Do not waste your time working at this Trucking company you been warned.

Thanks for that, I reckon it will be interesting for my colleagues here to know, we have the impression that it is all about the miles in the USA and, because that has always in my experience been against the law here, we thought it a distinct unfairness.
Otherwise I have almost always been paid as a driver here by an hourly rate, for driving waiting and loading. At my last firm in England, for historic reasons way back in the past, as it was not a transport company but a multi-national manufacturer, the drivers were salaried staff just like the office workers, but, unlike them they got overtime payments as well. I spent my first 11 years there as transport manager before voluntarily returning to the cab (I missed it). Funny thing was that my take home pay hardly changed at all because my staff salary was higher but I had no overtime to augment it. So, a good move for me.

A brief word about languages and the so-called false friends. The classic ones are due to old English changing and evolving whereas French, which has been governed by a semi-official body has not. So we get an English novel, Pride and Prejudice, published over 200 years ago with a character being said to be 'sensible'. That same word in French does not mean having good sense, it means sensitve. And that was the meaning it had in English all those years ago. English changed, French didn't. There are many others but you get the point. In American we often have different words but there are some common words that have a different meaning. When we say football, we don't mean American football, if we did we would say it in full or use the slang term gridiron. In England we could walk in the subway, because it is an underground walkway, but I think we might have a problem doing that in the US. Pavement is a classic too, we walk on the pavement because it is your sidewalk, walking on the pavement in the US could be dangerous too. And don't say 'nice pants' to an Englishman, he will think you are looking at his underwear because what you mean is his trousers. Loads more, mainly fun, but can get you into trouble sometimes.

Unions in England were all powerful, many years ago, but we were, as drivers, held to ransom by them. Our union was the Transport and General Workers Union. But don't let the first word fool you, it didn't give a #### about drivers, We were of course alone in our cabs, didn't organise well and in any case are less likely to socialist ideas of common purpose and standing firm. As a result we were in constant conflict with solid left leaning workers like the dockers. At Liverpool we normally had to do all the work ourselves, loading, unloading and what you would call tarping, which was roping and sheeting to us. You could spend hours or even days waiting on their whim and then, if a ship was 'closing', ready to sail, the dockers would be paid special bonus rates to get it done, so everything was suddenly rush rush. I got my own back on the ######## in 1966, the year of the football world cup in England. I had a load of whisky on a flat trailer from Scotland. It was late in the day and I was prepared to park up and come back in the morning. But they were in a rush and wanted it there and then. OK but then came their next scam, they wanted me to pay cash £5 for 'labour'. Knowing the score I said I only have a tenner, sure they wouldn't have change. Take your sheets off they said and we'll make a start while you go and get some change. I did as I was told and wandered out into the dock road, where there were many pubs (bars). I went into the first and the football was on a tv in the corner so I bought my pint and settled down to watch the match. Afterwards I sauntered back into the dock just in time to see the last sweaty docker putting his jacket back on alongside my empty trailer. I gave him the fiver and took my notes before folding my sheets and driving off on my way. BTW I was paid for the whole of that time I was in yhe pub watching the match 'unloading'.

At London docks they had white and Indian toilets, the latter being the hole in the ground type. Drivers had to use the holes in the ground and not allowed to use their canteen. Same union, T&G, same brothers. Yeah right. I went to a factory in Birmingham which made motor oil, they stopped me at the gate and wanted to turn me away because I was in 'the wrong union'. The boss came out and said 'we need this stuff he's delivering' and paid the bribe and I got tipped (unloaded) but they said don't come here again with that T&G card, they wanted me to join their union just for that one factory. All changed now, thanks to Maggie Thatcher, she liberated us from the dictatorship of the unions, so you can see why I am a bit sensitive about socialism.

Finally, distances, yes in Britain, but the EU is a bit larger, round trips of a thousand or more miles are not uncommon in some circumstances and if you want distance, how about the bus I drove from London to India? Around 15,000 miles. Mind you, I didn't do it every day.

Mind how you go, mate.

 

A brief addition about the swearing, I forgot how delicate us drivers are. It is the same with TruckNet UK but my French forum, in English allows anything and as a result hardly anyone swears. I can't edit the above because I can't remember what I said and in any case the dog is waiting for his dinner.

 

That I agree with. I'm a OO and refuse to download tracking software for anybody.

 

@Spardo one last tip as a newcomer here. The “ignore” button is your friend. There is blocked responses from my point of view from certain members that don’t have anything constructive to add. So if someone is getting annoying, just put them on ignore and you won’t see their posts unless you want to. You can toggle it off and on if you want to

 

Don’t think anyone would buy a book by me.

 

Can't see one on my screen, but I wouldn't use it anyway, I am perfectly able to ignore what I don't want to see and, in any case, don't you lose the sense of later posts that you can see?

 

Nope. There’s one on this thread that’s been ignored for a long time, he’s just not bright enough to figure it out. So if something does get a tad confused, I toggle “show ignored content” as soon as I see the particular user name I just toggle it back on and that way I don’t have to bother sifting through his insipid comments. Works nicely. Maybe one day he’ll figure it out since I never reply to him. There are some true psychos on here I believe

 

@Spardo so just curious what would a long haul driver on the continent consider a big mileage day, week? Legally of course. I’m sure there are some outlaw stories just like over here. Like I said you can easily do 700 miles in one day if you’re in the right area.

 

No idea really because miles don't matter to them, since they are not paid by them. The mileages I gave you before I got from Google maps, just to make a point. Translated from kms of course.

After I retired I started volunteering for dog rescue organisations transporting dogs all over the EU and I averaged 80,000 kms/year, I suppose that's about 50,000 miles I think. 1,000 a week.

At a rough guess, and it is a guess not a calculation, I would think as a professional driver it could be about 3,000 miles a week. Maybe less, maybe more, depends on the ratio of driving and loading/unloading.

 

Have you seen some of the garbage that passes for a book ?