HGV driver shortages

[Malcolm Tucker]

Check out the ages of those with HGV licences

If a driver over the age of 45 years of age does not pass a medical, every 5 years,  the licence is no longer valid.  The figure quotes current, ‘Valid’ licences. Age is not relevant.

Every 5 years an HGV driver must complete their ‘Driver Certificate of Professional Competency’ and under go a certain number of hours of training or the licence is invalid. Age is not relevant.

Age is enormously relevant. Supermarket store deliveries are very manual jobs, for example, as they require the driver to help unload goods at the store. A 20 stone bloke with flat feet can pass his medical to legally drive an HGV but they won’t be up to this type of work.

[JOK]

Strange, my supermarket employee neighbour and my own observations of warehouses tell me that the vast majority of products delivered to supermarkets are stacked in wheeled cages which can be manoeuvred (relatively) easily and in most cases the lorry body is flat floored enabling fork lifts or pallet stackers to access all the way to the rear of the truck, no manual handling required. Until the shelf stackers, that is.

And the age is relevant to whether those unused licences are still valid.
 

[Derek Hardballs]

This is how much respect there really is for the average HGV Driver…

Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab has suggested offenders who have been given community sentences could be used to address the country’s lack of HGV drivers amid continuing concerns about fuel shortages

[Ossian]

This is how much respect there really is for the average HGV Driver…

Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab has suggested offenders who have been given community sentences could be used to address the country’s lack of HGV drivers amid continuing concerns about fuel shortages

Dom hasn't had the best of times of late...

Imagine being told you're so useless that Liz Truss is considered an upgrade. That would take some getting over.

[Malcolm Tucker]

Strange, my supermarket employee neighbour and my own observations of warehouses tell me that the vast majority of products delivered to supermarkets are stacked in wheeled cages which can be manoeuvred (relatively) easily and in most cases the lorry body is flat floored enabling fork lifts or pallet stackers to access all the way to the rear of the truck, no manual handling required. Until the shelf stackers, that is.

And the age is relevant to whether those unused licences are still valid.
 

Strange, I own and run a transport company that does HGV deliveries to major supermarkets and we struggle to recruit UK drivers because of the manual nature of the job. We don’t have the same problem with simple trunking drop & swap work - on lower wages, I might add. 

No doubt your neighbour can give us a steer on where we’re going wrong?

[Birdman1811]

Strange, my supermarket employee neighbour and my own observations of warehouses tell me that the vast majority of products delivered to supermarkets are stacked in wheeled cages which can be manoeuvred (relatively) easily and in most cases the lorry body is flat floored enabling fork lifts or pallet stackers to access all the way to the rear of the truck, no manual handling required. Until the shelf stackers, that is.

And the age is relevant to whether those unused licences are still valid.
 

Having done warehousing for multiple Supermarkets, this is only partly true. Rarely can the curtains be withdrawn on the truck, quite often it's all unloaded from the rear of the truck, so the driver often has to move the cages, totes or pallets to the back himself, where the staff take it off. Due to supermarkets trying to cut down on warehouse space, the warehouse is rarely flat, so quite often the driver has to stop the pallet rolling off the end, so work, or push it uphill. Either way, not easy.

[hudds]

JOKStrange, my supermarket employee neighbour and my own observations of warehouses tell me that the vast majority of products delivered to supermarkets are stacked in wheeled cages which can be manoeuvred (relatively) easily and in most cases the lorry body is flat floored enabling fork lifts or pallet stackers to access all the way to the rear of the truck, no manual handling required. Until the shelf stackers, that is.

And the age is relevant to whether those unused licences are still valid.
 

I dunno if it still happens but supermarket delivery drivers to stores had to use pump hand trucks to manouevre and pull heavy loads stacked on pallets to get to the rear door lift.  Hard work. And often hand ball when there were collapsed cages/shrink wrapping.  Ther are smaller wheeled cages but they can;t handle heavy ambient stuff. I worked night shifts for 4 years at safeway ("night crew").  Hardest physical work I've done.  And worked manual jobs in heavy industry.

[Derek Hardballs]

Meanwhile here’s our government’s plan to ‘save Christmas’. It’s all going very well

I don’t remember when the Vote Leave Cabal were saying how great the future was going to be be, that Saving Christmas was going to be a thing!

[JOK]

More than half the schools in the U.S.A. report school bus driver shortages. Bloody Brexit. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/us/school-bus-drivers-shortage.html

[baggy1]

This is getting really tiresome saying this JOK so please a acknowledge it - nobody is saying Brexit is the cause of the driver shortage, but it did make it worse for the UK by cutting off one avenue to relieve the problem. This is proven by the government issuing temporary visas for EU drivers.

So in this instance brexit has made the situation worse