Chat & Social > The Bar - General Chat
I bow down to you all hgv drivers.
sardonicus:
Keep trying mate. I went for an asessment for a cat.C+E a while ago ,and same thing really! Thought I would try and do my test before all the new laws.But as I havent done much truck driving for a few years I'm a bit rusty and the instructor said I'd need a weeks training inc test. When I did my cat C the training company gave me the shortest legal truck as I was paying for it myself and they were sympathetic to that. Still took me a week,but after the first day its much easier after youve gone away and had a good nights kip,then start again the next day and it all falls into place. THe instructor said that most experienced cat c drivers do the c+e in a couple of days... Try and get the free assessments of an hour off of as many different companies as you can!!
Sider:
--- Quote from: Landyman on April 18, 2008, 18:56:31 ---Hi James
I just thought I'd chip in my bit here. I have been driving class 1 hgvs for about 5 years now and it does get easier the more you do it. Also there are many different lorries with lots of different gear boxes. Maybe you should try a different firm that uses a different make of lorry for instruction. Another point I should mention is that although there is plenty of work about for drivers there are an awful lot of foreign drivers coming over here that are prepared to work for a lot less than us British drivers and the effect is that pay rates are starting to come down. Just worth thinking about if you were thinking of doing it for a living.
Paul..
--- End quote ---
No offence, Paul, but that is rubbish. I am foreign, and I will not work for reduced rates. For a start, I would be shooting my own foot, and to top it up, I would be working against my proffesional colleagues. We are not far from you (geographically), yet I am going permanent with my current company, and I will actually get an increase from agency rates. I shall be getting £11/ hour for class 2 with HIAB.
If you are willing to put the effort into it, you can find a 50 hour a week job paying £500+. If you are a lazy sod who expects to only do trunking or have the vehicle loaded and unloaded for him/her, you will only get rubbish wages. It is the old "Pay peanuts....." adage. If you are proffesional, responsible and hardworking, you can ask and get top rates.
@ James: Don't, under any circumstances, give up on the first attempt. Best advice I've read today here was Rob(lifteddisco)'s. Remember that the gear boxes on lorries are not designed for racing. You just have to gently but firmly guide the stick towards the next gear. Sometimes it will take you 4 or 5 second to change gear, but you will still have enough momentum and enough torque to carry on.
As for the brakes, well, just remember they are pneumatic, not hydraulic. With practice you'll get to master them.
Landyman:
I only made the comment about pay from my own personal experience. I have been agency driving for the last couple of years for a couple of different agencies.
Pay varies from job to job but hovers around the £10 or £11 pound an hour mark with more on weekends and time and a half for overtime. But twice recently another agency employing Polish drivers has moved in and undercut the rates and paying their polish drivers £7 an hour flat rate with no weekend or overtime.
Now I cant pay my mortgage on that sort of wage and I have to move on to other jobs but if this happens more and more the Higher paid jobs will soon be very hard to find.
Somerfields in Huntingdon employs a lot of Poles and Romanian drivers but pays them the same rate as all their drivers and I think this is a good thing and have no problem at all with that. I just have a problem with the agencies aggressive tactics of undercutting to get the work and as I am an agency driver this affects me personally.
sardonicus:
I saw an ad. in a paper in Rochdale the other week for a catC driving job.It said send all details etc. and 'state your expected wage' or something similar. Does this mean they will employ the person who will work for the lowest wage???!
BK:
Ive been driving hgv,s(class 1)for years and with allsorts of different companies and i wish i could have got £11 an hour!!! the only drivers that get that kind of money is either trampers(away all week)or ADR drivers like shell/bp and they are on £40k plus a year but getting that kinda job is like trying to find rocking horse poo.
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