Age, Health and Professional Drivers' Network

Any effect that work might have on the future is specific to each individual, but if physical tasks and working hours are managed, then a driver should be able to work to an older age. Future retirement plans though vary and tend to be informed by factors such as financial situation, a desire to spend more time at home with family, or concern about what to do with the free time, and general well-being.

We spoke with older drivers and their managers about their pans for retirement. This is what they said:

“If I feel the way I do now I wouldn’t be retiring when I have to. You don’t have to really retire here…If I feel as fit and as healthy as I do…I’m not saying I’ll be a hundred per cent, but I’d still like to carry on with it, to be honest…I’d be quite happy to keep working as long as I was fit and healthy to do stuff.”

“To just work a 30 hour week, three days, I’m frightened of doing it. I’m afraid of losing that money, because of the fact that you’re a long time retired. Hopefully a long time…doesn’t always happen, but you know. You’re a long time sat aren’t you? Frightening. If I do what my mum did, I’ll be dead in ten years.”

“Some of our drivers are in their seventies. Some don’t see why they would want to retire while they can still earn money.”

“Drivers were saying they were planning to retire, but now they’re thinking about going on a little bit further, because of government and changes. They work to make ends meet (everyone would like to retire at sixty-five, seventy). Some drivers are a lot older seventy-two, seventy-four. They plod along, they come in, part-time work…they fill the gap, but I think if life was different for them, prior to them reaching that age, they wouldn’t have worked it. They wouldn’t be working now. It’s just they’ve got to make ends meet, you know. Their pensions or their retirement programme or planning didn’t meet their needs. So they just keep on going until they basically stop.”