To wonder how 10,000 truckers are going to the toilet?

[snowisfallingallaroundus]

I can't imagine it's pretty

I do know one driver with a porta potty and a pop-up shower tent in his cab, but he's an exception.
Some of the overseas drivers are so used to going in the bushes that they do so out of habit even when there is a toilet block available. It can be pretty grim.
I used to work in a truck stop, which closed down even before Covid. There are more and more trucks on the road, with fewer facilities.

portable toilets every 1 km on the M20 between junctions 10a-11

They won’t leave their loads to walk a km for a pee. Maybe a poo (sorry tmi) but not if it’s the middle of the night.

Er this is why dh stopped working on the continent. Plus the stress of people trying to jump of his lorry coming up to French port. He could stop for about 50k before a French port and didnt dare slow down incase people.jumped on his lorry and didnt realise. The stress made him ill

Truly awful. Why aren't the police/government/local council....someone.....providing portages loos for them and hot meals and anything else they need.

@Waveysnail Same! He won’t do continental anymore as the attacks on his truck getting worse, we’d be the ones to pay a fine if anyone was successful in getting on. Bricks thrown etc. It’s a massively stressful job anyway and 50 plus hours a week as the norm is extra stressful when your bed is the cab. At least he comes home at night now. It’s been a grim year for them but at least the work is more secure now than it was with driver shortages. That’s about the only good thing at the moment!

because there are driver shortages that should say!

Why aren't the police/government/local council....someone.....providing portages loos for them and hot meals and anything else they need.

Because Shapps said that the closure of the border came as a total surprise to him - which makes you wonder what the Transport Minister spends his time doing - and because Gove's border preparations, which were supposed to set in motion at the drop of a hat, proved to be totally inadequate (which the logistics companies have spent 3 years trying to tell him and which he has spent 3 years refusing to acknowledge because he's had enough of listening to people who know; aka 'experts').

'' operation yellow hammer turns to operation brown trousers ""

Gosh, excellent...

That should be a headline in paper.. The sun loves headlines like that!

I can't understand why the army wouldn't be called on to quickly roll out loos and cooking tents? All done in strict hygiene way.

What implications are there for the virus if lorry drivers are defecating by the road?

Animals picking it up and is on?

Then I've just seen on sky that only those at the airport have been offered the tests but they are at the back of the queue and can't get anywhere.

So now some bright spark is moving it to the front of the queue. Those poor lorry drivers, I bet communication down there is awful, and the police as well, having to deal with furious drivers in a pandemic, shouting at them...

It's a mixing pot for the virus. Disaster.

I used to own a truck stop. Once a month we had the employ some poor buggers to "cleanse" the lorry park. This basically involved going around the Bushy verge surrounding the lorry park with several wheel barrows and collecting the hundreds of piss filled bottles, shits folded in new paper and bags of poo etc. A startling amount of used sex toys and used condoms too. It was absolutely gross. And that was when they had access to toilets just 50m away so 1 km? I'm not shocked it smells like a sewer.

I am not suggesting that ALL drivers are filthy monsters by the way, I know they aren't.

The virus will be spreading like wild fire down there, tests stuck in traffic, what will happen when 1000s test positive for covid? Where will they house the positive cases? Which will be multiplying rapidly?

@lollymad

I have relatives living in Kent. They describe side of the M20 as an open sewer, but this is nothing new. Operation Stack has been used many times, whenever there is poor weather/strikes in France/ferry or shuttle problems.

Yep, the A2 route to Dover is exactly the same. Hundreds of bottles of urine (and worse) cleaned up by the local authority here every year. It costs tens of thousands of pounds.

The Salvation Army are delivering food to the drivers too.

It is sad that the government sticks these drivers in such a terrible situation and then doesn't look after them. The military should be down there feeding and fuelling them.

@PandemicPavolova

The virus will be spreading like wild fire down there, tests stuck in traffic, what will happen when 1000s test positive for covid? Where will they house the positive cases? Which will be multiplying rapidly?

This is a real concern, I mentioned on another thread yesterday. We don’t have the capacity in the hospitals here if lots of drivers start to need any medical help. And, if they test positive but aren’t ill, where are they going? It’s a tier four area, nothing is open. If they requisition a hotel, who do they expect to staff it? There’s a small holiday inn near Manston and a couple of out of town-ish premier inns but I don’t imagine anyone is going to want to locate a COVID quarantine hotel in the centre of Ramsgate or Margate. There’s also plenty of people on local Facebook pages saying how they’ve been unable to travel in these areas to hospital etc. There’s a thread on here where one poor woman is trapped in her car just a few minutes from home in Dover. Now all the lorries that are stacked up in Dover have to make it all the way back through Kent to Manston because that’s the only place they can set up a secure testing facility, it’s only going to spread the gridlock.

The military should be down there feeding and fuelling them
The army are here. They’re running the testing process.

@FraggleShingleBellRock

I used to own a truck stop. Once a month we had the employ some poor buggers to "cleanse" the lorry park. This basically involved going around the Bushy verge surrounding the lorry park with several wheel barrows and collecting the hundreds of piss filled bottles, shits folded in new paper and bags of poo etc. A startling amount of used sex toys and used condoms too. It was absolutely gross. And that was when they had access to toilets just 50m away so 1 km? I'm not shocked it smells like a sewer.

I'm showing my naivety here but who are they having sex with to have sex toys etc?

I know the answer to this as my brother has been a long distance driver for over 20 years, so I’m going to assume you’re not a poo troll and give you the answer.

Soft drinks bottles for wee. Multiple plastic bags lined with kitchen roll for poo.

DB also says that some also use incontinence pads (like giant nappies) but he thinks that’s well gross!

This is appalling. Especially as it's lorry drivers (among other key workers) who have basically kept the world turning during the pandemic and allowed those of us who are lucky enough to be able to wfh, to buy food and other goods on-line on-line. And how do we treat them? Like they are sub-human.

Little consideration for their comfort or dignity, virtually no consideration for their health during a global pandemic, and no consideration for the fact that many of them now will not get back to be with their families at Christmas.

Schapps and Give should be ashamed. Yes, Covid-19 has added an extra dimension to this crisis, but potential blockages and delays at the ports were being discussed back in 2016.

On Farage and Johnson's head I hope!

A guy has just been on R4 saying he has had a family parked outside his house in Dover for the last couple of days. He has refused them the use of his toilet due to covid. He said the streets are littered with bottles of urine and the family have no food or blankets
I would have given them blankets and let them use my toilet wearing masks and cleaning afterwards
What a nightmare to be living in your car with kids
Some are not going to get home by Christmas

Gove not Give! There is absolutely NO excuse for them not to have been prepared for this!

@HighHeelBoots

A guy has just been on R4 saying he has had a family parked outside his house in Dover for the last couple of days. He has refused them the use of his toilet due to covid. He said the streets are littered with bottles of urine and the family have no food or blankets I would have given them blankets and let them use my toilet wearing masks and cleaning afterwards What a nightmare to be living in your car with kids Some are not going to get home by Christmas

How could you leave a family with children outside with no help of support.

Feel for everyone trapped by these circumstances and a bit of compassion required.

So glad I'm not a truck driver though. Sounds horrendous even without this situation

@snowisfallingallaroundus I used to know someone who made quite a bit of cash working the lorry park near her house.

So besides the brexit problems which yes they would prepare for they would have known that Macron would completely close the border because of a mutant virus ? Even the French drivers are blaming Macron . They feel this is a political move . But of course we blame our government .

OlympicProcrastinator

My husband is an HGV driver and I can assure you none of them have toilets in their cabs. Only bunk beds. This isn’t new. Petrol stations and pit stops for HGV drivers have been shut up and down the country have been closed since the beginning of lock down and they’ve been using the side of roads for months.

Nobody batted an eyelid because it’s a working class and immigrant problem and nobody has given a shit (scuse the pun) about anything that affects them for years.
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That’s a shame, I feel for them. Hopefully they will put up porta loos for them. I work in a warehouse, we get lots of lorry drivers delivery to our work, we have an on site toilet and the canteen is open for them. But during covid. They had to stop this, but put a outside porta loo for them, which isn’t ideal.