OT: "Terrible Shortages of Everything" on the way

[Dave Plowman (News]

Quite simple. Don't buy it then. They'll not send anything they can't sell.

[nightjar]

As the OP, I can say, with certainty, that I used it to mean Large Goods Vehicle. HGVs officially became LGVs before the turn of the century.

LGV as light goods vehicle is not an acronym I had come across before this thread. PLG - private and light goods as a tax class, yes. LGV - light goods vehicle, no.

[Robin]

+1997 :)

[Andrew]

Which presumably are still on there, held to ransom by the Egyptians ?

[Andy Burns]

It was released yesterday(?)

[Vir Campestris]

I knew them as light and heavy.

The fact that this

takes the trouble to say "The term ?LGV? can be used to refer to two types of commercial vehicle:

?Light Goods Vehicles? which refers to a commercial carrier vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of no more than 3.5 tonnes.

...

?Large Goods Vehicles? which is the official EU term for a vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of over 3.5 tonnes."

Would suggest to me that the term LGV should be deprecated as confusing, and the acronym expanded.

Especially as we have now left the EU!

Andy

[nightjar]

Covid-19 is why they haven't been done for the past year.

[tony sayer]

Hasn't it been released now that Evergreen?..

[Algernon Goss-Custard]

It would be interesting to know the reason[s] for that. Why would HGV drivers suddenly be short in the EU, even though they now have so many of ours? Has there been a big exodus to Africa?

The vast majority of EU nationals living in the UK during Brexit were entitled to remain here and to work here. All they had to do was register.

[Chris Green]

I think it's partly down to the birthrate bulge after WW2, lots of HGV drivers were born around then and have been retiring in the last 5 years or so.

However maybe they didn't want to bother, easier to go home.

[bert]

Similarly for driving a minibus in certain circumstances

[JNugent]

[re shortage of HGV drivers]

I know what you mean, but that's still a wonderful, if surreal, image.

[nightjar]

It is an international problem. The USA is reporting similar shortages. As somebody else pointed out, many of today's drivers are getting near retirement age, but that seems to be a looming problem, rather than a current one. Covid-19 has been a major factor. The current UK shortage is said to be around 60,000 drivers, but about 30,000 HGV tests were not carried out in the UK during the pandemic. With the EU drivers going home, that still leaves about 15,000 vacancies unaccounted for.

Many wanted to with their families during the pandemic and many went home because they had been furloughed. I'm not sure how that affects their rights to return now, but a long absence may well be a factor.

[alan_m]

Possibly because X number leave the industry every year (retirement for instance) and during the pandemic little or no training or driving tests for HGV licences.

[tim...]

but it wasn't any bother

For working people, HMG seems to have made the process as simple as possible (though the same can't be said for proving your entitlement to remain after you have received it)

[tim...]

If they didn't apply before they left, they can't come back and apply now

but they had plenty of opportunity to apply before they left

It's not clear to me why Logistic workers would have been furloughed. Surely that's one sector that wasn't hugely adversely affected