Load it yourself!

PB1507

Member
Location
Lincs
Remember people, the beet season for lorry drivers is like the shooting/hunting season for farmers. The stories and bulls**t build up over time, come the spring we will be back to the truth/normality. :woot: :ROFLMAO:
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
As I said I find that astonishing. Are these owner drivers or is the haulier indicating to the farmer his men will load? Round here most of the hauliers are in charge of (and paid for) loading with their own equipment.
As I’ve said, if loading is a pre agreed part of a complete package then it’s OK though I’d still question the wisdom of expecting each HGV driver in a haulage group to load his own lorry at the beet heap. Surely the loading time is eating into the number of loads the driver can move before he’s used his hours up. Is using your hours up on a loader really sensible when you are supposed to be maximising use of the lorry. I’d have thought it much more sensible all round to have a dedicated loader operator from the point of view of commercial viability and HSE but what do I know? If a replacement driver turns up who doesn’t have a loader ticket what happens?
Generally expecting drivers to load their own lorries is cutting one corner too many in my view. Never used to happen. Would have been considered discourteous at the very least.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Tends to be pushed onto smaller owner operators who don’t have the clout to question it. They’ll be told to load their own lorry and often it means they have to knock off a previously planned job for that day as they’ve used more hours than they’d anticipated. I was disappointed to hear it happens but it does. Doesn’t put us as farmers in a good light in my opinion.
Anyway, it is as it is. No doubt seen as a clever cost cutting measure by some until some poor sod has an accident through tiredness or using unfamiliar equipment.
 

czechmate

Member
Mixed Farmer
On the other hand, I received an invoice in the post from a builder's merchant last month, and a statement in the post separately. The only thing I'd bought is a couple of coach screws when I was passing, for the grand total of 66p!
They have spent more in postage & paper than they will see back, and those little costs will have to be covered from prices generally.

Happy to have invoices emailed here, then at least I've a copy somewhere safe(ish).

Over here, more than half our invoices are emailed now. It would annoy me but my wife who is younger, and more embracing of changing times than I deals with all our admin and she is quite happy with that👍
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
As I’ve said, if loading is a pre agreed part of a complete package then it’s OK though I’d still question the wisdom of expecting each HGV driver in a haulage group to load his own lorry at the beet heap. Surely the loading time is eating into the number of loads the driver can move before he’s used his hours up. Is using your hours up on a loader really sensible when you are supposed to be maximising use of the lorry. I’d have thought it much more sensible all round to have a dedicated loader operator from the point of view of commercial viability and HSE but what do I know? If a replacement driver turns up who doesn’t have a loader ticket what happens?
Generally expecting drivers to load their own lorries is cutting one corner too many in my view. Never used to happen. Would have been considered discourteous at the very least.
The answer to your questions is that in the instance where the haulier is contracted to load the beet it’s his/her decision as to what happens with their employees/machinery. If the drivers are unhappy there’s plenty of other jobs out there. IME the drivers that load themselves are generally the “better” ones and enjoy the responsibility.
 

Hilly

Member
No wonder there’s a lack of lorry drivers! Do you speak to them in person like you do about the fat arseholes on here?

No wonder there’s a lack of lorry drivers! Do you speak to them in person like you do about the fat arseholes on here?
Funnily enough I did ask three drivers this week about shortage , they all laughed and said their is no shortage of drivers !! Their is a shortage of decent employers 😂
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Funnily enough I did ask three drivers this week about shortage , they all laughed and said their is no shortage of drivers !! Their is a shortage of decent employers 😂
There has been an increasing driver shortage for at least 5-10 years Europe wide. Haulge companies should have been sorting things out to get more UK drivers trained especially once brexit happend. Other things such as new legislation coupled with stuff like foreign drivers leaving and covid has meant there isn’t enough UK based drivers.
There is undoubtedly a lot of poor employers who have used cheap European labour and there is also massive lack of infrastructure in many destinations and they are also taking the pee using lorries as storage which drives people away.
if I took seriously every story a lorry driver had told me the agricultural industry in my part of the world would look very different to what it does!
 

quattro

Member
Location
scotland
There has been an increasing driver shortage for at least 5-10 years Europe wide. Haulge companies should have been sorting things out to get more UK drivers trained especially once brexit happend. Other things such as new legislation coupled with stuff like foreign drivers leaving and covid has meant there isn’t enough UK based drivers.
There is undoubtedly a lot of poor employers who have used cheap European labour and there is also massive lack of infrastructure in many destinations and they are also taking the pee using lorries as storage which drives people away.
if I took seriously every story a lorry driver had told me the agricultural industry in my part of the world would look very different to what it does!
It would be easy to get drivers, they just have to double the price of your grain haulage
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
The answer to your questions is that in the instance where the haulier is contracted to load the beet it’s his/her decision as to what happens with their employees/machinery. If the drivers are unhappy there’s plenty of other jobs out there. IME the drivers that load themselves are generally the “better” ones and enjoy the responsibility.
Sorry but the attitude you convey in the second sentence illustrates everything that is wrong with farmers’ attitudes to those who work for them.
Effectively you are saying a driver should forego one his daily loads to spend in total a couple of hours on what £12 an hour loading his own lorry through the day. Might not matter so much to an employee driver, but to a self employed owner driver it can be costly.
 

cb387

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Cotswolds
I used to quite enjoy loading myself when I was in grain haulage (20 years ago) Was also a damn site quicker than some farmers and made a more interesting day.
However, with liability and all that now I’m surprised anyone still does it. Many of the drivers I see wouldn’t get into a loader unless it was spotlessly clean so they can wear their slippers and a few you wonder if they actually have a licence
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
Sorry but the attitude you convey in the second sentence illustrates everything that is wrong with farmers’ attitudes to those who work for them.
Effectively you are saying a driver should forego one his daily loads to spend in total a couple of hours on what £12 an hour loading his own lorry through the day. Might not matter so much to an employee driver, but to a self employed owner driver it can be costly.
No I’m not. Let’s be clear. My beet haulier is paid to load his lorries as is the norm around here. It’s his choice whether he has a dedicated loader driver or if they do it themselves. I am not everything that’s wrong with farmers attitudes to people who work for them.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
No I’m not. Let’s be clear. My beet haulier is paid to load his lorries as is the norm around here. It’s his choice whether he has a dedicated loader driver or if they do it themselves. I am not everything that’s wrong with farmers attitudes to people who work for them.
I’ve no problem with contractual agreements for hauliers to load lorries as part of a package. How it’s managed is then their lookout.
All I’m saying is there shouldn’t be a general expectation that drivers can or should load their own lorries. It should only happen as part of a properly risk assessed preagreed commercial arrangement.
 

Lincoln75

Member
A lot here seem to be ignoring the fact that any driver using telehandlers, fork lifts and even front end loaders need to have had formal training , if they haven't you the farmer is setting themselves up for a very expensive disaster.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Despite 30 years of accounts packages and software clever dicks, the only universal standard invoice format is a piece of paper. All the electronic versions are merely graphical bit maps, very few being numerically usable as direct input to a software package so why should we waste much time on electronic versions. They are nobody better than the representation on paper and much easily lost or rendered inaccessible by obsolescence of equipment or software.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,285
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top