I do about 10,000 miles each year in total mixed between private and business. I live about 3.5 miles from the office. However the nature of my work is that I do spend a reasonable amount of time in the car.
Some people do far higher mileages. If you do over 30,000 miles pa, when do you have time to....
a) see your family;
b) do any work; and
c) relax?
In the thread about road surfaces someone said that they had driven 82,000 last year. How on earth do you do that??
So if you are a high mileage driver, what do you do, why do you drive so many miles, is there really no alternative and how do you cope with such a regime in terms of health, fitness and suchlike?
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"How on earth do you do that?"
do it for a living?
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Mostly it's about learning not to need or rely on routines. For example yesterday started for me at 4.00 am, it involved a 400 mile round trip punctuated by a full day's work and ended at 22.30. Today I worked from home. Last week I was away from home for a few days, next week I won't be. My life has been like that for about 30 years. Averagely around 40k a year but not evenly spread. Some weeks I'll do 2500 miles, other weeks the car won't move. You get used to things.
Last edited by: Humph D'bout on Wed 5 May 10 at 20:54
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...Dare we ask what you do?...
Drive an awful lot.
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>> Drive an awful lot.
:-)
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"In the thread about road surfaces someone said that they had driven 82,000 last year. How on earth do you do that??"
When I retired last year my wife found me "a little job so that you don't spend all day in front of that computer screen or doing the garden while having a beer" (She's not retired yet)
So I now deliver cars - most days I do about 400 miles - can be more - I think 650 is my "record". ( from Midlands to Scotland, back again, down to Essex and home to Midlands).Today was an easy day - about 250 miles. In addition we go to France frequently - my "little job" finances it!!
"when do you have time to....
a) see your family;
b) do any work; and
c) relax?"
a) Kids have left home long ago - often leave at 3/4am so get home in evenings to see SWMBO even after 400 miles.
b) Driving is work!
c) Evenings/weekends/and, oddly (?) most of the time, I find driving relaxing - I actually enjoy the work!! - just got to take it as it comes and realise that the odd hour or 2 stuck on M6, M1, M 25, A 34 etc, etc, is not something you can do anything about - just got to accept it and listen to music. Set off at 3 am and can be in Glasgow by 8am with time for a good breakfast before delivery at 8.30 - and no traffic problems!
But then I have often wondered how people with a full time job can also do 30/40 k a year as well!
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I do 40+40 miles commute daily [that equates ~25k miles a year].
Yes, it is bit tough but manageable.
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I do 60 mile round trip commute, so that's 15k/year. Other driving tops my car up to around 17-18k a year. We usually take SWMBO car when we go away (we live near Glasgow, the in laws near Guildford, so that's a 1k round trip a couple of times of year) - and I mostly drive. Her car does 13k or so a year, of which I probably do about 5k, so that's me up at 22-23k a year. Has been like this since I started working 12 years ago... When we moved from Reading to Glasgow I did two oil changes 5 weeks apart - BX TD we had then was on 5k intervals.... I was knackered as I was working full time too!
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All my forty-odd years of useful employment involved cycling a couple of miles into work. I did half a year of of commuting twenty miles, while I was moving house, and a few weeks of using a train to London before I realised I'd rather be poor.
My two cars have always done around 5K or less each year.
In retirement I've taken a lowly paid job delivering vehicles on an ad-hoc basis. They 'phone me to ask if I can work tomorrow and if I don't feel like it, I don't (more than often).
I'm now driving more miles per annum than ever before!
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>>oddly (?) most of the time, I find driving relaxing - I actually enjoy the work!! - just got to take it as it comes and realise that the odd hour or 2 stuck on M6, M1, M 25, A 34 etc, etc, is not something you can do anything about - just got to accept it and listen to music<<
Phil, you have the same mindset as lorry drivers.
Driving is the part where you get to rest and relax and most of all, enjoy what you're doing.
Once you accept hold ups on the road and stop getting wound up about them, they just become a part of a normal day.
Pat
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>>So I now deliver cars
Does this type of work still involve a lot of hitch-hiking?
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>>Does this type of work still involve a lot of hitch-hiking?
The job I've got doesn't. We always go out in pairs, or greater numbers, so there's always someone to give you a lift back. The system failed once when a vehicle we were to collect wasn't available. We hired a car one-way.
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About 30 years ago I ran a private hotel in the Home Counties. One year the company's auditors were staying and in conversation one of them informed me that a member of their office staff commuted by road every day from his home on Merseyside to their HQ in Reading !!
That must be the thick end of 400 miles per day with a full time job to fit in as well.
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I do over 40k per year. This is through a daily 25 mile each way commute (from home in York to office in Leeds). Then at least every other week, and sometimes a lot more often, I go down to London on business. It's not really "London" as such otherwise I would get the train, but London and the surrounding areas.
For example I went down last week and had meetings in Watford, Wokingham, Oxford, Southampton, etc spread over 2 days. It was a 4am start one morning, full day (including night out that evening!) then leave to go back north around 6pm the following day so back for 10. It's a real planning exercise to fit in the meetings, you have to plan with military precision. I know now I am in London again middle of next week and have to allow a week or so for the planning process with customers to fit the meetings in at times/places I can get to.
Plenty of time to work as like others have said you just leave very early and so have a full day. It's the sleep that suffers rather than the work, family & relaxing time. I live the work hard party harder lifestyle as part of my job is going out drinking with suppliers/customers, not to mention my friends. Keeps me busy!
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Jimbo,
Going out drinking and 4am starts do not a happy combination make.
But I'm sure you knew that.
Your schedule has worn me out just reading about it.
You could do with a driver.
No worries about having a scoop the night before, either.
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>>You could do with a driver.
I would love one, but it's paying for them that's the issue! Also I wouldn't do the travelling if I didn't like driving so much, and then there's no fun having a driver. Of course you have to have a decent car to do the mileage in too that is comfortable and easy to drive.
It's a hard schedule but I am only 23 so have plenty of energy for the time being! You have to be careful on the late nights particularly if out drinking as you say but I think my relative youth is helping here too. And on days when I am just in the office, probably half of each week, I can happily come in for 10 or so if I am feeling tired.
Even my holidays have to be quick. Went over to the US to visit a friend who lives there but only had time for a quick 4 day trip. And last year went over to Vegas for a friend's stag weekend, again just for 4 days. The plan is to earn the money now that means I can have a bit more of a relaxed lifestyle as I get older!
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>> The plan is to earn the money now that means I can have a bit more of a relaxed lifestyle as I get older!
Oh yes that was the plan I had too come to think of it......sadly it went mammaries up a long time ago......
:-)
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...stag weekends in Vegas...
That is not the way to have money when you're older.
Earning plenty and spending plenty tend to follow one after the other.
Earning plenty and spending very little is much harder.
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>>Earning plenty and spending very little is much harder.
Well yes of course you are right but there has to be a balance somewhere, after all what's the point of working hard if you can't enjoy it too. The guy getting married was a supplier as it happened so a lot of it went through as expenses which was even better!
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For years I drove 35K per year working as a Purchasing Consultant for a multinational.
I managed supplier contracts in Holland, Germany, and France as well as in East Lancs and Yorkshire.
From my home in Goucestershire I would drive to Holland and/or Germany once or twice a month and spend 3 or 4 days. Always via Eurotunnel Clubclass (no queues priority boarding) and always a pleasure on europe's uncongested roads.
I had a several Cavalier/Vectra basic entry level diesel powered cars on 4 year/140,000 mile lease plans and never once suffered any breakdown, accident, or mishap with any of the cars. Lucky I suppose.
Even now in (early) retirement I drive 20,000 miles per year, I'm not too sure how it keeps racking up as it's only shopping/social trips. I do live 3 miles from a shop/bank /PO, 8 miles from a supermarket and 20 miles from the nearest city so I guess it adds up.
I also drive when taking holidays. Next month I'm driving to Nancy in eastern France and then onward through Switzerland to Lake Orta in northern Italy returning via overnights in Freiberg, Germany and Kortrijk, Belgium.
I just enjoy driving!
Jacks
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I'll throw this in just as a matter of interest to some of you.
I've taken a random week from my diary for 2009 as a lorry driver, and this is normal for any lorry driver.
Mon: Dep Guyhirn 3.30am, tip Avonmouth, Fishponds, Montpelier, Bristol, Yate and Bridgwater. Night out Bridgwater.
Tues: Tip Bridgwater, Radstock, Chilcompton and Wellington. Reload Filton, Fishponds and Yate. Night out Brackley.
Wed: Brackley to Guyhirn, Guyhirn, tip Hull and load East Kirby. Night out Newark.
Thurs. Newark to Atherstone. reload Milton Keynes. Night Out Harthill Services
Fri: Tip Bathgate, reload Bannockburn and back to Guyhirn for 9pm.
Pat
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t's a real planning exercise to fit in the meetings
I used to have to do that regularly (although in practice my PA was doing it) allowing travel time, eating time and time for meetings.....I remember asking him one day "tell me what's expected of me in this meeting" and I knew in that moment that the time had come to downshift.
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High mileage drivers - BiggerBadderDave
