Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[garbon]

Problem is, apart from. It being able to afford rent during retirement, is that laws and regulations consider rented homes little more than hotel rooms. If I have the estate agents come and take photos of our home ever quarter throughout my life to ensure we are behaving, at some point I will lose my shit.

Wait, what? In Germany and Austria landlords have no right to enter your rented space except in severe emergencies (gas leaks or similarly serious), and you have no obligation to let them in while you rent from them.

Here the contract makes us allow "reasonable entry". They still need to request permission but if we refused I am not sure what would happen. During lockdown we were asked to upload pictures every quarter and verify we tested the smoke alarm.

That's definitely a subpar experience. I've never had that in the 3 places I rented here nor anywhere I rented in the US.

[Agelastus]

My boss owns three houses he rents out as a sideline and I think he visits/inspects them once a year (may be more often, since he's had to replace smoke alarms a couple of times as he's had tenants who have removed them.)

Given the obligations of a landlord either they or their agents have to visit and check their properties on a semi-regular basis; once every three months seems a bit much though.

[Tonitrus]

My agents seemed a bit disorganized on this subject (always seems to be different contracted-out companies doing the inspections, all using different means to contact me), and only did it every six months or so...not at all during COVID (and no request for pictures or any such thing).

Of all the places in the States that I have rented...though the landlords almost always had the right to inspect included in the lease, it never happened.

[Sheilbh]

Sheilbh is going to start poisoning the neighbourhood cats isn't he

The trend of trying to save animals over people, cancelling half of HS2 (the useful half) and everyong stopping anyone building anything is going to turn me into the joker at this rate

And yes. Saw that on the banks. Lloyd's aiming to be one of the country's biggest landlords I believe.
I do wonder whether we are irreversibly sliding in a Swiss sort of direction where buying a house just isn't something that is done. People don't aspire to it as it's for the rich. People rent forever and that's fine....
As awfully as it works there when with some regulation.
i

Yeah I think regulation and the existence of long leases (as is more the norm in Germany and Austria - and maybe Switzerland) would help. But I have always thought it might be better if landlords in the UK were actually big companies rather than amateurs who buy-to-let as a nest egg in retirement.

That's definitely a subpar experience. I've never had that in the 3 places I rented here nor anywhere I rented in the US.

Yeah agreed - I've never had that or heard of it. Although in East London I had a landlord who would just pop round unannounced every now and then (the flat was on his route home from work) which was very annoying.

[mongers]

Seems to be a charming fellow indeed.

He gave an interview on Sky just a couple of days ago about how he would not be leaving without the Afghan staff. He left without the Afghan staff.

I'm furious about the whole situation and I can see why government sources are calling him "odious" to journos. But it shows what you can do with social media, then getting onto mainstream media, plus some celebrity supporters (Ricky Gervais has tweeted about little else for the last fortnight).
....

The social media fantasy:

Dominic Dyer said on Twitter his friend Mr Farthing was now a "national hero, of huge public standing".

"He is one of the most courageous, dedicated people I've ever met and it's been an absolute privilege to work alongside others campaigning and fighting for him every step of the way."

The reality:

But speaking to LBC on Saturday, Foreign Affairs Select Committee chair Tom Tugendhat said: "The difficulty is getting people into and out of the airport and we've just used a lot of troops to bring in 200 dogs, meanwhile my interpreter's family are likely to be killed.

"As one interpreter asked me a few days ago 'why is my five-year-old worth less than your dog?'," the Conservative MP added.

Source:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-58370218

[Sheilbh]

Two very interesting pieces on the supply chain issues - one from the FT on the global context that this is a problem globally that the UK has a particularly exacerbated version of because Brexit and also that tax reform (this basically stops employers from employing workers as "companies" which is beneficial to both parties from a tax perspective, but bad for the worker from a rights perspective - and HMRC thinks it's a tax dodge, which it is):

Drivers warn of burnout as global trucker shortage bites
Surging demand for goods during the pandemic has hiked up volumes for hauliers to carry
August 30, 2021 4:00 am by Harry Dempsey and Jyoti Mann in London and Steff Chavez in Chicago

Aliaksandr Matsiash, a Belarusian exile, joined Lithuanian trucking group Baltic Transline in May. But after two weeks of training, followed by 13 weeks living in a truck based in the Netherlands — all for a mere €2,470 — the 30-year-old quit.

"It's not a normal life for a human," he said. "It's like a prison, it's not a job. You do it like a zombie."

Analysts say a global shortage of truck drivers has persisted since the middle of the 2000s. But Matsiash's case illustrates the human dimension of a deteriorating global driver shortage that has tipped into a crisis only recently visible to the wider public.

In the UK, supermarket shelves are missing goods, McDonald's restaurants ran out of milkshakes this week and builders cannot access supplies, while iron ore struggles to reach Australian ports for export.

The potential consequences are serious. André LeBlanc, vice-president of operations at Petroleum Marketing Group, a Virginia-based fuel distributor, said that gas stations it supplies had run out of certain products about 1,200 times since mid-June because of driver shortages.

"You don't get your toilet tissues and your eggs, that's one thing. Gasoline stops — it shuts everything down," he warned.

The transport sector's labour issues have built up over time as multinational companies drive down supply chain costs. At the same time, the trucking workforce in developed nations has aged — the average truck driver in the UK is 55 years old — while more jobs have become computer-based.

Bob Costello, chief economist at American Trucking Associations, said that the number of drivers in general freight in the US has dropped to 430,000, down from 465,000 people at the start of 2020.

"The driver shortage in the US is getting even worse, it is as bad as it has ever been," he added

Keith Newton, secretary-general of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport International, said that members in Australia and Central Asia have also reported heavy goods vehicle driver shortages of 20 per cent.

Surging demand for goods during the pandemic has hiked up volumes for hauliers to carry, while accelerated growth in the ecommerce sector has only exacerbated pressures.

"Increasingly global trade is becoming more complex, consumers want quicker deliveries, and simply there are not enough skilled HGV drivers to handle this demand around the world," Newton said.

Girteka, one of Europe's largest hauliers which plans to hire 7,000 new drivers in total this year, said more employees are needed per truck to allow workers to spend more time at home.

Baltic Transline disputes Matsiash's portrayal of his work and living conditions, and says he was aware he may be required to spend extended periods of time in the truck. It maintains it "strictly adheres to the legislation in force and provides suitable lodging as well as ensures appropriate work conditions to all of its employees".

The UK, which has an estimated 100,000-driver shortage, has been hit particularly hard not only by the departure of drivers from EU countries due to Brexit and Covid-19, but also by tax legislation reform introduced this year that drastically reduced incomes for agency workers.

Pandemic-driven backlogs at testing centres have hindered the flow of new drivers, with the UK logistics sector pushing for the stopgap solution of drivers from EU countries being given temporary visas.

Still, there are practical difficulties. "Even if we were allowed to recruit drivers from the EU, there's a shortage of drivers there as well," said Rod McKenzie, head of policy at the Road Haulage Association. "The only place that doesn't have a significant shortage of drivers is Africa."

US trucking companies are also looking overseas for solutions, despite strict quotas on visas. Anda Malescu, managing partner at Miami-based Malescu Law, is helping trucking companies to source drivers from Mexico, Canada and South Africa. "Companies are increasingly desperate," she said.

Large companies are turning on the charm offensive to hire new recruits. Walmart is offering an $8,000 signing bonus for some drivers, while British retailer John Lewis announced plans to raise driver salaries by up to £5,000 a year. UK wages for a category of LGV drivers have increased 21 per cent to £36,800 in just under a year, according to recruiter Adzuna.

But trade groups say the bonuses and better pay only encourages drivers to move from one employer to another without attracting new blood to the profession, while doing nothing to resolve the problems of drivers who do not get paid for time spent waiting around.

"It's more than pay that drivers want," said Patrick Doran, who after seven years of trucking in the UK wants to drive buses instead.

For truckers, the lack of proper facilities from toilets and parking to designated rest bays are also common complaints.

Many report a vicious cycle of labour shortages resulting in more pressure on them to fulfil more deliveries, concluding it is no longer worth the strain and long periods away from home.

"I used to love the job," said Jose Querios, a Portuguese national who came to Britain in 1990 but left the trucking industry in April after 12 years. He now works in a quarry. "As time went on the job became harder and harder as companies would just push and push."

The growing pressures have led observers to caution against quick fixes that paper over structural issues that have made the sector so unattractive. Any solutions to the crisis may result in higher prices for consumers.

Herman Bolhaar, the national rapporteur on human trafficking in the Netherlands, said the Dutch government and others have not done enough to enforce regulations, let alone shine a light on the reality of truckers' labour conditions.

He says that his country lacks sufficient information on labour exploitation related to trucking and that "we should know far more precisely what these numbers are".

"It's not a local issue, it's not a national issue, it's an international issue," he said. "It has to do with economics, trade, cost, profit and prices but more fundamentally it's about human rights, human dignity and fair working conditions."

Additional reporting by Andrew Edgecliff-Johnson, Peter Foster, Philip Georgiadis and Richard Milne

And from the Observer - this reinforces my leftie sense that almost any story ultimately boils down to pay and working conditions and labour relations/power:

Food, beer, toys, medical kit. Why is Britain running out of everything?
Poor pay and conditions for HGV drivers and the loss of many thousands of EU workers are plunging the UKs supply chain into crisis
Tom Wall & Phillip Inman
Sun 29 Aug 2021 07.00 BST

Gaps on supermarket shelves. Fast food outlets pulling milkshakes and bottled drinks from their menus. Restaurants running out of chicken and closing. Empty vending machines. Online grocery orders full of substitutions. Fruit and vegetables rotting in the fields.

These are just some of the most visible signs of Britain's deepening supply chain crisis, which has seen stocks in shops and warehouses slump to their lowest levels since the Confederation of British Industry began surveying in 1983.

It has led to dire warnings that the UK's food system, which has been hit hardest by delivery delays and labour shortages, is in danger of reaching breaking point and may not be able to meet Christmas demand.

Customers may have only started noticing this crisis in recent weeks but it has been building for months, with businesses, road hauliers and transport unions telling ministers at the start of the summer that a shortage of lorry drivers could lead to empty shelves.

The logistics industry estimates around 100,000 more HGV drivers are needed to get goods and materials moving again. The shortfall has emerged, in part, because 14,000 EU drivers have left the country and only 600 have returned since Brexit. The pandemic has also disrupted training and tests for new drivers: around 40,000 HGV driving tests were cancelled last year.

However, for unions and some drivers, the pandemic and Brexit have only exposed the limitations of the low-wage, precarious employment model that has come to dominate the logistics sector. "All the headlines are blaming Brexit and Covid. But they are just the straws that have broken the camel's back," says Adrian Jones, a national officer for Unite, which represents workers throughout vital supply chains, from warehouse staff to lorry drivers. "This has come after decades of drivers being undervalued. Ten pounds an hour does not reflect the skills and knowledge needed to even start work as a lorry driver, or the responsibility of driving 44-tonne vehicles on congested roads in the UK. They are treated with disdain."

It's not hard to find dissatisfaction on the roads. Mark Hughes, 44, who has been driving HGVs for 20 years, says pay has barely changed in his working life, with retention bonuses only emerging in the last few months as companies have attempted belatedly to hang on to their drivers. "My stepdad was a driver. He was bringing home £550 a week," says Hughes while waiting for turkey products to be offloaded from his lorry in Hemel Hempstead. "Last year – before Brexit and Covid – drivers were earning £550," he says. "There's been nothing for 35 years."

A lack of facilities and time pressure means drivers are often forced to use their cabs as toilets and wash by the side of the road. "The main thing you need for this job is a blanket, pillow, wet wipes and plastic bags," says Hughes. "The laybys are sometimes covered in shit so it's safer to crap in a plastic bag inside your cab. You wash with soap and water in a plastic bowl. It is degrading. It's like living on the streets."

Sitting behind a wheel for 15 hours a day and eating on the go ravages drivers' bodies. Unpublished analysis by Unite shows over the last 10 years the number of drivers who have had their licences suspended or revoked for medical reasons has doubled. Hughes subsists on a diet of service-station food and takeaways because there are few other options. "I've just been diagnosed with diabetes," he says. "You spend all day sat down. My legs and ankles hurt. I get cramps. I've smashed 10 Nurofen already this week."

Unsurprisingly, some quit altogether. Official figures suggest thousands of HGV licence holders are not actually driving HGVs. Gordon Nicoll is one of them. He quit this month, fed up with woeful roadside facilities, near-misses and stagnant wages. "The money is rubbish, the conditions are rubbish, and you are treated like crap," he says from his home in West Lothian. "And then you're expected to move mountains in [an] impossibly short time."

Instead of working 15-hour days delivering to supermarkets during the pandemic, Nicoll, 42, now works as a prop assistant in the film industry. He is not tempted by the financial inducements on offer from the likes of Tesco, which has advertised joining bonuses of £1,000 for HGV drivers. "It's not worth it," he says without hesitating.

Robert Skidelsky, the economist and biographer of John Maynard Keynes, blames decades of underinvestment for many of the skills shortages cited by employers. "Ever since the 1960s the UK has suffered a relative lack of investment compared to the rest of Europe and the US. Unions were blamed for deterring private sector investment right up to the 1980s, which Margaret Thatcher used to justify undermining union power.

"We have always had a huge lack of investment in our people. Technical education has been, and continues to be, a poor relation."

For Unite, this shows why the quick fixes, including bringing in more temporary drivers from overseas, will not address the underlying problems, which are depleting an already ageing workforce and putting off new drivers. Jones points out the industry is not just facing a recruitment crisis but also a retention crisis. "We are short of about 100,000 HGV drivers right now. But there are about 75,000 to 85,000 HGV licence holders who do not drive," he says. "Many are dropping out because of the lack of respect."

Employers have been able to hold down pay by bringing in low-paid agency workers from the UK and EU to fill gaps. "They have had the ability to utilise this pool of what employers call flexible labour, but I call it exploitable labour, to cover these jobs for years," says Jones. "But that has almost dried up now."

Even the industry now accepts that wages have been too low for too long and working conditions need to improve to attract a more diverse range of people, including women. Natalie Chapman at Logistics UK says pay rates are increasing now, with agencies and job boards reporting that rates for new drivers are up 20% year on year, but admits there have been problems in the past. "To create resilience within the supply chain, pay is something that companies need to look at," she says. "But one of the challenges is that our members work on margins of less than 1.5%."

Facilities for drivers in distribution centres and on the road are inadequate, with around 1,400 parking spaces needed for lorries. "Not all driving jobs require staying overnight but where they do we need to make sure drivers have access to shower and toilet facilities," she adds.

Yet the supply chain crisis is not just about delays moving goods around the country. Labour shortages are blighting many other parts of the economy, where high numbers of non-UK staff worked long hours, often for low pay, before Brexit. This is also limiting the availability of products in shops.

These pressures are most keenly felt in the food and drink industry. A major new cross-industry report commissioned by trade organisations including the National Farmers Union and the Food and Drink Federation estimates there are in excess of 400,000 unfilled posts in the entire food and drink industry, from farms to meat processing plants to restaurant kitchens.

This is causing pinch points throughout the food system. There are warnings that as many as 70,000 pigs are stranded on farms and some healthy animals may have to be culled because there are not enough workers in meat processing plants to prepare pork products.

Last week McDonald's revealed it had run out of milkshakes and bottled drinks. This came after Nando's was forced to close 50 restaurants due to a shortage of chicken. KFC pulled some menu items and dairy giant Arla cut back on milk deliveries, while publicans worried about running out of some beers over the bank holiday weekend. Delays have also hit medical supplies, with GPs ordered to ration vials used for blood tests.

Some farms are having to dump crops. Barfoots, a major fresh produce company based in Sussex, has been forced to throw away between 500 and 600 tonnes of courgettes this season because it couldn't find the workers to process them. "It's soul-destroying for the growers," says Julian Marks, the group's managing director. "At the moment we're just keeping our head above water. We are running on about 10% to 15% short [of staff] on most days."

The company, which grows vegetables on 3,200 hectares (8,000 acres) in the UK, is not just short of seasonal agricultural workers. "At the moment we're struggling to find tractor drivers, machine operators and quality controllers. We're finding it exceptionally hard to find people," says Marks. "There are 65 vacancies out of a total workforce of 450. We never run at that level."

Many of the firm's eastern European workers, he claims, have not returned because they don't feel welcome in the UK, and high employment rates in the south-east are making it hard to recruit. "We are out there. We are looking. We are searching. But people are not coming forward. There are enough other options," he says.

The government has responded to the crisis by calling for employers to invest more in the domestic workforce. But Labour points out that the government's failure to support apprenticeship training before and during the pandemic has created a skills gap. Last week, official figures showed the number of people starting an apprenticeship had fallen by 58,000 over the past two years, a drop of 19%.

Shadow business secretary Ed Miliband says: "From car production under threat to fruit lying rotten in fields to warnings of empty shelves, businesses and unions are telling the government these problems are only going to grow unless ministers get a grip."

Marks, who has been at Barfoots for 16 years, says he would like to offer higher pay but food suppliers have been squeezed by supermarkets. The lowest-paid are on around £10 an hour. "We have been pared to the bone by incessant price wars and the drive to always be the cheapest," he says. "I would be absolutely delighted to pay more if I was able to pass that cost on up through the chain."

While unions, industry groups and the government agree wages need to rise and conditions improve, they disagree about the means. The TUC believes the crisis shows that government needs to empower unions to negotiate on behalf of workers in the lowest-paid jobs. TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady says the crisis has not come out of thin air. "It's the result of wages and conditions being driven down in sectors like food production for years," she says. "If we want to build a more resilient labour market we must end this race to the bottom."

There is still much union support for proposals in the last Labour manifesto to allow for sector-wide collective bargaining, with employers legally obliged to enter into negotiations to set pay and conditions. O'Grady says that this happens in other countries. "Governments across the world, from America to New Zealand, have recognised that collective bargaining is the best way to level up pay and employment standards. It's high time our government did too."

The Department for Work and Pensions says companies should make employment more attractive through offering training, careers options and wage increases. "We're working closely with industry to address sector challenges, which are similarly being faced by other countries around the world," it says.

Change cannot come soon enough for workers in the parts of the British economy where stagnant wages, grim conditions and long hours have sapped morale for decades. Hughes is preparing to drive out of the loading bay: he started at 1am and won't finish until later in the afternoon when he pulls up to sleep. "I love this job but I hate the way drivers are treated," he says. "We have to shit and eat in our cabs. Sometimes you have to piss in your trousers because you can't pull over in time. That's the real story. That's the dark side to this job."

I still haven't seen much disaggregation of the different factors in the UK at least which would be interesting - but the fact that there's 100,000 vacancies in haulage and around 75-85,000 people with licenses who aren't going for those jobs suggests there's an issue in the industry.

But I think the points made by the industry body and the farmers are true - ultimately exploited labour is the cost we are paying for cheap goods. Again in that survey of food costs in Europe - we are paying as much for food as Croatians (I think the Dutch are similarly low) and that is far far lower than other rich-ish European countries. The reason we have very cheap meat compared to other countries at our income level is likely to be we either treat the animals very poorly, or we treat the humans who produce and distribute that meat very poorly.

Needless to say I back the union perspective as probably the better way to address this issue. I also wonder about the years we've heard about the oncoming automation of trucks and delivery - I wonder if part of the reason it hasn't happened is just that the labour costs were so low that the cost of moving towards automation didn't produce much of a saving on a cost/benefit analysis. So by improving the position of workers in this sector we may well end up creating the economic conditions to invest in automation/other labour reducing tech - which I think would generally be a good thing on a society-wide level provided we help manage the transition.

[Josquius]

Interesting to see it highlighted the current truck driver shortage is heavily a global thing... That's another reason that that rarely gets mentioned beyond all the triumphalist "proof Europeans were keeping out wages down and brexit is great".

I've also seen some trying to claim this brilliantly well timed tax reform is about undoing something the EU forced on us

[Zanza]

The truck driver topic will go away in a couple of years. Towards the end of the decade there will be the first SAE level 4 autonomous trucks, which can cover the on-highway part of delivery without a driver. You will only need the driver for the last mile and the ramp.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting to see it highlighted the current truck driver shortage is heavily a global thing... That's another reason that that rarely gets mentioned beyond all the triumphalist "proof Europeans were keeping out wages down and brexit is great".

It's like we live in different world's - all I hear is the catastrophist "#BrexitShambles" etc take that it's basically only because of Brexit.

I've also seen some trying to claim this brilliantly well timed tax reform is about undoing something the EU forced on us

Weird. From my understanding it's nothing to do with the EU. The reform's been developing for 20 years - Gordon Brown started the crackdown on people using sham companies to disguise workers and avoid taxes. It's since continued to develop with each chancellor - the latest change, from what I understand, is that it's shifted the responsibility. So until now the responsibility for determining whether one of these 'personal service companies' should actually be considered an employee was with the contractor, it's now the responsibility of large and medium businesses (plus the public sector). Rather than take on that risk lots of large and medium companies have said they won't use PSCs.

I think that's fine and in the long-run what will happen is that agencies will stop using PSCs because it limits the workers they can place with big client, but - as with Brexit - it'll take a while for that to work through.

The truck driver topic will go away in a couple of years. Towards the end of the decade there will be the first SAE level 4 autonomous trucks, which can cover the on-highway part of delivery without a driver. You will only need the driver for the last mile and the ramp.

I feel like that's been predicted for a while. I seem to remember that map (since discredited) of the US showing trucker was the biggest job in something like 48 of the US states which I think was around 2016.

Again not to be too leftie, but I think until the economics are firmly on the side of this businesses won't make that investment. I also suspect it will happen first with the big retailer who have their own fleet (like John Lewis/Waitrose, Tesco etc) who can bear the cost of that rather than the hauliers operating with a 1.5% margin. Once the economics are there then I think there'll be pressure to fix the legal/regulatory/insurance issues and get it on the road ASAP. That will probably happen if pay and working conditions are improved for truckers.

Also it feels like weirdly it might actually increase the numbers required because actually the big jobs and the bits that require waiting on larger roads is gone (and at lower cost there may be more of them) but there'll probably be more runs required as you say on the ramp/last mile bit - and I wonder how cities/towns/built-up areas fit into it.

Edit: Incidentally I think Tyr is right because still no seeming shortages in my local Lidl. There's a huge Budgens that's just opened down the road (and looks very exciting) which did have a fair few empty shelves - but they've only been open for a week so I'm not sure how much of that is working out what they need and how much is supply chain.

[Zanza]

The progress on autonomous vehicles is slower than optimists in the mid 2010s predicted, but for on-highway traffic, it will happen this decade. Waymo, Torc etc. have made a lot of progress. I expect it to happen in the US first though. The business case will be simple. A truck that drives itself can run 24/7, only limited by the last mile/ramp. No driver-operated truck can even come close. The huge capital investment will mean the end of driver-owners though and concentrate fleets with large companies.

[alfred russel]

The progress on autonomous vehicles is slower than optimists in the mid 2010s predicted, but for on-highway traffic, it will happen this decade. Waymo, Torc etc. have made a lot of progress. I expect it to happen in the US first though. The business case will be simple. A truck that drives itself can run 24/7, only limited by the last mile/ramp. No driver-operated truck can even come close. The huge capital investment will mean the end of driver-owners though and concentrate fleets with large companies.

We still have two states that won't let you pump your own gas and insane numbers of lawyers, many of which get rich in lawsuits involving tractor trailers. I doubt it will be here first.

[Barrister]

The progress on autonomous vehicles is slower than optimists in the mid 2010s predicted, but for on-highway traffic, it will happen this decade. Waymo, Torc etc. have made a lot of progress. I expect it to happen in the US first though. The business case will be simple. A truck that drives itself can run 24/7, only limited by the last mile/ramp. No driver-operated truck can even come close. The huge capital investment will mean the end of driver-owners though and concentrate fleets with large companies.

We still have two states that won't let you pump your own gas and insane numbers of lawyers, many of which get rich in lawsuits involving tractor trailers. I doubt it will be here first.

You have 50 different states though.  And the lawyers can still get rich suing tractor trailers - you just have to sort out who it is they sue (manufacturer or owner).

[Sheilbh]

And/or the software developer - depending on how this plays out.

[Josquius]

Properly done automated lorries could be good for hgv drivers. Will require quite a redesign in how things work though with far less end to end straight deliveries and rather more emphasis on local depots.
Should mean less nights away from home for the drivers. And hopefully less time fannying around unpaid waiting for customs to clear et al.

[Sheilbh]

Properly done automated lorries could be good for hgv drivers. Will require quite a redesign in how things work though with far less end to end straight deliveries and rather more emphasis on local depots.
Should mean less nights away from home for the drivers. And hopefully less time fannying around unpaid waiting for customs to clear et al.

It'd also remove/eliminate the need for decent facilities for human beings which are, apparently, utterly lacking (weirdly though I've definitely been to a service station which was just for truckers).