The country needs young truckers
The issue of driver shortages is one of the biggest challenges facing the transport industry. That makes it all the better that we have the opportunity to introduce Tim Gerdes from Beckum, a young man who has decided to begin an apprenticeship as a professional trucker.
An influx of young drivers is not a matter of course these days – fewer and fewer young people are opting for a job behind the wheel of a truck. However, there are still some out there, such as 22-year-old Tim Gerdes, who have dreamed of spending their working life in the cab of a truck ever since they were children. And even more significantly, don’t leave it at just a dream: Tim has been an apprentice driver since August 2021, on the road with a MAN building materials silo vehicle for Ruta, a transport service provider for the Werner Ruploh Group. Tim is able to quickly and precisely summarise the top three benefits of his job as a driver.
‘New people every day. New places every day. New challenges every day.’
However, the young trucker is able to pick out less appealing elements of the profession equally fast: ‘Lack of parking spaces, overpriced toilets and car drivers who often have far too little understanding of our job,’ he says. Nevertheless, none of that has shaken his belief that he has found the right job for him. And he doesn’t have time to overthink the matter, as there are plenty of other challenges each day that require his full concentration, regardless of whether he is taking his MAN TGX XXL to a large construction site or a very small one in a housing estate. He needs to know how to get the cement, which is what he mainly transports, safely and reliably to the required location.
With that in mind, he is glad to be travelling with an equally reliable partner each day, the 640 h.p. MAN TGX. The up-and-coming driver is particularly impressed by the generous amount of space in the cab of his lion and its large storage compartments, and he is also a big fan of the music system.
Tim’s involvement with trucks is far from over at the end of his working day: he spends many happy hours on them even on weekends and in his free time. This not only includes vehicle care, such as washing and cleaning his MAN, but also improving the appearance of other trucks: his hobbies include wrapping vehicle interiors. For example, he fits steering wheel impact absorbers and many other parts of the cab with Alcantara.
Beyond that, he hopes that one day he will be able to design his own MAN to suit all his wishes and ideas. We don’t doubt that this is another dream that will soon become reality for Tim.
