Are British drivers a waste of space?
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by Rob Willock • Nlost British drivers waste your money, then demand more, according to a partner in a freight forwarding company which prefers using foreign drivers.
John Heads of Midlands-based Eurohaul says: "I now employ Romanians and Hungarians, paying the same wages as I pay British drivers. The difference is they don't get drunk and fight in bars, or go with prostitutes and steal your running money."
Heads says if he had continued with some of the "professional" British drivers he has employed he'd have been bankrupt by now. He claims they have dumped, crashed and thrashed Eurotrans' vehicles.
Heads estimates Eurotrans saves up to £800 on each international trip by employing foreign drivers, who return with up to The Rood Haulage Association has called for a crackdown on the "international godfathers' involved in the organised smuggling of refugees and illegal immigrants into the UK. This follows a letter from the Immigration Service Port Directorate to the association, warning of its concerns about the high numbers of people who hide in lorries, hying to enter the UK illegally. The Immigration Service advises haulers to:
• Park vehicles in open areas; • Check regularly to make sure seals are still intact; • Check underneath the trailer before moving off. Dan Hodges, RHA head of press and public affairs, says: "Many of those attempting to enter the UK illegally are not simply opportunistic individuals, but people who have become caught up in a well-organised and well-funded human smucgling operation."
• Report suspicious activities to Coostwatc on: 0800 595000.
£1,100 change from their .C1,500 running money. The company now has six foreign drivers on international jobs, with just four Brits.
He complains that his competitors have been encouraging the police to pull over his drivers, but challenges: "Stop any of my trucks and check them. They're all legal and you could eat your lunch off the cab floors."
But Commercial Motor has recently been inundated by complaints about companies using "cheap" foreign drivers.
One caller says he has supplied the Metropolitan Police with the index numbers of 116 British registered trucks with non-EU licence holders at the wheel. Of those, 36 were "no trace" or related to cars; 10 had no registered keeper; 29 had no tax, and three had 0-licences revoked.
He and others have complained to their MPs, suggesting that the practice is reaching "epidemic proportions". "I'm competing with companies paying drivers ,L50 a week," he says.
British drivers: Accused of Fighting and fornicating.