A couple of posters have mentioned autonomous vehicles. iThis raised a speculation on my part that more knowledgeable posters might address. If a guy can sit in a bunker in Colorado and pilot a drone in Afghanistan, why can’t someone sit in a suitably equipped facility in his home town and drive a long-haul truck? This would
solve the problems of poor trucking facilities and also of being away from their families. Of course, arrangements would have be made for refueling and maybe repair, but they don’t seem insuperable problems.
Just like a rigger in the role playing game Shadowrun. I think the biggest problem would be making sure the driver had enough situational awareness to be able to drive safely. Flying in the air is fairly safe in that the odds are against you running into other flying objects or the odd pedestrian. Driving through a city seems more difficult.
^ This.
Aircraft are physically farther away from each other and other objects. There is a certain margin for error and they are unlikely to have unpredictable humans cross their paths.
Trucks on a road, however, are much closer to other solid objects and for the foreseeable future will also have to deal with sharing the road with unpredictable human beings.
Autonomous trucks aren’t up to the task yet.
Remotely driven trucks have the problem of just how much situational awareness said remote driver has.
Yeah, flying drones are intrinsically less of a concern in general for society. Vast distances in the sky, lots of escape vectors, and no one is really pushing for drones to be carrying passengers or etc, so the worst thing that will usually happen with a drone is it crashes, but then it’s just a drone, and statistically it’s overwhelmingly likely to crash somewhere that it does no damage to any people or property.
There was some concern about drone usage in restricted air spaces, particularly around air ports, but most countries have established regulations around that now that significantly curtail civilian drone usage in those areas.
Trucks on the other hand, going point to point, are going to be constantly enmeshed on the front lines with human drivers and pedestrians.
One other factor is (for want of a better term) “seat of the pants.” Maybe I’m an outlier in this, but especially in winter I depend on the feel of the road to tell whether I’m safe; unless the druck is equipped with sensitive motion sensors and the driver’s seat with equally sensitive servos, I don’t see how this could be replicated.
A problem no one’s mentioned is potential latency of the data stream. Even if the driver has sufficient situational awareness, a couple seconds delay in updating the display or transmitting commands could result in a serious accident.
The big problem was not a shortage of fuel or even a serious problem with deliveries, but the panic buying triggered by the media. Similar to the great toilet paper shortage.
An overnight cashier at a convenience store runs a significant risk of assault and robbery for far less wages than that.
Yes. In my area about half of that. But the shift is generally only 8-9 hours long, after which she can go home. Every night. Or rather, every morning. If she has to she can call off to deal with a family emergency - a truck driver might be 1000 or 2000 miles away and unable to do anything about such a situation.
Such a long list:
Brexit ceasing the free mobility of Labour and EU drivers leading to an exodus of EU drivers.
Brexit and Immigration policy. Truck drivers not on ‘shortage occupations’ list maintained by Home Office so work visas required by EU drivers to enter UK.
Competition, high demand for Drivers in EU.
Brexit rules causing congestion and long bureaucratic delays at UK ports.
Older drivers retiring during lockdown
Drivers changing occupation after lockdown
Suspension of the examination of new drivers by government testing centres. Huge delay on new drivers qualifying to replace those retiring.
Historic poor pay in the haulage business.
Poor facilities for long distance drivers in UK. Few well equipped truck stops. Better in the EU.
Poor work/life balance work not family friendly.
High cost of training new drivers
Tanker drivers need special safety training
Competition because of demand for local delivery drivers because of expansion of home shopping during lockdown.
Then there are new changes to contractor v employee UK tax status rules : IR35
Poor response from UK Government to the crisis, regarding it as an issue for the haulage business to solve. Presumably they would prefer market forces to balance supply and demand while blaming problems on Covid.
Panic buying by the public incited by a tradition of sensational news reporting in the press and the social media rumours.
Basically it is a typical British screw up. Many of these issues could have been dealt with effective political leadership before it became a crisis. This is one of several sectors of the economy that are facing serious labour shortages. There are plenty of warnings. But the UK government is very ideologically opposed to relaxing work visa restrictions unless it is to attract ‘the brightest and the best’. Truck drivers are regarded as low skilled, cheap labour along with many other essential workers. Apparently it is up to UK companies to pay and train UK workers to do these jobs. Unfortunately for the government the UK workforce has quite different ideas of the kind of work they want to do. Job ads are placed and there no applicants.
Whether EU drivers will welcome the grudging concession by the UK government to allow a few hundred on them in only until Chrismas eve to get the UK out of this jam, I very much doubt. The money had better be very good indeed.
The UK government is not on good terms with the EU at the moment. Their attitude to anything connected with the EU is antagonistic. There are lots of unresolved loose ends connected with Brexit and a million or more EU nationals have voted with their feet.
This is going to play havoc with the UK labour market and this crisis is, I think the first of many.
There are huge numbers of vacancies in care work, agriculture, food processing, hospitality, building work and many other areas.
On top of the exodus of the EU nations, a great many people have been re-evaluating their working lives during lockdown and the job furloughs. Many have decided they do not want to go back to their old jobs unless the conditions are greatly improved. Many people have tolerated bad jobs and bad management for years.
Something has got to give. I am curious to know whether this is also happening in other countries.
Interesting, looks like Boris has decided on a quick reversal of immigration policy in order to save Christmas.
Of course he has. He was never one for lashing himself to the mast - or not without a slip-knot.
Neither am I, but let’s be clear what we are not prescribing.
The idea that everyone gets what they need and gives what thay can is nice idea, but there is one fundamental problem with it and it is human nature. Taking in lessons from various communist enclaves in Canada & States one notices that they all suffered from filth. When everybody gives what they can no-one gives janitorial services. Cooks and carpentry are overflowing but no-one cleans except washing dishes.
So it seems that if we want to keep our premises clean we must pay for the service. And if we have to pay for the “cleaning lady” it’s nice that we would pay for everyone else also.
But here comes the crux: If we decide that the management of this wage earning structure is given to a democratically elected government, then would it make more sense to elect a goverment that works for thw wage earners, than a government that works for the wage payers?
First of all investments are cheaper than maintanence. So if machine breaks down buy a new one and if a human breaks down buy a new one. It seems harsh to put it that way but that is what essentially happens.
Secondly: More and more of machines and people are rented. So you figure out how much you pay for the rent and let others figure out if they want to maintain the machines and people.
For one thing, the US has to have higher wages so Americans can pay for healthcare and higher education that folks in UK and EU are being provided at little or no cost.
Many Americans still can’t afford those things so they go without. I’d say the Brits and Euros got the better deal. Even with the higher taxes.
This. Arguing that people “should” be willing to do a job for what appears to be “good money” always blows me away. There’s this implication that out there there are people who comically speaking, were intended to do thus job and they are just being ungrateful.
Lots of professionals start their career as business consultants these days. They do 5 years at Accenture or BCG or whatever. They have a much sweeter deal: they can expense every meal, every Uber, their laundry service, all that. They stay in nice hotels, with fitness clubs and soundproofing. They rack up frequent flyer miles and can basically swap flying to any city for “flying home” any weekend they choose. They make bank. Even with all that, it’s widely understood that it’s a young person’s job and they earn every penny. It’s no way to live past 30, maybe 35, because the road alienates you from friends and family, makes forging new relationships almost impossible, and means you can’t really do what you want on most of your leisure time. And that’s a job that is objectively 1000x better in every single way than driving a truck.
Professionals take pay cuts all the time to leave a job that pays a ton but has lots of travel. No one thinks it weird to leave a job that pays $125k a year for one that pays $100 k, if the first had 40 weeks of travel a year and the second had little or none. So why would it be shocking that someone would rather make $45k working short hops or at a warehouse rather than $60k on long hauls?
If you offered me a 25% raise but 40 weeks a year on the road, no way in hell I’d take it.
Past that, the other solution is to improve working conditions. I don’t know how to do that, but if people aren’t willing to do the job for what it pays, you can change the pay or change the job. But that’s often an even harder sell for some reason. I have a lot of thoughts about that in terms of teacher shortages that are beyond the scope of this thread.
I think this is part of the US “labor shortage” as well - the bias towards only letting in elites and academics. Don’t get me wrong, I’m on board with attracting the “best and brightest”, but the people making those rules seem to forget civilization also needs plumbers, field workers, and, yes, truck drivers. If you have a shortage of “essential workers” then maybe you should change your immigration rules to attract them, too.
Oh, yes - also over here in the US. The details differ but the broad outline is the same. We have worker shortages in various areas, including long-distance trucking. We just haven’t had it manifest in the sort of panic-buy gas petrol crisis. Yet.
It’s the higher taxes that enable all those other nice things.
Yep - it’s attempting to get people to take jobs by shaming them and calling them lazy and ungrateful. If it’s such a wonderful job why doesn’t the person doing the shaming and blaming take it themself? It’s like all those people who bitch about how the “welfare queens” are living so well on the public dime - if that’s the case why are THEY working so hard at a job?
But beyond that - the phrase “it’s good money” always seems attached to a job that sucks in some manner. Now I also hear “but they tried to raise wages!”. As I keep saying - it’s not just about the money.
Case in point: if you’re single parent you can NOT take a job as a long-haul trucker because to do so would mean you lose custody of your child. Either officially, or because the kid is actually living with someone else 2/3-3/4 of the month. You can, however, take a job as an attendant on the night shift at a gas station and keep your kid(s). Funny how that never seems to enter the consideration of the people whining “…but it’s good money!”
How dare workers have family and children!
I am an American citizen who relocated to Europe several years ago. My experience may be instructive.
It is true that, on paper, I earn a lower wage. I am in technology, so I’m highly compensated compared to the average. In the US, I earned about $100k. Here, I get the equivalent of about $86k.
It’s also true that, on paper, my income is taxed at a higher rate.
However, at the end of the year, my take-home spendable money is greater than it was in the US.
There are a couple of reasons. Primarily, it’s because I’m not committed to a number of other expenses, like $5k healthcare deductibles and other bullshit. I recently spent three days in hospital with severe food poisoning, and my only charge was 30 euros for parking. Insurance companies are much more tightly regulated, so I’m not getting reamed on house and car coverage. And while income tax is higher, my annual property tax bill is like 250 euros. There’s also a generous annual bonus, negotiated by the powerful labor arm of the tripartite. My kids are a few years from college, but when they get there, tuition for the most specialized programs tops out at 2k euros per year; most degrees are significantly less expensive.
All of this means I have the disposable income to actually enjoy the 37 days of holiday I get every year. In August, I spent two weeks in Portugal. Next month, I’ll spend a week in Paris. Back in May, I was on the French island Ile de Ré for a week.
I’m never returning to the US. It’s a ripoff.
I spent many years in Europe ( I spent a good chunk of my time as a “Cold Warrior” with EUCOM–in the 80s we had like 350,000 guys in the European theater of operations alone, very different era), and have had many friends who have lived and worked in both the United States and Europe. It is very difficult to take general data and express it in individual stories. Lots of people do not have significant healthcare problems in America, for example. The European wage base is undeniably lower and the tax rate is higher on average, however some American states, at certain tax bands, when you factor in state/local and Federal, actually might approach some European countries in terms of tax, which means it isn’t actually entirely shocking someone could have higher take home pay in one place versus the other. It’s why anecdote doesn’t replace data. As an example, I had a friend who was a higher up with a risk management consultancy, his firm was international in nature, and he was offered a chance to transfer to their Belgium offices with the understanding he would probably live there for about three years before being moved to another location.
He was interested in the chance to live and work with his family in Europe for a time, so he took the offer. He got a small increase in his wage rate as it was a promotion, but his company paid wages relative to the country they operated in, so his wage rate was already more or less “maxed out” for the company in Belgium. He was probably in the top 10% of income in Belgium and rented a large home for three years that most native Belgians could not have afforded. He said that while his take home pay was way lower in Belgium than in the States, the amount of disposable income in Belgian society in general was so much lower that the take home pay he had essentially afforded him a “King’s lifestyle” while in the states he would have just been upper middle class, especially in New York City where he had been living.
There’s also significantly more to living a life than tax rates, take home pay etc, and those things are often far more compelling reasons to live in X place than Y place. My recitation of economic data about Europe is not intended to say Europe is bad and America is great, it is intended to say what it says–America is in general a much wealthier economic area than the EU.
FWIW per capita GDP data tends to be useful for this measure because it encapsulates everything, beyond just income.
While this discussion has as a scope that could easily be its own thread, it was essentially worth it to me to point out that Americans generally have higher wages across the board, that it isn’t a specific feature of British vs American trucking jobs.
Note too that the data does not significantly indicate that living in America is a rip off.
America has the highest per capita wealth in the world in data compiled by Allianz in 2020–at around $245,000 per capita. Note that wealth would intrinsically factor in if the balance of wages / social benefits was a “ripoff”, because wealth is accumulated by earnings above your expenses, whatever the structure of those expenses. Now, America also has more wealth inequality, so the per capita wealth figures can be weighted towards the rich. But even on other measures America ranks very highly–we have the 6th highest median income and again five of the states ahead of us are either very small population countries with large petroleum reserves, or tax havens, the one exception is Australia which is 4th on this measure.
America is also the second in the world in personal savings rate, which again is a reflection of whether we are really living in a “rip off” society, because it is difficult to accumulate personal savings if the balance of income and benefits is truly detrimental. In a survey of European nations and the United States, the Dutch bank ING found that in a survey that asked “Do you have any personal savings?” only one country in the survey had fewer “No” responses than the United States–Luxembourg, where only 13% of its residents reported no personal savings. Around 16% of U.S. respondents reported in the negative. Meanwhile countries often considered to be thrifty and savings oriented culturally, had much higher rates of “0 savers.” Germany had 34% of its respondents indicate they had no personal savings. (Personal savings is a consumer-oriented metric intended to show a different picture than gross national savings, which tends to mostly reflect countries used as storage vehicles for assets of the rich.)
Another interesting comparison in the trajectories of America versus Europe, in 1980 America was the richest country on earth, 25.2% of global GDP. With the rise of countries like China and India, expectedly that % has shrunk–to 24%. Meanwhile the countries that make up the EU have seen their share of world GDP decrease from 34.6% to 22%. This reflects that Europe, generationally going back 40 years, is a much lower growth economic region than the United States, which is a significant reason for why it has less wealth creation and less income.
Interestingly while many likely assume or guess that more free market-oriented economic policies explain why the U.S. outperforms the EU (and I do think that is part of it), I think one of the most significant factors, possibly the number on factor, is population growth rate (natural + net migration.) The U.S. for many years enjoyed a positive natural growth rate long after most EU countries had ceased growing from natural reproduction, the U.S. also enjoyed a higher net migration rate. People fuel wealth, when your people are reproducing more and more people are moving to your country, that plants seeds that pay huge dividends decades later. Interestingly, and probably negatively for the United States, in the last decade the U.S. has fallen down considerably in net migration rate, with many European countries having higher numbers than us now (fueled at least in part by significant migration of refugees after the turmoils of the Arab Spring wars.) In the short term such refugees are seen negatively, but the American example is that in the long term they generally are very beneficial. The Vietnamese refugee population, the Cubanrefugee population, for example, have gone on to actually outperform “native born” Americans in several measures of economic success. The short-sighted anti-immigrant policies of the Trump years could carry generational growth costs that aren’t fully realized until decades later.