dave ..the problem on this forum is we dont like people who force opinions on others.

on this thread you have protested in favour of the tankers which is your right to do,but when others have had opinions YOU HAVE TRIED to make us look loony which in turn backfires on you when you sound loony yourselve.

you have to accept what you think ethier isnt true which i believe is the case or sometimes others will think the complete opposite.

dont try and contradict someone who holds a opinion because in mine THAT LAST POST WAS A DIG AND I WOULD HAVE TOOK IT THAT WAY IF IT WAS AIMED AT ME.

In reply to BBs post regarding the explosiveness of fuel. You say it must be boiled first. What is the boiling point of standard petrol? I don't know the exact figure, but imagine it is very low as petrol evaporates extremely quickly. So a small fire near a tanker or on the truck could easily have explosive results. Not having a dig, just stating what I think.

They probably got the full wack and are on an average of 41k! Makes you sick to the teeth! I appreciate everyone deserves a payrise but 41k to drive a lorry? It crazy! Never mind, with Shell making 1.5 million profit an hour they can afford it!

What is this country coming to?

Well till next time someone wants to hold a company to ransom by trying to bring the country to its knees(and failing).

This fridays strike has apparently been cancelled as a pay deal looks like being done and dusted.

What i wanna know is how much have these greedy ,shamefull idiotic union members got.

talks start today to hopefully avert this weeks potential 2nd strike due to start of friday.

im sick of unionism in its current form,it doesnt hold the values that started unionism in its orginal form.

the leaders especially are power grabbing freaks on £1000s and 1000s per year to basically hold companies to ransom over pay and working conditions.

when unionsism orginally started its main aim was to improve pay to a basic level which gave its workers the chance to live a life outside of poverty,we achieved that through introduction of minimum wage which the government reviews time and time again to make sure the minimum standard of living is achieved.

the orginal aim of improving working conditions was to make sure companies and its employees operated in a safe environment in which fire safety ,health and safety and security were the main 3 priorities.

NOWADAYS..unions get away with striking over the most basic of arguments such as introducing a clocking on-off system which royal mail had a nightmare trying to introduce amongst other changes to working conditions and pay,the endless postal strikes we faced last year crippled the country in certain areas...

ive seen unions strike over the sacking of work colleagues for sackable offences,they demand they are re-instated and wont go back to work untill it happens.

if the unions dont get the pay rise they want,,such as the current one the fuel tankers want,then they get away with striking again and if the next one due friday happens,it could cripple certain areas as many panic buy and not all garages are able to replenish straight away for various reasons,thus creating long delays and knock on effects which again could cripple certain arears of the country.

The striking laws should be changed in this country,untill union controlled labour are voted out or they break free from union control,then i cant see it happening,but i live in hope.

You see a bit of science thrown in for good measure which blows all the comments about exploding out of the water! I like it!

DavieG:Coney I do agree with you to some extent, our armed forces, police officers and all NHS employees should be given a higher wage to the nature of their job, although I do think the tanker drivers should receive a little more money for what the do. Yes, going to war is extremely dangerous, as is dealing with the scumbag criminals of this country, but so is drivng a tanker filled with explosive liquid!

Liquid fuel cannot explode! It must be vapourised first. Liquid fuel can leak and the vapour from it burn, but to achieve an explosion it would be necccessary for the liquid fuel to boil in the tank. This would then BLEVE known to the Fire Service as a boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion. By this time any right thinking driver would be long gone, probably in the next town!

Did anyone see the news the other night, there are currently 11,000 driving vacancies in the UK at the moment. So why not jump on the Band Wagon get the test passed and join them. If the moneys good it makes you think a little.

As RED ARMY said everyones entitled to an yearly rise to cover inflation but if the figures are right 15-20% is pushing it, and to strike as well.....

DavieG:Coney I do agree with you to some extent, our armed forces, police officers and all NHS employees should be given a higher wage to the nature of their job, although I do think the tanker drivers should receive a little more money for what the do. Yes, going to war is extremely dangerous, as is dealing with the scumbag criminals of this country, but so is drivng a tanker filled with explosive liquid!

Davie g ....is a relative of yours a striker or something,because you sound so political it baffles me.

You claim to try and understand the need for soldiers ,nhs doctors and nurses and police officers to be paid more as there jobs are indeed dangerous.

You then shoot yourself in the foot by putting tanker drivers on the same level...how many other people get 32k a year to drive with explosive liquid on our roads every day and how many come into general contact with them as part of their job and get paid the same wage as the proposed wage increase the drivers are looking for.

Ansewer VERY VERY FEW IF AT ALL!!

One point i will agree with you on tho is tanker drivers should recieve A LITTLE more money for what they do,same as what everyone else gets is usually around 5% maximum

NOT A 5 K INCREASE ON A ALEADY HIGH 32K A YEAR AVERAGE WHICH IS ROUGHLY 15-20% RISE.

So how much should the poor staff get paid for sitting on top of the massive tanks buried under filling stations? Nearly £40k to drive a lorry is just crazy and remings me of the days before Mrs Thatcher had to crush the unions to prevent the Country going bankrupt. Yes I am that old!

Coney I do agree with you to some extent, our armed forces, police officers and all NHS employees should be given a higher wage to the nature of their job, although I do think the tanker drivers should receive a little more money for what the do. Yes, going to war is extremely dangerous, as is dealing with the scumbag criminals of this country, but so is drivng a tanker filled with explosive liquid!

I would love to sit on my backside all day, however being a bobby that's quite difficult! Compare that to what a fuel tanker driver does and which do you think is more dangerous?

Being a nurse in A and E with voilent patients. Which do you think is more dangerous?

Being at war. Which do you think is more dangerous?

I've heard that Poland have HGV drivers as well, so I would think carefully about striking!!!:)

How is it not dangerous? Driving a tanker filled with hundreds of thousands of gallons of highly flammable liquid, which only needs a spark to set it off is dangerous in my books. Especially when your using a COMBUSTION engine to do so...

And your comment, "Just for driving a lorry" sounds so shady....It's like me saying, because you sit on your ar$e all day in an office you think your worth 35k? Of course I don't know what career you are in, so I have made an assumption. Could you drive a lorry around for 8 hours a day? Think not...

I think they should stay on strike and that we run out of fuel at our stations!!!! Petrol is too bloody expensive and we should stop buying it until the government reduce the tax on it. Please follow the link and sign the online petition and pass the message on.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Lowerduty30/

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Reduce Fuel duty to bring fuel prices back to an acceptable level. More details

Submitted by Richard Mason – Deadline to sign up by: 17 June 2008 – Signatures: 275,928 (so far).