Positive action
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Ifeel I just had to write to ask if anyone is in a strong position to shift the negative attitude that surrounds our industry.
We know the money is poor and the hours are long and that the driver gets ripped off and treated like a third-class citizen. Ws been this way for years.
It was the same on the Continent, but the French for once took action and got mostly what they asked for. We suffered, and so did a lot of continental hauliers trying to get over here.
If the fire service, ambulance crews and even nurses have to resort to strike action to get what they deserve and they deal with human lives, what chance is there for us if we just talk? Unless we make ourselves heard, then this time next year we will still be sitting and griping over the same issues.
We've become lazy, relying on organisations and trade papers to get our views across. Politicians know this and the agencies and businesses know this, so the rates and wages stay low, while the hours stay high.
How many years has this got to continue before someone in the right place sits up and realises that without us, shelves would be empty (as would petrol tanks) and industry would grind to a halt. No-one will take notice until they realise that drivers are united in one cause, to improve our worth.
An they should realise that we will take action just like the French, just like the Spanish, the Danes and the Greeks. They at least took a stand while we sat tight.
Maybe you think this is a bit strong, but how many other small operators have got to fold because of our inability to stand up for our rights? Sadly we've become used to airing our views in huddled groups in a cafe— then it back in the cab and off to Make some money for everyone else!
We are the forgotten industry. The public don't care unless we have a delivery to their houses; the politicians don't hear us because we don't shout loud enough; and even the organisations set up to help us seem helpless.
We have become laughable and how we are portrayed does not help either— Channel 5's Ferry Tales (transmitted 11 May) showed a few drivers as nothing more than whingeing drunks and these images stay in the public's mind, especially when the programme ended with a driver well over the limit jumping into his cab ready to drive.
To the viewer who already had a preconceived idea of lorry drivers, that closing shot just enforced it.
So what can we do? Well those helpless organisations should shout a lot louder even if its not the British thing. And if they don't, then we should push till they acknowledge our existence.
Write letters, lots of them. Send them to the RHA and VIA and the government and keep writing and think about the other side of the Channel and remember how in the end, they got their word across. Because it may well come to that.
Jon McDermott, Enfield, Middlesex.