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Foreign drivers coming to work for agencies in the UK
Page 53
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get a decidedly mixed reception, not least because some speak little English. "They can't read the road signs, they don't understand our rules of the road and, frankly, some of them break the drink-driving rules," claims Andrew Homer, chairman of the drivers section of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).
But while the image of drunken Poles ignoring vital road signs because they can't read the lingo might send a shiver down the spines of road-safety lobbyists, others argue that foreign drivers are actually rather good. Not only do they address the driver shortage, but many are every bit as professional as the best of their UK colleagues.
The FTA's training manager Brian Szukala. whose father was a Polish immigrant, is one of many who are upbeat about the foreign contingent. He says: 'You do hear some people criticising foreign drivers, but we're getting the cream of the crop. They've generally got five or six years' experience of driving in Europe, and the feedback I get from hauliers is that these guys are pretty good."
This view was confirmed when Szukala looked into training drivers in Poland to bring them to the UK, The project stalled, but he says the Polish trade association was clear that the drivers likely to want to go to the UK would be the top 10%. As with football imports, it seems the best are the most likely to travel.
Nevertheless, language can be a problem, and the REC was involved with Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire police in a scheme earlier this year to distribute 'picture leaflets' among foreign drivers. Initially available with captions in Polish, Lithuanian and Portuguese, the leaflet was largely aimed at informing foreign drivers who might not fully understand UK laws.