|
I was in France recently and stopped at there equivalent of a Travelodge. There was a brand new Bentley in the car park looking very out of place. Subsequently at the bar, spoke to a chap who is employed to drive it around the Continent racking up mega miles, tryimg to break it. Nice work if you can get it.
|
|
Even stopped at THEIR equivalent. (It's been a long day)
|
I imagine the queue would be long, but I don't even know where the back of the queue is!.
I have actually met such test drivers, but they were never around long enough to find out how they got their roles. I came across a 15-20 car convoy of VAG vehicles in Georgia, USA. I actually spoke to some them when they were at a petrol station, but they were too busy trying to convince me that the beetle shaped cars there (which was eventually released as the new beetle) were actually kit/models car they had designed themselves.
|
Many LGV driving jobs often involve a degree of loading and unloading by hand, which can be back breaking work. Those 10 pallets of bags of seedcorn might have been loaded by forklift at the depot but what if the farm where you deliver them has no forklift and just one old hobbly bloke to help you shift the load from the lorry and stack it in a barn?
I'd guess there are very few pure driving jobs. Container work to and from docks is probably as close as you can get. You need to have have a LGV C+E licence, which you can't get until you've had a C licence for a year. You need to be 21 to to get the C licence, so 22 for the C+E. Also I think I'm right in saying that very few employers insure their artics to be driven by people under 25.
Also until you've done a full-time driving job, you can't know whether you'd actually enjoy being behind the wheel for 7-8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
Cheers, Sofa Spud
|
|
|
|
"but over here all the restrictions and the high cost of entry"
Trancer, can you expand on that? - I always fancied getting an HGV licence but have never bothered to find out exactly how to do it. I'm not exactly looking for a job as an HGV driver(too old I fancy) but I quite like the idea of learning how to drive one of those things!!
|
To become a fully licensed artic driver you can expect to spend close to £2,000. I have seen ads for schools that were advertising much lower costs, but I was told (by other drivers) that they were unrealistic and you would wind up paying much more than they quoted. The lower grade licenses are cheaper to get, but then so is the pay you can earn with such licenses.
I know how you feel, Phil. I had no intention of becoming an LGV driver in the US, I just wanted to learn how to drive one so signed up for night classes. Of course it was alot cheaper over there, only about £350 if I remember correctly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
"The pay for LGV drivers has risen considerably over the last few years, as they are in short supply. £30k per annum is an easily attainable figure."
That isn't what I heard from the drivers I speak to regularly. In my current job there are many LGV deliveries and of course drivers passing through and I speak with a few of the regulars. Unless they are giving me a hard luck story to keep me out, they don't seem to be doing all that well...certainly not as good as £30k, thats for sure.
|
I've actually got LGV license (did it a couple of years ago for interest) - cost a lot less than £2k - more like £1k.
A chap I know (father of a friend of my son's) reckons he earned about £34k in 2003 driving for a major company. He also got £2k shares (or some such deal, can't remember the details). Mind you, he does drive some nights and also some weekends.
Boredom would be a major factor, plus driving an LGV is more tiring than you think - constant concentration - much more tiring than driving a car. I don't think I would want it as a job.
|
I can't help with up to date costs for getting a HGV licence, it's now over ten years ago, andI think the rules have changed, such that you can't go straight in and get a class one licence anymore.
I drove HGVs during college and university breaks through an agency - its how I paid my way through study - so I can't say much about doing the job in the long term.
Although I had the licence, I couldn't drive an artic until I was 25, and so had drive class 1 and 2 trucks in the meantime. This was poor work - the jobs are much more likely to be multi-drop and hand offloaded. Some of those days have been the hardest I have ever worked. Not fun!
I didn't take well to nights out in the truck. Conditions are, to put it mildly, primitive. Lack of sleep owing to cold, noisy, buffeted uncormfatable sleeper cabs can have profound effects the day after. I didn't often sleep well, and this made me feel very uncormfortable, being responsible for the safety of the truck.
After turning 25, I began to get jobs driving artics. In general, these were much better. Places which are set up and large enough to take deliveries from artics are usually also equipped to off-load them. Multi-drop is also less common with artics, they are mainly used for trunking duties.
The best driving jobs, I found, tended to be for larger companies, delivering the companies own products. For me, truck driving was never a long term career option, but I regard it as a good fall back to ensure I can always avoid the dole queue.
number_cruncher
|
|
|
|
When I drove HGVs years ago there were all these urban myths about various high-paid trucking elites like tanker drivers or car-transporter drivers. Yet all the HGV driver job adverts I've seen over the years indicate poor rates of pay relative to the skill and responsibility involved.
cheers, SS
|
Driving jobs? I see two under-exploited niches, both based on the lives of folks I know well.
------------
Scenario 1.
A friend has a son who has someone grotesquely overpaid post in one of the testosterone-laden ends of banking. Son gets a company car, usually a Golf GTi or posh cabrio sorta thing: basically whatevere he wants short of a Porch.
Company car will be replaced when it reaches a high enough mileage: it's just a perk car, and the company's logic is to replace it when it loses its new-smell, to keep highly -valued testosterone-charged son happy.
Son works long hours, and doesn't use the car for work: he actually gets collected each morning by a limo whose driver wakes him up and then waits for wonder-boy to get dressed.
So, left to his own devices, son would only get a new car every few years ... but he wants one more often.
So every year, son hands his father they car keys along with a wodge of money, and the intruction "please put x thousnad miles on it".
Father careers around country visting relatives in much more style and comfort (anda lot more speed) than would be possible in his own old little car.
Ftaher pockets a good few quid to supplement pension, and son gets new car as well as glow of parental approval.
However, not all such sons will have obliging parents. There could be a niche in offering such a service on a commercial basis. Discreetly, of course :)
-------
Scenario 2. Similarly overpaid young man gets new sports car thrown at him on a reglar basis: TVR or something exotic, no ordinary Porch for this guy (apparently, they are 2-apenny in this level of the City, and carry as much social stigma as a secondhand Mondeo).
Overpaid whizzkid has no time to run in the car. So he pays his student sister to run it in for him: do a few thousand miles in a few weeks, on this running-in schedule. Sister is terfiied of hairy beast car, but obliges, because budget is suficient to pay for full posing kit (hair, posh shades, tight tops etc), which is essential for driving car and useful afterwards.
Again, potential niche for those without tame siblings.
-------
Fotonte: man in scenario 1 has now been downsized, and has become a beachbum in somewhere tropical. Man in scenario 2 got bored, and went off to California to catch the vibe.
So neither of them still needs this service ...
|
whatevere he wants short of a Porch
no ordinary Porch for this guy
You seem to be developing a Porsche fascination, NoWheels?
|
You seem to be developing a Porsche fascination, NoWheels?
Just fascinated with the role they have in social ranking amongst some young men :)
|
some young men :)
Sadly, these days opinion seems to be divided as to whether I fall into that category!
|
I'm going to say it before she does Patently;
Which category? A man or being young?
Sorry ;-)
--
Adam
|
Sorry ;-) --
You will be.
;-)
|
>> Sorry ;-) You will be.
Ooo, I wonder will this be as good as the High Grant/Colin Firth fights in the Bridget Jones movies ...
|
|
Which category? A man or being young?
I thought for a moment that you were going to question whether he had any social ranking ;-)
|
It wouldn't possibly be for me to say...;-)
--
Adam
|
whether he had any social ranking ;-)
Nah. I fall into a class entirely of my own - somewhere well after A-E ... P or thereabouts, I think.
|
Ahem,
Motoring please.
If you like, I can pass on one another's email addresses to each of you so that you can carry on in the privacy of your own mailboxes.
DD.
|
|
|
|
The salary I quoted comes from an LGV instructor I know, and he quotes around £1200 for a class 1 course. Having recently packed in after 18 years as a driving instructor, I can say that spending all day in a vehicle can get to you. It is very stressful at times and your health suffers from lack of excercise. I feel better than I have done in years since I stopped and I don't miss it one bit.
Having done a bit of part time delivery driving recently, I would say that if there is a more stressful job in the world I am glad I haven't got it. You are forever battling against time, your own driving suffers because you are always in a hurry and the slightest hold up can wreck your schedule. I now understand and sympathise with White Van Man, and when he double parks or leaves the the van on yellow lines or a junction it is because if he looked for a proper parking place he would have no hope of seeing his bed that night. Indicators? When you are in a strange city looking for a particular road you don't even have time, just see your turning and go!
For all that, some people love driving jobs, but there is a lot more to them than just sitting behind the wheel listening to the radio.
|
|
Assuming LGV is equivalent to HGV 2 licence 30k a year is very optimistic, here in the north east pay for this sort of driving is around the £6-£7 an hour mark tops, and artic drivers will be lucky to see £9-£10 an hour. All depends on the hours worked of course, most companies will have plenty of overtime available I would imagine...
|
|
Agency work in the South West pays £9 ph basic rising to £12 ph over weekends for adhoc C&E license holders.
|
Just after i finished uni, i worked for a haulier working in the brick industry, one of my jobs was inputting drivers hours onto the wage system and the two company drivers were on about 25k per year.
This was 5 years ago so £30k is not unrealistic but they usually spent at least a couple of nights a week in the cab, working in all weather conditions delivering bricks to building site.
As with most industries if you have a speciality such as a crane license or hazchem you do command a higher wage as you have extra skills.
|
|
My friend used to work for a Citroen dealership, and he reckons the transporter drivers were on over £900 per week.
|
I have a lot of gear delivered Mail Order, from companies like Screwfix. The guys who deliver and girls in some cases and stick to their jobs have to be GOOD.
The know their routes like the back of their hands. This is made all the more obvious when they are off sick or on holiday. Agency drivers are employed who don't know the area or route. Hence, as I live in the sticks, days can pass by without the delivery. This is all against the backdrop of maximum driving time.
Highly paid jobs IME are earned. You cannot swan into such a job and hit £30K straight away. You learn the ropes and improve skills/knowledge/competencies etc and grow with your occupation and then - good luck to you!
H
|
|
Yep both of my drivers who were on good money were old hands at it and they would have the job half done by the time some of my sub-contractors had had a quick brew, finished the crossword and got out of the cab to start the job.
|
|
|
Those are the rates I hear of from the drivers I speak with, Miller. Not bad money if you currently work at McDonalds, but not enough for me to leave my current job and spend serious money to get into.
|
|
See my {P}, I love my job, not the best earner but who cares.. i certainly don't.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
