Author Topic: Fuel Shortages - a deliberately engineered crisis?  (Read 2112 times)

Offline stuartwaters

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Re: Fuel Shortages - a deliberately engineered crisis?
« Reply #14 on: October 02, 2021, 06:21:24 PM »
Not controversial Stuart, but unfortunately not always true.  Having "M A N" in your rear view window, very close, complete with headlamps and horn when you are doing 30mph on a city street is a bit disconcerting.


I said they're required to do a higher standard of driving, I didn't say they always did it. There's a fair smattering of idiots behind the wheel of HGVs too.....
"I did not say the French would not come, I said they will not come by sea" - Admiral Sir John Jervis, 1st Earl St Vincent.

Offline MartinR

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Re: Fuel Shortages - a deliberately engineered crisis?
« Reply #13 on: October 02, 2021, 03:18:02 PM »
Not controversial Stuart, but unfortunately not always true.  Having "M A N" in your rear view window, very close, complete with headlamps and horn when you are doing 30mph on a city street is a bit disconcerting.

Offline stuartwaters

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Re: Fuel Shortages - a deliberately engineered crisis?
« Reply #12 on: October 02, 2021, 03:09:53 PM »
I've said before on a forum (I don't think this one) that those of us who passed the car test some time ago have C1 and C1E groups on the license, so can drive 7.5 tonners.  Perhaps a bit of lateral thinking might reserve the artics for long haul and allow local deliveries to be done by smaller wagons?


You're quite right. Those of us who passed their driving tests before 1997 have Grandfather Rights to a 7.5 tonne (Class C1) License. The problem is that the shortage lies in those who have Class C (Rigids) and Class C+E (Artics). The Government began consulting before the crisis on merging the Class C and Class C+E tests. In other words under their proposal, if you pass your HGV driving test, presumably in an artic, you will be entitled to drive both Class C and Class C+E.


This might be controversial, but HGV drivers are required to drive to a higher standard than a car driver and for that reason, the HGV test is harder than that for a car, which explains the 50% failure rate. Indeed, perched up in the cab of a lorry, with your eyes at least nine feet above the road gives you a great birds-eye view of what other drivers are up to. I'm a relative newcomer to HGV driving, only having held my license for nearly six years, but in that short time, I've seen some god-awful driving. I swear to god that some of the motor cyclists I see, especially in Central London, were kamikaze pilots in a previous life.


As for using smaller trucks for local deliveries, I expect that's already done. 7.5 tonne drivers have yet to feel the benefit of the higher wages being paid to drivers of bigger trucks and to be honest, even now, I wouldn't get out of bed for the wages on offer for some of the 7.5 tonne driving vacancies I've seen advertised. Wages, like everything else, are driven by the laws of supply and demand. Class 1 (C+E) drivers are in shortest supply right now, especially those with ADR qualifications, so those jobs attract the highest wages.


I'm not in haulage, I'm in drainage and only need my Class C license because the machine I go to work in has a maximum gross weight limit of 26 tonnes. I have a hatful of qualifications to do my job (Class C Driving License, CPC Card, Working in High Risk Confined Spaces, Rescue from High Risk Confined Spaces, NWRSA (Streetworks), High Pressure Water Jetting, NPORS (Plant Loader and Securer), EUSR (CSCS Equivalent for Drainage), EUSR National Water Hygiene (for working on fresh water works) to name but a few. I have no wish to see those skill go to waste and can't think of anything more boring than just driving a truck from A to B and back again.
"I did not say the French would not come, I said they will not come by sea" - Admiral Sir John Jervis, 1st Earl St Vincent.

Offline MartinR

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Re: Fuel Shortages - a deliberately engineered crisis?
« Reply #11 on: October 02, 2021, 02:45:38 PM »
I've said before on a forum (I don't think this one) that those of us who passed the car test some time ago have C1 and C1E groups on the license, so can drive 7.5 tonners.  Perhaps a bit of lateral thinking might reserve the artics for long haul and allow local deliveries to be done by smaller wagons?

Offline mmitch

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Re: Fuel Shortages - a deliberately engineered crisis?
« Reply #10 on: October 02, 2021, 02:24:12 PM »
There are several videos on Youtube from HGV trainers on the reversing and coupling exercises. Apparently this part of the test is being done by 'approved and trusted ' organisations, while the rest is done by the agency!
Twice this year to my knowledge a local supermarket  ran out of milk! They use artics. Yet all around the area there was plenty in the convenience stores. The reason? Their deliveries are by 7.5t trucks. Plenty of those (and drivers) about....
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Offline stuartwaters

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Re: Fuel Shortages - a deliberately engineered crisis?
« Reply #9 on: October 02, 2021, 11:11:07 AM »
You may be right about ex-forces drivers. My son-in-law is ex REME and got a letter during the week. He's now doing something totally unrelated to haulage and is completely NFI in getting behind the wheel of a lorry again.
"I did not say the French would not come, I said they will not come by sea" - Admiral Sir John Jervis, 1st Earl St Vincent.

Online DaveTheTrain

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Re: Fuel Shortages - a deliberately engineered crisis?
« Reply #8 on: October 02, 2021, 09:48:49 AM »
You did well, Stuart.  I was very very low and went out at 4am this morning.  A 68 mile round trip between Canterbury, Fav, Sittingbourne before the Tesco at Rainham had some Diesel. 


You are quite right about ADR. Very hard.  The stats on the RHA website were interesting.  There are apparently 400 thousand HGV drivers (C and C+E, or rigid and artic in old money) who keep their medical up to date, but do not have a drivers CPC or Tacho card.   That includes me.  They reckon lots of these folk are ex Forces, or Private HGV (thats me).  I thought it was an interesting statistic.

Offline stuartwaters

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Re: Fuel Shortages - a deliberately engineered crisis?
« Reply #7 on: October 01, 2021, 03:52:25 PM »
I received a letter in the post today, that has been sent to all HGV licence holders, setting out the Government's desire to get drivers back behind the wheel if they have lapsed, let their licence expire or left the industry.  It offered help with the CPC (cert of professional competency) and other such promises.


They must be worried if they are thinking of recruiting me to drive artics full of Petrol!
DTT


A nice thought, but no HGV Driver will be allowed anywhere near an artic full of anything hazardous without an ADR Certificate and they're no walk in the park to get.


On the plus side, I managed to get some diesel in my car today, which is good as it was running on fumes.
"I did not say the French would not come, I said they will not come by sea" - Admiral Sir John Jervis, 1st Earl St Vincent.

Online DaveTheTrain

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Re: Fuel Shortages - a deliberately engineered crisis?
« Reply #6 on: October 01, 2021, 10:04:49 AM »
I received a letter in the post today, that has been sent to all HGV licence holders, setting out the Government's desire to get drivers back behind the wheel if they have lapsed, let their licence expire or left the industry.  It offered help with the CPC (cert of professional competency) and other such promises.


They must be worried if they are thinking of recruiting me to drive artics full of Petrol!
DTT

Offline mmitch

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Re: Fuel Shortages - a deliberately engineered crisis?
« Reply #5 on: September 28, 2021, 03:05:22 PM »
And the band wagon rolls by. ' You may not get your prescription items because of a shortage of van drivers!!' Really? With about 35m licence holders?
 The 100,000 drivers didn't disappear even in one year. If the managers had been at work instead of 'working from home' they might have noticed. Or perhaps they didn't want to?
mmitch.

Offline stuartwaters

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"I did not say the French would not come, I said they will not come by sea" - Admiral Sir John Jervis, 1st Earl St Vincent.

Offline stuartwaters

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Re: Fuel Shortages - a deliberately engineered crisis?
« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2021, 01:05:37 PM »
In my view, spot on the money (as it that which drives the wheels of commerce), and well said Stuart.


Thank you. To be fair, it's not all the fault of our Eastern European friends. For many years, lorry drivers have been leaving the industry faster than the driving schools could replace them. The average age of a British lorry driver is 57 and rising and a great number of them have grown fed up with poor pay, poor conditions, being treated like second-class citizens and long hours. The RHA and it's members only have themselves to blame and the recruitment of foreign lorry drivers is just papering over the cracks. The Government have been weak and foolish in giving in. They will pay for it come the next General Election (hopefully not so much that a the Labour Party forms the next Government - God forbid).
"I did not say the French would not come, I said they will not come by sea" - Admiral Sir John Jervis, 1st Earl St Vincent.

Offline johnfilmer

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Re: Fuel Shortages - a deliberately engineered crisis?
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2021, 12:26:34 PM »
In my view, spot on the money (as it that which drives the wheels of commerce), and well said Stuart.
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Offline stuartwaters

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Fuel Shortages - a deliberately engineered crisis?
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2021, 11:56:53 AM »
Has anyone been caught up in the current fuel shortages?


This has all the makings of an artificially engineered crisis. Think about it. The Road Haulage Association (the body representing the interests of the Haulage Industry) has been gonging on at the Government about a lack of HGV drivers and pressuring the Government to allow them an exemption from the immigration rules.


Historically, since certain of our Eastern European friends joined the EU, HGV Drivers wages and conditions have been steadily eroded. Brexit and the pandemic led a lot of foreign lorry drivers to return to their countries of origin and the new post-Brexit immigration rules prevented their return once the economy began to recover from the pandemic. As a result, the nation is now about 100,000 HGV drivers short and as a result, the laws of supply and demand have driven wages up, out of the reach of many of the fly-by-night cowboy outfits which had come to regard highly skilled HGV drivers as a disposable commodity and had treated them accordingly.


The current crisis struck when, during a meeting with Government, an executive of BP made a comment along the lines that the fuel distributors were struggling to recruit enough ADR qualified HGV drivers to keep the forecourts supplied. His comments were leaked to the media by an executive of the Road Haulage Association, in full knowledge that the media would blow it up out of all proportion. The following day, as if by magic, panic buying and petrol stations running dry and the Government gives in to the Road Haulage Association's demands that they be allowed to recruit foreign lorry drivers.


I'm aware that the Government has announced that this is a short-term measure and that short term work visas will be issued to foreign lorry drivers carrying a very restricted list of goods (poultry, fuel and foods). Call me cynical, but knowing that we will never meet an honest politician, I can see "temporary" becoming "for the time being", in other words, permanent.
"I did not say the French would not come, I said they will not come by sea" - Admiral Sir John Jervis, 1st Earl St Vincent.