I'm canadian but want to truck in europe. Where do I start? Need advice.....

Canada is the same Mrs T.

Strangely the Germans have an agreement that allows drivers to move freely in both directions without a test. Im sure it means that a Canadian trucker can only drive in Germany and not the rest of the EU. Although saying that it wouldn't really surprise me if plod and Vosa would say its ok.

Why cant we have a reciprocal agreement with a fellow Commonwealth country ????

 

That is bullsh... Company does not care what his driver is doing with the allowances (un-taxable money payed for drivers for food, hotels or else over the minimum pay (Rumania=$250/months). This is symply called "competition".

 

As German you have to do all tests like everybody else. The only thing is that you can drive for up to 6 month with your European and International license. Exept for North Dakota, they don't accept the international license, I don't know why but it is the only state.

 

food and hotel?
hahahahahahahaha

man they hire eastern europeans and tell them you are supposed to get 1700 but if you don't want to rent an house in italy i'll let you sleep in the truck when not working and will subtract money from your wages, since real estates prices are outrageously high in italy they all do like that, and work for as low as 1000 euros a month.
many big italian companies are hiring 2 drivers for the same truck directly in rumania, one works one month no stop and the other stays home, then they switch.

Doing that way they lowered the rates and we are all going out of business.

 

And that is probably 3x higher than they would make in their homecountry. Same thing here in Estonia, our average salary is 3-4x lower then "civilized" Europe and as a trucker you could make a decent living by driving in rest of Europe. Even when making 2x less than you guys would expect for driving.
I think it s sad from both - your and our perspective.
I don t think things will improve before most EU countries have similar standard of living, not 3-4x difference in salaries, like at the moment.

To put in perspectiveur average national gross salary last year was 760 EUR, before the economy wasn t so bad, you could make around 2200 EUR (net), nowdays 1000-1200 EUR(net).
Figure yourself if you were motivated to drive.

 

same here, i was making at least 2200 before last year, now if i get 1600 i am lucky.
i think the problem here is europe and politicians. they made europe so the rich will get richer and we will all get poorer.
You will see what is going to happen to your country in a few year, the country will get richer and you will all struggle to get to the end of the month.
Italy was a good country to live when w had our currency. Now with the euro all the prices are 50% more, italy is one of the most epensive countries in the world and our wages are the lowest of the industrialized countryes. Except for our politician that make more money than any ther politician in the world (24 thousand euro a month minimum).
many italian coulden't afford to make certain jobs that were so poorly paid because we have many taxes and high cost of living, so they started bringing immigrants paying them even less, and they tell on television that the immigrants are here to make jobs italian don't want to do any more, whwn we all know the truth.

 

Were so glad we didnt join the Euro zone all those years ago. The rest of Europe called us this and that for refusing to join when it started but we could see the trouble with it and the pain that was surely to follow.

The UK , Germany, France and Italy were the four dominant economic countries before the Euro took over and the idea was to level the playing field. The only problem was the three big economies were expected to drag the likes of Portgual, Greece etc UP to their level and its not worked. Italy has been sucked backwards towards the bottom level. France and Germany now are left to bail out the poor members and they obviously arent happy.

Being part of Europe costs the UK £40m per DAY in membership fees alone !! We put in far more than we get out and a lot over here aren't best pleased in the recession.

 

Its cost as lot more than the £40m a day!

All of Europe now arrives in London, wanting welfare and free health care.
Thanks to the EHIC, (European Health card), anyone from any European country can turn up and demand care on the UK National Health Service, AND be eligible for welfare and free housing.

And to make it worse, there is a growing trade in scam marriages, girls from Eastern Europe get "married" to guys from India, Somalia, etc, so that they are also entitiled to free care and welfare payments.

I work in a London ER when I'm in England, and only around 5% of patients we see are English. And yet its only the English that pay into the system. Strange.

 

We are probably getting euro currency next year (2011), let s see how that turns out for us.

 

Our currency wasn't the strongest back when we had the lira's but that was good for us because italy had a lot of tourism and a lot of export. Our wages were ok and life wasn't really expensive. a trucker until the mid 80's was able to buy his own house ina few years and probably also a second house and if he wanted it was possible to became an O/O.
After we got the euro in a week everithing doubled.
1 euro was the equivalent of 1900 liras(our old currency) and what was 2000 liras became 2 euros and that is a 50% increase.
The wages are still the same and also the pensions. It's normal to see old italian people looking in trashcans to search for food and many young italian have to live with their parents because cannot afford to live on their own.people doing a normal 8 hours job in italy get about 1200 euros a month. Renting a small flat would cost more than that, gasoline is 1 euro and 30 for a liter (almost 10 dollars for a gallon), red meat is 15-20 euros a kilo.
People that use to come in italy in vacation now go to greece or turkey or north africa, and our exportation is suffering, all the italian big companyes moved production abroad in third world countryes. Unemployement is almost 20%.
Europe is killing us.