LETTER: When you clap for carers, clap for truckers too!
A reader says we should also clap for truckers every Thursday.
As a retired truck driver of around 30 years’ experience, it makes me wonder if some of these people that write in complaining about truckers have actually been in a truck let alone driven one.
How many of these people would get out of a nice warm bed at three or four o’clock on a freezing, snowy, foggy morning to push a old rattle box of a truck with no heater, no sleeper cab and a top speed of 35mph? The only warmth you had came from newspapers wrapped round your legs and a pair of women’s tights to hold them in place, a thick donkey jacket and an old Air Force pilots hat with ear muffs. You had no choice but to sleep in the seat, leaning against the door if you could not get accommodation, as the law stated you must have eight hours rest.
Stricter rules apply today and the trucks have greatly improved, but the conditions of the roads have not, most of the old truck stops have disappeared and although drivers have now got luxury sleeper cabs with night heaters etc they still have nowhere to park them at night, look around you, everything you own has been on the back of a truck at some time.
In the 1960s my wages were five shillings and six pence per hour (27 new pence) and night out money 17 new pence, so folks don’t knock the trucker as without them the country would grind to a halt, when you clap for the carers clap for the truckers too.
Tony Davies, Lower Gornal
