Government asks German residents to drive lorries even if they never have before

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hgv-lorry-driver-shortage-germans-b1930558.html

by doener • 5 years ago

95 83 5 years ago

independent.co.uk

Arech3• 5 years ago

This is the most hilarious article I read past month!

You may also enjoy another contender, replete with punful commentary by the driver: "Mortar tanker tailed by drivers looking for petrol" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-58767...

"People need to stop and think... driving a tanker, no matter what the product, is quite a pressurised job, so following them puts extra pressure on drivers already under pressure without having to worry about absolute morons."

mongol• 5 years ago

Haha, that one wins the prize!

Arech3• 5 years ago

Actually, no. The OP's link is about government stupidity and yours is about people's despair. It's ok if someone can't tell the mortar tanker from petrol tanker. Not everbody work in the construction industry. The whole story is not fun for me, it's sad.

Arech3• 5 years ago

or putting it differently, it'd be really fun, if all of these 20 drivers voted for Brexit

t0mas88• 5 years ago

A bit clickbaity title. Reality: UK government sends letter to all drivers in the UK with a truck license to consider driving trucks. Germans with old licenses happen to automatically have a truck licence. End of story.

Edit: Netherlands also has something similar with older licenses, so it's likely that not only Germans but more foreigners in the UK got this letter.

dogorman• 5 years ago

Your 'Reality: [...] End of story' claim does not contradict the title. They may automatically have a truck license, but also have never driven a truck.

If I got a truck license more than 20 years ago (before 1999) but never drove a truck in my life, I would definitely feel uncomfortable driving a truck. Shit, I feel a bit uncomfortable driving my car after a two or three month break. For 20 years to elapse between licensing and putting that activity into practice seems justifiably eyebrow raising to me. The headline doesn't even mention the 20 elapsed years part of it.

gerdesj2• 5 years ago

I'm a 50 year old Brit. I too have a 7.5 tonne lorry plus trailer endorsement on my license. Also, small PSV and various others. Everyone used to get them and that was probably EU wide. Not sure when it stopped.

Provided you take corners carefully and use all the mirrors, a "box van" or a smaller "Luton" is easy enough to drive. The controls are pretty obvious and familiar but hillstarts and reverse hill starts need a little practice. When loaded, allow extra stopping and maneuvering space!

gbronner• 5 years ago

Don't make K turns either.

xyzzyz2• 5 years ago

Yeah, in US you can rent and drive 26 foot long truck (these are rated to 26000 pounds, so just below 12 tons) on a regular driver license in most places. And yes, these aren’t that hard to drive, if you are paying attention.

I like being able to just rent one if I need it, without going through complex licensing rigamarole like you do in Europe, and apparently lack of it has not caused the society to collapse ( we have not had terrorist truck attacks either). I find the American lenient system much more preferable.

bserge2• 5 years ago

Even a 40 tonne tractor+trailer isn't hard to drive. I did it with a friend on long stretches of motorways. Surprising amount of torque and braking power. Reversing and maneuvering it anywhere is the real challenge :D

this_user• 5 years ago

I too have a 7.5 tonne lorry plus trailer endorsement on my license. Also, small PSV and various others. Everyone used to get them and that was probably EU wide. Not sure when it stopped.

It was pretty much the same in Germany. It was changed when the system was switched over to the new European driving license which was implemented in July 1996. Anyone who got theirs after the change will usually only have class B for up to 3.5t plus a 0.75t trailer.

I'm a German who actually happens to have C1E. So who much do you currently pay for lorry drivers?

quadrifoliate• 5 years ago

A bit clickbaity is a reasonable criticism, but not "end of story".

I think it's pretty reasonable to expect that older licenses that had these sort of automatic endorsements unbacked by any experience should have been excluded from the letters – so there is a story here. 1999 was 22 years ago!

gumby2• 5 years ago

German driving licenses didn’t use to have expiration dates and I haven’t read that that changed. My ex still uses hers, issued in the mid 80s with a photo of her in her 20s

WalterBright2• 5 years ago

1999 was 22 years ago!

It sure was. Back then, a mule pulled my car. We didn't have rubber tires, I'd take the wheels to the wheelwright's shop and have a new iron rim put on now and then. On the weekends I'd go varmint hunting with my trusty flintlock.

throwaway0a5e• 5 years ago

Someone was told to write a query for all people who could legally operate heavy trucks. They did it. End of story. The person who ordered it and the person who wrote it probably didn't even know of the old technicality.

SkyPuncher• 5 years ago

In the USA, a standard driver's license lets you operate vehicles up to 26,000lbs or up to 45 feet without a CDL.

That's essentially a lorry.

rootusrootus• 5 years ago

But only for personal use (most places in the US you can register a tractor as an RV). For business you'll need that CDL. Hell, if you deliver fifth wheels for a living you'll need a CDL and you'll even be stopping at weigh stations. Though you probably wouldn't get caught if you chose to skip them.

wnevets2• 5 years ago

The fact they're so desperate for drivers they'll willing to ask folks who haven't driven in decades is THE story.

On a related note there's a meme going around of Boris asking the Queen if she would drive a truck since she did in WW2.

OJFord3• 5 years ago

But it's not an intentional 'hey you have some ancient technical reason to be considered but no experience please do it anyway', which is what makes it a boring non-story.

It's a bug in the query, at most.

HatchedLake721• 5 years ago

Haha, please share the meme

exar0815• 5 years ago

Basically, every german with a drivers license before the 2000s is allowed to drive lorries with up to 7.5t, with 3.5t afterwards. Also, a lot of males doing mandatory military conscription had the ability to get a full truck license at the Bundeswehr for free. This is coming home to roost at the moment, as the voluntary fire brigades depended on most people being allowed to drive the big 40t or at least lighter 7.5t units. Slowly, this is sinking in and more are able to acquire those licenses, but its still a massive bottleneck.

gumby2• 5 years ago

Remind Boris that the Queen drove trucks during the war and she doesn’t need any driving license.

vkou• 5 years ago

This may be true, but I'm not sure returning to the automotive safety record of the 10s[1] and the 40s is necessarily the way to go.

Instead, it may be good to remind him that continental europeans drove trucks right before Brexit, and that if he absolutely insists that only Brits should be doing those jobs, that raising wages[2] tend to attract more employees.

Or, alternatively, he could always mobilize the army to drive trucks, rather than guarding petrol stations.

[1] Allright, allright, I suppose the immortal queen may not have been driving trucks in that war.

[2] By more than a pittance.

zwieback• 5 years ago

I got my license in Germany in 1985 so I can drive a truck up to 7.5t with my license. If I remember correctly I could also add a trailer as long as the total weight is below 12t. That's real tonnes, not US tonnes so add another 10%. Seems totally insane to me and I never took advantage of it, largest was 3.5t rental truck. Here in the US larger pickup trucks are maybe 5 or 6 tons. A F350 dually gets close, though.

max-ibel• 5 years ago

Especially delivering stuff, say, in the city of London must be hell if you never drove a lorry before. Generally, UK towns aren't quite as spacious as the US.

It's wonderfully salacious that they're asking german drivers. Germans are widely seen as the driving force behind the EU buerocracy that mandated Brexit in the first place. Oh, the irony!

tssva• 5 years ago

They are asking anyone licensed to drive HGVs to do so. This just happens to include German drivers licenses issued prior to 1999.

phh• 5 years ago

Oh gosh I didn't know "US tonnes" were a thing, that feels crazier than usual measurements. Thanks for making me discover this

beerandt• 5 years ago

US -> (Short) Ton =2000 lbs ~1.1tonnes

UK -> (Long) Ton =2240 lbs

Metric -> Tonne = ~2205 lbs

jccooper• 5 years ago

Since it's not defined in the article, and I wasn't familiar with it, HGV = "Heavy Goods Vehicle". A cargo truck.

inasio• 5 years ago

The quote by one of the German residents that got the letter is pretty great:

One 41-year-old German man, who received two copies of the letter at his London home on Friday morning, one addressed to him and another for his wife, told The Independent.

“We were quite surprised,” he said. “I’m sure pay and conditions for HGV drivers have improved, but ultimately I have decided to carry on in my role at an investment bank. My wife has never driven anything larger than a Volvo, so she is also intending to decline the exciting opportunity.

“It is nice to know there are specialist jobs available here for us though after Brexit. We would never have been headhunted to drive a lorry if we’d gone back to Germany.”

elzbardico2• 5 years ago

Finance people are so insufferable. Yeah mate we’re all glad you’re an investment banker so you don’t need to occupy yourself with such plebeian jobs. Great for you mate! I will make sure to vote for anyone who promise to tax the rich next election

js8• 5 years ago

If these jobs are sooo important, the market should pay for them. Or is Britain going to be a centrally-planned economy, that dictates people which jobs to have?

ljm3• 5 years ago

So you would graciously quit your own job to drive an HGV for queen and country?

You're on HN so I imagine you're earning as much as, if not more than, this investment banker.

buzzert• 5 years ago

I'm so glad he declined. What would we do without those investment bankers?

Guthur2• 5 years ago

And isn't it so good that he can be an investment banker by his choice and not be forceful reallocated by the state.

wanderingmind• 5 years ago

And yet he is staying in UK as he can't make such money back in Germany and complaints about UK and Brexit. Some people are just insufferable.

thiagocsf• 5 years ago

How do you know that?

Is it possible he just likes living in the UK?

Talanes• 5 years ago

You're complaining about someone making a mild Brexit joke to a reporter. Some people really are insufferable.

jussij3• 5 years ago

and complaints about UK and Brexit.

I don't see a 'complaint about Brexit' in his response.

In fact, being a German citizen I'm sure he didn't even get a vote on the subject.

elzbardico2• 5 years ago

This could be easily solved with immigration from Latin America. Plenty of unemployed truck drivers that would love to move

bserge2• 5 years ago

Too European. Why not India?

jussij3• 5 years ago

This problem was created because the UK government kick out the European drivers as part of their Brexit plan.

That make this current problem rather more difficult as the UK government can't just start importing foreign truck drivers to fix this issue, as that would then be a back flip on that original Brexit plan.

iamtedd• 5 years ago

"However, the German government is understood to have not yet written to British people living there, asking them to consider driving an HGV when they have never done so before."

What an irrelevant statement. Unless Germany is also experiencing a driver shortage.

detaro• 5 years ago

Given the UK government has claimed there are "very large and even larger shortages in other EU countries like Poland and Germany", evidence for or against that (e.g. if governments feel the need for such measures) are probably relevant to public discussion in the UK about this ;)

orwin• 5 years ago

To be fair, they are right, mainland europe do have a driver shortage.

A friend of mine is the commercial of a company selling security detail services from Ukrainian ex-militia/military, and they started offering driver services, because the demand augmented that much in mainland europe (mainly east of germany, as they are the trips that pay the less).

kehrin• 5 years ago

That is clearly in reference to the two previous paragraphs.

"Chief secretary to the Treasury, Simon Clarke, told the BBC’s Today programme yesterday. 'The difficulties we are facing are not unique to this country.'"

abraxas• 5 years ago

Brexit means brexit

afrcnc• 5 years ago

Germans couldn't care less. British xenophobia got them into this and, frankly, they deserve what's coming. All of Europe knew what Brexit meant except the British, apparently.

brianmcc• 5 years ago

Please, worldwide HN-ers, remember that not all of us in the UK voted for this Brexit induced shitshow and would dearly love to see it all reversed :-(

shimonabi• 5 years ago

This is really comical.

I doubt that you could find many German truckers even if you were looking for them at a German truck stop.

II2II• 5 years ago

I'm not too surprised. A year ago, the Ontario College of Teachers (a licensing body) was sending letters to retired teachers and teachers with lapsed licenses to encourage them to renew and apply for work in the province. It was clearly done out of desperation: in the bulk of cases they were asking people who were retired, exited the profession in far better times, or who moved to jurisdictions that were handling the pandemic far better (likely pre-pandemic, but still) to return to a system that was in turmoil. Yet it was the easiest way to reach out to qualified people.

Government asks German residents to drive lorries even if they never have before

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