To add to the above post,
New drivers need 2 years experience in order to get a full time job in most instances.
So to summise, You must take a theory exam and pass, then take your class 2 and pass, then take the class 1 and pass and then take 35 hours of training with no guarantee of work at the end of all that.

Could somebody please enlighten me as to what a young driver would find attractive about all of the above only to be treated like a monkey on very questionable rates of pay and conditions once he/she passes.

The reason females don't want to do the job is because they don't want to sleep in a tin box whilst parked in a pee smelling layby with the cab rocking all night from passing traffic only to wake to slashed curtains, half the load missing and syphoned diesel tanks.

There are no youngsters coming into the industry because of the astronomical costs involved in aquiring the class 1 licence only to be told " you need 2 years experience son".

The ethnic minorities know a bad move when they see it and rightfully avoid the industry like the plague.
Why don't our so called industry experts simply ask the people who are currently doing the job why the industry can not recruit any new blood? the answers are very simple and don't require millions of pounds in taxpayers money to be spent on a consultation excercise.

I totally agree with Kevin Barker's comments I work as a transport manager and my husband has his own lorry. He has no intentions of carrying on after his 5 year exemption is finished and he is only 46. I am looking at alternative employment because the job is becoming such a hassle and a friend with a coach company is already tearing his hair out as so many of his school run drivers are approaching pension age and have no intention of sitting through a day of lectures every year just to drive for a couple of hours a day 30 weeks a year.

ive been driving hgv's for four years,im now 28 yrs of age.The new driving rules are not going to attract more drivers to the industry, speacially younger people.i myself am now considering quiting driving as a profession due to these new rules,alot of drivers i know are already considering quiting driving to because of the new changes.i cant see how the powers that be can think how this is really going to attract new drivers to the industry,by putting up more obstacles,and causing more problems for Haulage companies.it's just causing more problems for us drivers too,who have enough to deal and think about in our everyday work.

this is just another nail in the coffin of the transport industry,any excuse to make money out of the driver,they keep bringing in new rules and regulations but wages stay at the bottom of pile.does this driver cpc entitle you to run and opperate your own vehicle ?

Well this is a new one on me. Driver CPC. I drive for an agency in south wales and have been driving as a job for 10yrs. I self funded my C C+E licences in 2004. About £3000 in total. I strongly object to have to pay money out every 5 years (and the price will increase) to whoever just so I can carry on working. On speaking to a lot of drivers they are completely unaware that this will be the case every 5 years. I watch in anticipation at the numbers of drivers leave the profession as I will be one of them.

Considering the gross inequality in wages in this so called profession, from, in some incidents, large haulage firms paying their class one drivers £70 a day for a minimum of 11 hours, now this is scandalous.

Its a shame we as a nation are not like the French in some ways with their solidarity in protest, or is that a celtic thing??

I am affraid that having to pay for my medical every 5 yrs then looking to pay for cpc training for a week every five years has drawn me to conclude with the rest of the comments on here that in five yrs time I will retire from the mad game never to return "sick and tired of the red tape "