The drivers are in at 5am, they fuel up, and we send them down the road. We then go home and come back in Friday when the trucks come back.’ After recounting how he rebuilt a Gardner five-cylinder engine on the side of the A1(M) on Christmas Eve in driving snow and sub-zero temperatures wearing a Santa Claus costume and armed with just a plastic knife and fork as a temporary toolkit, Colin Pascoe gets Big Dave to repeat what he’s told him some time before. Big Dave does so, begrudgingly: ‘The DRIVERS...are in at 5am...THEY fuel up and WE, the management team, send the drivers down the road. We then go home and come back in Friday when the trucks come back.’ ‘Where do the trucks go?’ Colin Pascoe asks after explaining how he invented the dolly. Big Dave toys with his coffee cup and eventually mumbles: ‘To a layby...’ Shocked, Colin Pascoe sits in mock silence for 20 minutes. ‘Smoking drum brakes!’ he exclaims. ‘I want to see this layby…’ Just over one mile away parked on the bypass are eight trucks. Drivers, who should be thundering down Britain’s roads are instead enjoying bacon sandwiches and tea supplied by Cath from the butty van. Colin Pascoe is almost speechless. He can barely muster the strength to recall the time he spent six weeks at the Turkish border trying to get into Bulgaria with only a jar of pickled eggs for company. After an hour, Colin Pascoe marches over and opens the back door of a trailer. ‘It is as I feared,’ he admits, ‘the trailers are…empty!’ Colin Pascoe turns to Big Dave: ‘What in the name of block gear-changing is going on here?’ Big Dave gazes down at the ground and twists his shoe in mild embarrassment. ‘Take me back to the depot!’ demands Colin Pascoe, who then speaks to Janice in private. ‘Did you know the trucks are going out empty and parking up in a layby around the corner?’ ‘No,’ she replies in mild shock. ‘My husband takes care of all of that, we only work Monday morning and Friday afternoons.’ Colin Pascoe confronts Big Dave. ‘How long have the trucks being going out empty?’ ‘Since 2009…’ Big Dave confesses. ‘By my Jacobs brake, 10 years without a single load?’ Big Dave’s eyes well up. ‘My father, Bigger Dave, sold me the business as a going concern and retired to Spain. Just at that time the last of the local businesses moved out, what with the recession and all. We were left with nothing, so I took the decision to carry on regardless because it’s all I know…I don’t really speak to my father anymore.’ ‘How much money have you lost?’ ‘A…lot…’ admits Big Dave. ‘Jesus Christ in a Foden Alpha! No wonder you’re struggling, an empty fleet of trucks parked in a layby all week. Un-bel-iev-able! You are beyond help, take my advice; close the doors, sell the trucks, and then sell the land. I suggest you make yourself useful by sitting in a pond and eating the bread pensioners throw at you during the afternoons!’ Several hours later and Colin Pascoe has instructed his business partner, auctioneer Big Baz from Hamerdown and Floggitt, to put a call in to see if Big Dave is willing to sell off his assets. Day two Big Dave calls Colin Pascoe to explain that he has agreed to sell the trucks but cannot sell the land as he continues to rent it off his father, who won’t let him break the lease agreement. Sat on the balcony of his penthouse flat in Monte Carlo overlooking the Mediterranean, Colin Pascoe tells Big Dave; ‘You made the right decision, I think you should be proud that you have left the road transport industry still wearing a shirt on your back.’ Colin Pascoe sums up: ‘Road haulage is a cutthroat business where the small fish get eaten by bigger fish until only the biggest fish is left, and I am afraid that Big Dave and Janice were only minnows. My biggest surprise is that they avoided the bigger fish for as long as they did…’ Next week: Colin Pascoe visits another failing small family run haulage business to see if he can help before it’s too late. |
AuthorAging proletariat with face, teeth and body to prove it. Archives
August 2021
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