1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140 
6 Since I started my transport business 30 years ago we
Page 42
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
have seen many changes; some good, some not.
Vehicles have improved immeasurably in terms of reliability, economy, driver comfort, noise and emissions. Roads improved greatly during my first 15 years, but infrastructure investment has withered and now effectively died, adding a new cost to my business and that is congestion.
In 1972 drivers were plentiful, skilful, adaptable, exploited, underpaid, but truly Knights of the Road. Roadside assistance was never far away. Today, drivers are an endangered species— generally less skilled, less adaptable, but still exploited and undervalued, And there aren't enough of them.
So what's the problem? As an industry we have poached drivers rather than training them ourselves. Most hauliers have been so busy becoming more efficient that they have missed the warning signs. While virtually every other industry considers a working week as less than 40 hours, transport bosses and drivers alike still need to sweat their assets for far longer to make a crust. Long hours have never been a problem for me as I am a workaholic, but most of the rest of civilisation seem to need more time to spend their fortunes, blocking the roads on the way to buy organic bean-sprouts from Belize, mosaic tiles from Mexico, DM from Taiwan or wooden loo seats from Latvia.
Thirty years ago we had a quaint half-day closing midweek but supermarkets and shopping malls are open all hours, needing transport on a 365-days-a-year basis, causing ever-greater demand for drivers.
Seven-day working is not wonderfully efficient. True, it extends the overheads evenly over the week, but the total volume of goodr requiring delivery to the supermarkets (who rule our lives) are noi so even. Seven-day working presents driver utilisation problems a it does not lie comfortably with drivers' hours regulations. Hence the growing use of agency drivers.
Driver agencies are only providing a service, but I cannot understand why operators want to distance themselves from ons of their most important assets and then pay a huge premium to hire them back.
There are many good drivers working for agencies, but there are also lots of third-rate and inexperienced drivers experimenting on the roads at the operators' expense. To put an unknown driver in charge of one of your vehicles, whether it is worth £5,000, £50,000 or £150,000, beggars belief. Would you lend a new BMW to a complete stranger? There are operators who won't pay their drivers a decent rate, then lose them and hire them back from an agency at greatly enhanced rates. Do they know something I don't?
The industry also suffers hugely escalating insurance premiums I have no sympathy for those who do not manage the risk, as it affects me as well. We have never used an agency driver. We employ good drivers, including part-timers who are known to us and indoctrinated in our way of working. We pay top rates, within the confines of operating competitively.
We will recruit the inexperienced if they are prepared to operate to our standards, but in recent times our intake has mainl been of mature drivers. What we will do when they all retire I am not sure, but they may restock our pool of older part-timers.