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Very good letter, these people are just so out of touch with the real world of work. You did forget to mention the little extras you get at an Aire de Parking nowadays.Yes I had one. Predictable Gov letter impersonal and no contact details for the undersigned
I found the Baroness' email address and sent a mail
Dear Lady Vere
You wrote me a letter imploring me to consider driving trucks using my LGV Class 2 entitlement
Predictably as with all such letters they are impersonal and contain no contact details for the undersigned.
Successive Governments and the Civil Service have presided over the demise of the truck transport sector such that most who could drive a truck are no longer interested.
The Government GP contract means that a GP practice can wrack whatever fee they decide is "commercial" for a rudimentary medical every five years. For me this is £85 currently. The desktop exercise is an absolute joke compared with the thorough occupational health assessment I undertook with the Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service. The latter was free and both should be seen as a public service. I decided I was not going to be taxed by a private monopolistic medical practice to renew my licence. I still carry the entitlement
The introduction of a compulsory sit along 35 hour CPC with no core syllabus requirement or outcome every five years is a further joke. What does it bring if you don't even need to prove knowledge of current hours regulations. As I'm not a driver I've never undertaken it
I gained my CPC in Road Haulage Operations (National) in 1981 , actually as part of a college thesis preparation but drove in the early Eighties and ran my own wagon in the mid 2000's. I gained a pretty good insight in to what makes driving so unattractive. Some are corporate attitudes towards drivers and the haulage sector but a lot can be laid at Government's door.
These days tramping is very unattractive with hardly any secure, clean overnight parking places. Cartels fixing crazy motorway overnight fees and overpriced dirty food and facilities - have you compared this with French Aire de Parking facilities for example? Section 106 agreements requiring all new RDC and mega warehouse planning applications to facilitate a truck park could easily be achieved as a start
All Metropolitan truck routes are fraught with time pressures / restrictions imposed by central and local government without any intelligent acknowledgement that we all require goods moved by trucks. Furthermore I would never wish for anyone to be harmed by an LGV but there is no control or policing to stop cyclists undertaking trucks at junctions etc
The road network has been chronically underfunded for years; I'd even venture to suggest not many new roads need building just the current network brought up to standard. The crazy utilities protocol to close roads and cause massive diverts with no check as to how long the road closure is actually required rather than permitted causes massive fuel and CO2 pollution and brings nothing forward for road worker safety. De-heat the South East, mandate bypasses and other measures to increase the number of roads being dualled, drop lanes not junctions. These are not new things but folks who've never driven a truck should understand and respect
I wish you well with your quest