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Training is the key
In reply to Paul Carey of CDS Employment Agency "Where are the drivers?" (CM 28 Aug-3 Sept). There is a desperate shortage of skilled drivers, nationwide, because companies are not prepared to invest time and money training newly-qualified drivers. For years they have been picking up the phone and asking an agency to send a temporary driver— usually at short notice. Then they complain the driver doesn't know what he is doing, and all kinds of mishaps take place, sometimes with terrible consequence&
Drivers are fed up with being treated badly, having no instruction on how to do the job, just a bunch of keys and a bundle of delivery notes thrust at them. I know, I've been there. I asked where the lorry was once, and back came the answer: "1 dunno, round the back somewhere". I've been given vehicles with bald tyres, half the lights missing, sheets with more holes than a collander, no windscreen wipers, gutless engines that wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding and so on. And when you complain they have a good moan and ask the agency not to send you again.
1 have got no sympathy with companies that use agency drivers and now find there aren't enough to go around. It's about time they realise you get what you pay for. Agencies are only in it to make a quick buck, stick any driver in any job, charge extortionate rates, and pay the driver peanuts.
The answer? Companies should start employing drivers, invest in their future, with a view to keeping them indefinitely in a secure job. Ilona Richards E CM has received several calls from drivers expressing the same point as Bona. agencies looked after drivers better there would be fewer
Iwould like to expand a little on your article Retailer takes to rail (CM 28 Aug-2 Sept). Our project involves primary consolidation and trunking of seasonal lines. Superdrug has made backhaul arrangements with a number of its suppliers, and is delivering traffic itself into the railhead at Wakefield, which is convenient for its Yorkshire base.
As I write, traffic has been moving reliably daily for three weeks, and I understand that Superdrug wanted to see such a longer period of operation before considering detailed public comment.
In the rush to get into print, these details were not included in the original piece. David Hodgson Market manager (consumer goods), English, Welsh & Scottish Railways