Drago's murder deathkill slaughter massacre panic petrol buying watch!!!

[Brandane]

Mo has it. There is no actual shortage of drivers. There are 600,000 truck licence holders of work age in the UK.

So why do only 300,000 want to actually drive trucks?

I'm one of them. Valid class 1 licence, up to date with CPC, 10 years experience on artics.
I have 2 job applications in the pipeline just now. One as a Tesco home delivery driver, the other as handyman at a day care centre. Go figure.
Both pay roughly similar hourly rate to HGV driving in this region. Both are closer to home than any haulage company, and I will be home in my own bed every night, eating home cooked food, and using my own clean toilet and shower.
For me, it's a no brainer. But then I am of an age that I am no longer motivated much by money, so have no wish to work 60+ hours per week.

And if I could touch on an extra problem in recruiting tanker drivers.. They need an additional qualification in the form of an ADR certificate for transporting dangerous goods. I think the course is about a week long, and costs in the region of £600 (and factor in a lost week's earnings on top of that). Last time I did drive HGV's, ADR work was being offered at a whole £1 per hour above normal HGV rate. And they wonder why the industry is broken with a capital "F"?

 

[Brandane]

I'm just back from a short cycle in the drizzle. We only have 2 petrol stations within a 6 mile radius, and I passed one of them. Forecourt looked like the dodgems during the Glasgow fair, and a queue of about 6 cars obstructing the main A78 road, waiting to turn left into the petrol station.

Then a friend texted me to say she had seen the queue forming with all these idiots panic buying petrol. So she decided she better go and top up in case they ran short .

 

[glasgowcyclist]

Local Morrisons has a huge queue at their petrol station. Four times longer than it has to be because dicks are waiting off the forecourt for their favourite pump to come free, instead of simply picking an aisle. Knock-on effect is that traffic isn’t able to get out of the foodstore car park because said dicks also don’t know how to leave passage through a roundabout when they can’t exit it.

Headlines on the first rag I saw in store was a full page shot of a pump nozzle and the scare headline ”We’re running on empty”. Eejits.

 

[bagpuss]

I have plenty of this....

 

[Drago]

I'm one of them. Valid class 1 licence, up to date with CPC, 10 years experience on artics.
I have 2 job applications in the pipeline just now. One as a Tesco home delivery driver, the other as handyman at a day care centre. Go figure.
Both pay roughly similar hourly rate to HGV driving in this region. Both are closer to home than any haulage company, and I will be home in my own bed every night, eating home cooked food, and using my own clean toilet and shower.
For me, it's a no brainer. But then I am of an age that I am no longer motivated much by money, so have no wish to work 60+ hours per week.

And if I could touch on an extra problem in recruiting tanker drivers.. They need an additional qualification in the form of an ADR certificate for transporting dangerous goods. I think the course is about a week long, and costs in the region of £600 (and factor in a lost week's earnings on top of that). Last time I did drive HGV's, ADR work was being offered at a whole £1 per hour above normal HGV rate. And they wonder why the industry is broken with a capital "F"?

And I'm guessing neither of those jobs require you to sleep in unsavoury lay bys and piss in a bottle?

What is it with these chumps that queue religiously for the pump on the same side as the cars filler? I typically sail past a queue of them to an empty pump and simply carry the nozzle to the other side of the car, as they are designed to do. Do they simply like queuing?

 

[steveindenmark]

No problems at all on Denmark.

Now would be an ideal opportunity for the government to start a job initiative and pay for people to take their HGV licence. They could get them through in a couple of months if they used the army facilities in Lecolnfield. There are not enough military HGV drivers to cover the shortfall, as has been suggested.

 

[captain nemo1701]

And I'm guessing neither of those jobs require you to sleep in unsavoury lay bys and piss in a bottle?

What is it with these chumps that queue religiously for the pump on the same side as the cars filler? I typically sail past a queue of them to an empty pump and simply carry the nozzle to the other side of the car, as they are designed to do. Do they simply like queuing?

You might be missing something there....a lot of my fellow Brits are pig lazy, so walking around the other side of the car is far, far too much effort. Take the fat 4*4 driver I once saw driving along a pavement so that he was directly outside a shop door, double yellow lines outside the shop but legal parking about 20 yards away...couldn't be ar*ed to walk 20 yards. Saw an escooter rider the other day pull up outside a house, open the garden gate, then gets back on the scooter to ride to the front door...a vast distance of at least 30ft.

 

[slowmotion]

As far as I can tell, Mad Max and his acquaintances have yet to stalk the lanes of South Devon.

 

[Milzy]

There’s only a small number of BP stations with late deliveries. Only the imbeciles are panic buying. The media love to poor fuel onto the fire though creating these problems.

 

[MrGrumpy]

And I'm guessing neither of those jobs require you to sleep in unsavoury lay bys and piss in a bottle?

What is it with these chumps that queue religiously for the pump on the same side as the cars filler? I typically sail past a queue of them to an empty pump and simply carry the nozzle to the other side of the car, as they are designed to do. Do they simply like queuing?

Not all pumps reach over on my gas guzzling 4x4 . However managed to fill her up today at Costco and it was quite busy . Now I know why ! Hadn’t dawned on me !

 

[gavgav]

I’m down to half a tank and that’s my normal trigger to fill up, but im not desperate, no long journeys planned for a couple of weeks and so will just wait a few days, when the panic buyers have got theirs and pootle down to fill up, the same as I did last time this hysteria brewed.

 

[potsy]

FB is reporting my 'local' supermarket has run out of of petrol & diesel, what a surprise

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Passed them queuing at our nearest petrol station blocking the road like they’d been an accident. Sailed past on the bikes just back from a mini tour. Total oil , both chains done before we set off and none whilst away.

Car has full tank and that’ll last a few months as other than long trips I don’t really use it. Locally I get around on foot or by bike.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

I was going to have a drive to Wales tomorrow - last of the summer rays, get the top down and all that. Oh well.

 

[potsy]

I don't drive that much but have a 70 mile round trip to do on Sunday, looks like I won't be now as I only have 1/4 of a tank