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I was just 20 minutes late but they would not listen. I watched the staff turn away six more trucks.
Page 52
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dd Go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect £200.
Or rather, in the monopoly land of the regional Well, we drivers know this is a regular occurrence if you happen to arrive at an RDC just a few minutes late for your booking in time.
I was just 20 minutes late when I arrived at Aldi recently, but would they accept my explanations? No they would not I watched and the staff turned another six lorries back while I was there. I had to return to Lincoln and come back to Manchester to to the next day:
a round trip of around six hours. I suspect bad management and loose planning had led to the warehouse bursting at the seams. So how did that become my problem?
What do you do if you're a bad "management bod" with your back up against the wail? You thrust the problem on to the long suffering lorry driver and the transport companies they work for, that's what!
You find ajobsworth who travels to work everyday on his moped and who has little or no knowledge of the incessant problems on our motorways—and you tell him to advise all perpetrators of lateness that they are substandard life forms.
After all, everyone knows that lorry drivers are the lowest of the low don't they? Even a government-commissioned report published last year put lorry drivers right at the bottom of the intelligence ladder along with lavatory cleaners!
So we now have the situation where "management bed" tells "jobsworth" that if any problems occur they will be protected by the fact that the driver can always be banned from the site. If things get really out of hand the haulage company could be banned also. Hit them where it hurts...total control of freak behaviour is necessary at all times. We need subservient drivers—dare they be anything else if they value their wage packet?
I would love to say that we are being infiltrated by outside forces, but even Marks & Spencer, a true symbol of Britishness for many years, also has a questionable reputation in this area.
On the one hand, Tony Blair and his new ally at the helm, Transport Minister John Speller rattle on endlessly about our road; being over-used and overpolluted. The Prime Minister has made it quite clear he wants to see fewer lorries on our roads. He targets our industry with higher road tax and higher fuel charges while those of us driving carefully consider every drop of diesel we burn.
So why should supermarkets be allowed to add to our problems and to the general level of pollution and congestion by turning us away at distribution centres?
Yet another winter of discontent is approaching on our railways and if it weren't for lorry drivers, the country's food chain would grind to a halt, A little more respect and appreciation is called for here, I think.
While drivers are quitting our industry on a daily basis and fewer take up training to enter, distribution in general moves closer to crisis point. How much longer will it be before someone finally assesses our true value to this nation and starts treating us as if we are half-decent human beings and offer a viable business partnership?