Thinking of career change too HGV Driver

Angry_Bear

Have you considered bus driving rather than truck driving? The (advertised) pay isn't too bad, and as I understand it, most bus companies will take you through your PCV training.

Notmyrealname

Around £5k to get the required licences up to Class 1 with medicals and DCPC. You'll then be competing for jobs with 10,000s of drivers like myself who have decades and hundreds of thousands or millions of miles of HGV driving experience.

When the economy is on its knees, there's not many HGV driving jobs because there's not many goods to be moved.

So no, it won't be easy to find work even through agencies.

Also at the moment you work what, 8hrs a day 40hrs a week with a fixed lunch break? The industry average is 55hrs a week and lunch is when you can work a long enough break into your day or the tacho tells you it is. Overtime is NOT voluntary. If you have the remaining driving or working hours to do the job, you're expected to. None of this "I've got a gym session tonight so I have to finish at 5 O'Clock." The maximum working week in haulage is 84hrs. If you finish 12hrs after you started you're doing well. Day drivers usually start around 3am-6am. The minimum daily rest period is 9hrs. You could start at 6am in the morning, not finish until 9pm that night and be expected to be in the wagon for 6am the following morning three days out of every week.

Then there's trampers. They'll leave home on Sunday night/early Monday morning and be out in the wagon all week until Friday night/Saturday morning spending all week living in a 8x6 cab being lucky to even find somewhere to park with toilets let alone a hot meal.

And in winter when the Police are advising motorists not to travel you WILL be expected to take out a 44 tonne wagon and try your damndest to get there.

All this to get an hourly rate no better than a shelf stacker at Tesco.

Still interested?

bugslet

Pretty much what notmyrealname says, it's certainly not the path to riches that some companies with a vested interest would have you believe.

On the other hand, if it's something you have always wanted to do, then you'll never know without trying. If it's something you think 'might' suit you so you'll try it, then it's probably not for you.

Might be worth looking at Trucknet etc, on the newbie boards to get some idea of the problems new drivers face getting a job.