Whilst I agree with the comments on here and as to charging points has been one of the things I’ve wondered about myself. Liam is a complete bellend who sits in his un insulated house complaining but the truth of the matter is he wants it all for free. However the question on electric cars and recycling should not be what about them but what about can I do as an individual. Some won’t or can’t do anything but a percentage can change. If they changed it will then reduce the threat.
An experiment going on in my area, East Midlands, where they are attaching charging points to lamp posts. May be a solution?
In a city as big as Bristol I suspect that to achieve this it will need upwards of a dozen or more huge sites, there is no space within the City limits, so where will these sites actually be? and some of the urban short battery life type cars, will lose half it's charge by the time it returns from it's charging. And then of course there is London.
Bit like at the moment then, with the issues getting fuel to the forecourts. People having to drive miles from home to find sone, then to loss half of it getting home. Where’s those pesky foreigners that used to drive the lorries gone I wonder.
Nothing to do with unscrupulous haulage owners and fuel company's spotting an opportunity over the years to cut their wage bills by employing foreign drivers then? This is a good read from an ex lorry driver who during lockdown realised that he had had enough and like many others is not going back. His point about councils not doing enough for lorry drivers is spot on, always enough money for a rainbow coloured crossing though. Just this minute popped up on my FB feed from a fellow BCFC fan and lorry driver who lives near me in Bridport. So, you are running out of food on the shelves, fuel in the garages, you can’t buy things you need, because the shops can’t get their supplies. Why is that? A shortage of goods? No A shortage of money? No A shortage of drivers to deliver the goods? Well, sort of. There isn’t actually a shortage of drivers, what we have, is a shortage of people who can drive, that are willing to drive any more. You might wonder why that is. I can’t answer for all drivers, but I can give you the reason I no longer drive. Driving was something I always yearned to do as a young boy, and as soon as I could, I managed to get my driving licence, I even joined the army to get my HGV licence faster, I held my licence at the age of 17. It was all I ever wanted to do, drive trucks, I had that vision of being a knight of the roads, bringing the goods to everyone, providing a service everyone needed. What I didn’t take into account was the absolute abuse my profession would get over the years. I have seen a massive decline in the respect this trade has, first, it was the erosion of truck parking and transport café’s, then it was the massive increase in restricting where I could stop, timed weight limits in just about every city and town, but not all the time, you can get there to do your delivery, but you can’t stay there, nobody wants an empty truck, nobody wants you there once they have what they did want. Compare France to the UK. I can park in nearly every town or village, they have marked truck parking bays, and somewhere nearby, will be a small routier, where I can get a meal and a shower, the locals respect me, and have no problems with me or my truck being there for the night. Go out onto the motorway services, and I can park for no cost, go into the service area, and get a shower for a minimal cost, and have freshly cooked food, I even get to jump the queues, because others know that my time is limited, and respect I am there because it is my job. Add to that, I even get a 20% discount of all I purchase. Compare that to the UK £25-£40 just to park overnight, dirty showers, and expensive, dried (under heat lamps) food that is overpriced, and I have no choice but to park there, because you don’t want me in your towns and cities. Ask yourself how you would feel, if doing your job actually cost you money at the end of the day, just so you could rest. But that isn’t the half of it. Not only have we been rejected from our towns and cities, but we have also suffered massive pay cuts, because of the influx of foreign drivers willing to work for a wage that is high where they come from, companies eagerly recruited from the eastern bloc, who can blame them, why pay good money when you can get cheap labour, and a never ending supply of it as well. Never mind that their own countries would suffer from a shortage themselves, that was never our problem, they could always get people from further afield if they needed drivers. We were once seen as knights of the road, now we are seen as the lepers of society. Why would anyone want to go back to that? If you are worried about not getting supplies on your supermarket shelves, ask your local council just how well they cater for trucks in your district. I know Canterbury has the grand total of zero truck parking facilities, but does have a lot of restrictions, making it difficult for trucks to stop anywhere. Do you want me to go back to driving trucks? Give me a good reason to do so. Give anyone a good reason to take it up as a profession. Perhaps once you work out why you can’t, you will understand why your shelves are not as full as they could be. I tried it for over 30 years, but will never go back, you just couldn't pay me enough. Thank you to all those people who have shared this post. I never expected such a massive response, but am glad that this message is getting out there. I really hope that some people who are in a position to change just how bad it is for some drivers, can influence the powers that be to make changes for the better. Perhaps some city and town councillors have seen this, and are willing to bring up these issues at their council meetings. It surely cannot be too much to ask of a town/city to provide facilities for those who are doing so much to make sure their economies run and their shops and businesses are stocked with supplies. I never wanted any luxuries, just somewhere safe to park, and some basic ablutions that are maintained to a reasonable standard. I spent my nights away from my home and family for you, how much is it to ask that you at least give me access to some basic services. There are tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of licence holders just like me, who will no longer tolerate the conditions. So the ball is firmly in the court of the councils to solve this problem.
Thats been all over social media for over a week. All very well paying lorry drivers higher wages. I wouldn't want to do the job. But paying higher wages to truck drivers, or fruit and veg pickers for that matter there will only be the consumer paying for it
So one of the insulate Britain eco zealot leaders Roger Hallam in a recorded interview stated that, he would not allow ambulances even with a dying person on board to pass through a demo. If it is a hate crime to whistle Bob the builder at your neighbour then surely so is the actions of these twats or even worse if the person in the ambulance subsequently dies. I wonder how given this statement the bishop in charge of the nutbar vicar who is involved with these toe rags views him now.
I'm afraid that if someone was deliberately blocking an ambulance that was taking one of my relatives to hospital then I'd make sure THEY needed the ambulance too after I'd finished with them. Utter utter bastards. I'd worry about being prosecuted later. My family's health is more important. It makes me quiver with rage, even just typing this.
Hypocrites rule the world in so many ways Haulage companys wanted cheap labour to make as much dough as possible but had no contingency for Brexit and the pandemic despite being warned by various groups in the early 2000's of what would happen in the event of both scenarios The leaders of XR and IB are people I'd like to see prosecuted and jailed for their attitudes towards the general population who are trying to go about their business and earn a respectable living. Callous bastards. Biden wants the whole of the US to be vaccinated but has allowed tens of thousands of unregistered and unvaccinated illegal immigrants into the US with no checks Priti Patel talks tough on making illegal immigration across the English Channel a thing of the past, but this year is heading for another record influx that we are paying for, without a single person from the 17,000 who have arrived ILLEGALLY being deported. Twitter allows the leaders of the Taliban to have accounts, but not Donald Trump Boris wants us carbon neutral by the middle of the next decade despite the big polluters like China and Russia not being onboard, and it's us the customers who are footing the cost of green energy through our domestic bills Macron is threatening to cut off Jersey and the UK's electricity supplies this winter if we don't grant his fisherman more licences to fish IN OUR WATERS. He forgets that were it not for us he would be called Jurgen. We're told National Insurance needs to rise from next April but the monies being spent on illegal immigrants being housed here, fed and being given dental and medical treatments that UK Tax Payers can't access is shameful. The NHS needs to be reformed to stop them wasting billions and sure enough, as soon as they get a whiff of extra money it's not about cutting waiting lists for operations or diagnosis, it's let appoint a load of faceless administrators on ridiculously high salaries of up to £270k per person. That's what grates on me the most. My recent short visit to Scotland is over and the trials and tribulations of basic air travel within the UK and general movement in Edinburgh have not improved my mood or opinions. Welcome back me
Who told the haulage companies that feeding their greed by continuing employing cheap foreign drivers well after the Brexit vote and the ensuing Brexit itself that over 90% of haulage companies had not even prepared for was a good idea? and they certainly knew that was coming.
I agree entirely Jiffie. And I'll never understand, as I said back in 2016, why the Unions didn't back Leave. Across all industry the bosses loved using cheap labour, the fat cat Union bosses on £150k a year just sat back in their ivory towers. And still the Left hanker after the EU. Industry has had it easy with employment, they need to get off their fat asses, stop whinging and MANAGE !
We have had a Minimum Wage policy in this country before Brexit. The Europeans couldn't have undercut that. It's just that a lot of British would rather sit on their benefits than go out to work. I'm generalising of course but there is truth in there. What people don't seem to understand is that if the 'fat cat' bosses are forced to offer big salaries to their workers, THEY themselves (the bosses) won't cut their own wages to provide the extra funding. Oh no, it's YOU and ME who will foot the bill - pushing all the prices up, squeezing ALL aspects of living. How ANYONE could celebrate this is beyond me. How can having less money in our pockets be a good thing? To those who think it is I'll happily pass my cap around so you can have an orgy of giving ...!!!! It's like turkeys celebrating Christmas .
It's not about minimum wage or higher wages. It's about haulage companies realising that they could make a huge saving by employing cheap foreign labour on a lesser hourly rate + not paying them overnight expenses to cover out of pocket expenses at the ****ty places that masquerade a truck stops in the UK and forcing UK drivers out of the industry and then not preparing for the loss of their cheap foreign labour drivers after Brexit.
