#CrisisCareersHeroes profile: HGV driver

Rachel is a heavy goods vehicle driver transporting food and animal feed up and down the country. As part of this week's #CrisisCareersHeroes campaign, she talks about how the coronavirus crisis has affected her day-to-day work.

Name: Rachel Johnson
Role: HGV driver
#CrisisCareersHeroes field of work: Getting people and things around
Industry: Transport & Logistics

What does your job involve?

I am from a farming background, but my job is HGV driver. I currently drive a 44-tonne articulated tipper lorry. Our average day consists of hauling feed and food products e.g. wheat, barley, rapeseed. These products either go into the human food chain or into animal feed mills to be produced into feed blends.

How has coronavirus affected your job?

Currently with the coronavirus outbreak the working environment is becoming harder as time goes on. The problems I am seeing as a lorry driver are things such as the following:

• Paperwork: We have to take paperwork for the product producer (farmer or from mill to mill) meaning we have to handle the paperwork to transport to the delivery point. This means we could be transferring onwards any risk of contamination.
• Workload: During the first couple of weeks when the outbreak hit the UK, everyone was bulk buying. The mills couldn’t produce quickly enough and we couldn’t get them the product quickly enough – not enough hours in the day! Another issue we are seeing now the quarries are closing is there’s a lot of other companies undercutting us to get the work.
• On the road: The roads may be quieter but a lot of places are closed or closing. This includes service stations who in some cases are denying access to use the facilities – even toilets! We are finding this with a lot of delivery locations too.

Today, we're highlight workers who are getting people and things around during the coronavirus crisis as part of our #CrisisCareersHeroes campaign. Check out our article here.