In front of the truck that he has just passed his driving test, Alberto Almeida holds his British diploma with a humble smile, and his coach tells him jokingly: “Rejoice, you no longer have to pay money to take lessons with us,” while taking a picture of the 49-year-old electrician years old; Who registered during the “quarantine period” in search of an alternative plan for his career, while Alberto replies, his smile becoming wide: “No. Now others have to pay me.”
With shortages growing in the UK, truck drivers are becoming "real stars", says Lawrence Bolton, the young man who runs the National Driving Center school in a popular south London suburb.
The call center at the young man's school has been receiving a flood of calls since the truck drivers made headlines. Brexit exacerbated the driver shortage, a global phenomenon, by preventing the return of Eastern European drivers who had been working in the region just a year earlier.
This shortage also affects the "supermarkets", where some shelves of fresh products are constantly emptied, as well as some products of fast food shops or those specialized in promoting drinks.
Since the end of last September, gas stations have been suffering from difficulties in supplying fuel in the absence of drivers who are able to drive the tanks, in a phenomenon that was exacerbated by the large demand of car owners who are worried about filling their tanks, and it is supposed to continue in the coming weeks, according to the sector.
Pilots behind the wheel
The RHA, the land transport organization, said that there is a shortage of 100,000 drivers in the country. Brands such as Tesco's trucks are festooned with invitations to join their team of drivers, while some companies offer to pay for qualification costs, and the government is stepping up measures to address the situation.
Drivers could work longer hours, and license holders who had stopped working in the sector received letters urging them to return. But most importantly, the UK will grant 10,500 temporary work visas to deal with a labor shortage before Christmas.
In the garage of the National Vehicle Driving Center some of the measures raise suspicion, such as relaxing rules that allow drivers to take the test for driving the heaviest vehicles without going through smaller trucks.
"Can you imagine yourself going from a car to a monster like that?" asked Bolton, pointing to a gigantic ten-tonne machinery, while Andrew, one of the school's instructors, points out that road safety could be affected.
On the other hand, the two men feel comfortable with the interest that this profession is receiving again, as it attracts people from new sectors. "Five or six pilots have come in this year, they were afraid they were going to be laid off," Bolton said, as air traffic fell.
Andrew, a former truck driver, said he shared with his pupils the experience of "hard work and loneliness on the road", and added: "We live in the cockpit six days a week, away from the family atmosphere."
Controversial visas
Andrew confirmed that when he was working as a driver, 15 or twenty years ago, “the wages weren't so bad, but they didn't keep up with inflation and other sectors.”
Unite, the trade union platform, criticizes the government for failing to "improve the quality of life in parking lots and rest areas" where drivers often do not find showers or toilets, despite higher prices than in the rest of Europe.
The visas granted by the British government urgently at the end of September, to return drivers who accepted these salaries, are not very popular, with few volunteers currently competing to return to the Kingdom.
The trade union platform Unite condemned, in a statement, "the government's support for a system that has flaws and exploits drivers," as it put it.
Although he has a license to drive trucks, Alberto Almeida does not intend to start working immediately, while his work as an electrician provides him with more income than the wages of a driver. And he added: “Brexit exposed the problem: no one wants to drive a truck.”