I love the way it’s presented as “kind people from Eastern Europe come here to help us out born of a sense of altruism and good will and this is all the thanks they get!”.
Reality check: they come to improve their lives either to send wages back home or to enjoy an improved standard of living in a first world country.
Maybe I need to get out more, but regarding the Dutch drivers, in 16 years of truck driving, I have yet to meet a single Dutch trucker who is working for a British company. They are on our roads but they are driving Dutch and other European vehicles. Some people in the EU feel slighted because we voted to leave and they look forward to us getting our comeuppance. Fair enough - if they are that petty we probably made the right decision.
This is not really about Brexit though, much as the remainers may want it to be. Years of relying on cheap foreign labour, horrendous working conditions, excessive and increasingly intrusive micromanagement and surveillance of every corner of our working day, under investment in training together with a failure to read the writing on the wall (average of UK truck driver = 55) by the industry and government and last but not least the hammer blows of the new IR35 regs (brought in at the start of this tax year) and Covid mayhem and the chickens are coming home to roost!
I predict the “shortage” of fuel tanker drivers will be of very short duration since this is where the real money is for Agency drivers and the market will work its magic leaving other sectors struggling in its wake.
Hello everyone, I’m very new to Lexus (a recovering 5 series owner with all the mental trauma that entailed) but I, like the OP, am concerned about the effects on my IS 300h brake discs of sitting in D at traffic lights and whilst in queues holding on the foot pedal. Also, I cannot find the handbrake and increasingly suspect that there may not actually be one to find! This is most discombobulating…. Any advice will be gratefully received.
