Recently I read an account of a British HGV driver who compared unfavourably his experiences working in the UK with those working on the continent. On the continent HGV drivers are paid better, have higher quality work-conditions, their job is truly considered to be a skilled and respected occupation, they have specialised parking areas allotted to them, have dedicated places to eat, in France called ‘routiers’, which have also become popular with other road users drivers because of their excellent cuisine and which, in consequence, have their own particular Michelin-type guide. In the UK on the other hand, HGV drivers are somehow considered ‘lower-class’ by the disgustingly class-ridden society which continues to survive in a post-imperialist nation. HGV drivers have to pay for their parking spaces, they are segregated into third-class eating areas and are often looked down upon in any type of overnight accommodation which, all too often, reduces to their cab because the alternative is so miserable. They have few if any washing facilities and often have to put up with the ire of impatient motorists on Britain’s grossly over-crowded roads
No wonder the issue of temporary visas to continental HGV drivers, booted out by the repressive-brexitionist government imposed upon the once happy island, has not been the resounding success in resolving the increasing supplier problem regarding in particular the distribution of petrol and the filling of supermarket shelves. Why abandon a perfectly good working life in the EU when the alternative in the UK is so scroogerish!
I, too, have experienced this discrepancy in the attitude towards certain types of road users in the UK when compared with the continent. As a motorcyclist, or biker, for much of my working life and as one for several of my most enjoyable holidays on the continent bringing me to visit the remotest hill villages of Italy and the most desolate of Polish towns I have noted how from being treated, in several instances in the UK, with my leathers as a Marlonesque extra from ‘The Wild One’ or as an Anglo-Saxon reincarnation of ‘Easy Rider’ (although my bikes were usually Honda Transalps chosen because of their SUV-like versatility and not Harley-Davidsons) my arrival at a continental hostelry was greeted to the extent that I did not even have to carry my pannier bags in the hotel because that job was done for me by the proprietor.
Why this difference of attitude towards certain types of road users between the third country the UK has become since the start of this year and the EU? One reason may be because, in Italy, for example, many car drivers are also scooter owners and riders during the working week and may even take out their Ducatis and Moto Guzzis joining a local biker association for a week-end spin. There is no either-or situation at all there as, sadly, is the case too often in the UK. Italian motorists may often be regarded as mad drivers but they know, in the majority of cases, what it’s like to be on two wheels rather than four and act and react accordingly. This applies not only to motorcyclists but especially towards cyclists in groups. (Is the collective noun for these a ‘bipedality’ of cyclists, I wonder?)
I am convinced more than ever now that we are still living in a dream-like (perhaps nightmarish might be a better word) feudalistic society in the UK. HGV drivers are regarded very much in the same way that mediaeval lords of the manor riding on their steeds might have regarded peasant carts dragged by oxen on their way to the market with their load of parsnips. Bikers today seem sometimes to be regarded by certain sections of society with the same suspicion given to lurking highwaymen donning their black cloaks on Shooters hill or some other disreputable suburban spot.
Until such retrograde classist-style attitudes change then clearly, like those turkeys voting for Christmas, unrepentant brexititionists will remain without their own turkey when the festive season, hopefully to be uncancelled this year, is inaugurated.
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