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Dylan Gray began his quest to become a truck driver
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with Wincanton in Luton. He found out that driving a truck is a totally different ball game.
Cat C
It's long been a dream of mine to learn how to drive a truck — and supply chain specialist Wincanton was kind enough to make that dream happen for me. It offered to put me through its in-house driver training schemes for my Cat C and Cat C+E licences at its depot in Luton, Bedfordshire.
Turning up at the depot on the first day is almost like starting at a new school. Nerves and excitement are all rolled into one, but I instantly feel at ease as my trainer, Alan Cracknell, comes across as a friendly and very easy-going guy.
Without much hesitation he introduces me to my truck for the week — a Scania P220. The first thing is to familiarise myself with it. This entails taking a complete circuit around it and doing a thorough vehicle check, including checking the tyres, reflectors, fluid levels etc. Then we go on to the controls — most importantly the parking brake and the Scania range-change gearbox. The gearbox is, in fact, the main talking point of the morning. Alan cannot stress enough that I need to get to know it well.
Within a couple of minutes we're out on the open road. As you might expect, there are a couple of initial battles with the gearbox, which results in some almighty crunching noises, but that swiftly improves. Next thing on the agenda is the use of appropriate speed. It's all too easy to bomb up to a roundabout as you would in a car and expect to lust drive out when it's convenient. Wrong! Not only does the vehicle positioning and gear have to be correct, but you also have to anticipate the traffic flow. "Anticipation" is definitely one of Alan's favourite words, and quite rightly so. Spotting the gap in the roundabout, or realising you will have to come to a complete stop, should be done a long way before the entrance of the roundabout—this is not as easy as it sounds.
It is, however, not as nerve-racking as driving through a busy town centre for the first time. Alan takes me through Bedford, where I truly learn the importance of using the mirrors. Exasperated car drivers and pedestrians are only some of the obstacles that have to be watched. It takes a few 9:
attempts to do the drive around the one-way system without any gear slip-ups or mounting of kerbs. As well as general driving, we also practise the gear-change exercise (going from first to fifth and at the way back down again) and reverse. Both are fairly straightforward. The only thing to keep in mind is when to stop the truck while reversing.
After four days of framing, it's time for the test. Saying I was nervous is the understatement of the century. I know I can do it, all I have to do is execute it perfectly for that hour. And I do. There are a couple of slip-ups, such as not making quick enough progress and forgetting the occasional mirror check, but apart from that, it all goes well. I'm ecstatic, and I'm sure Alan is pretty happy considering how he was jumping around outside the truck.
Cat C+E
Once my provisional licence is returned, it's time to take the next step. Once again, Alan is my trainer for the week, which is a definite plus. Rather than chucking me the keys and telling me just to drive, I'm taken into the interview room for a 'talk', during which I'm made very aware of the sheer size of the beast that I'm about to drive and what damage it can do.
The tractor unit I'm driving is also a Scania; an R420 with a three-over-three gearbox with a spiitter. Having had a fairly similar gearbox in the rigid, it doesn't take too much getting used to. I'm also pretty amazed at how well the truck goes around corners. I probably clip only six kerbs all week. I believe this is to do with a change in mentality. By stepping up in size significantly, I'm a lot more confident about making myself use a lot more of the space available.
The week is also taken up by two important exercises reversing the truck and performing a trailer change. One thing will always stay in my mind when I think of a trailer change Alan saying: "Don't forget the trailer brake." As long as everything is done in the right order, the uncoupling and coupling procedures are logical.
Reversing, though, is not so simple. Getting it straight takes a few sessions. The reversing exercise requires the driver to reverse around a cone and into a bay the same as with the rigid.
After a morning of practice, the exercise goes well, it's all about having the confidence that the trailer is going to miss the cone after having bent the unit. Only when the unit straightens out can you see what's going on again in the mirrors. Similar to the rigid, I find a marker on the trailer to determine when to stop without bashing the back wall.
It's test day and I'm feeling more nervous than with my previous test. Both my reverse and controlled stop go well, which gives me that extra confidence once we head out on to the road. I'm very chuffed with my drive and pretty certain I've passed when I enter the test centre again. Following the trailer change, my examiner tells me that I've failed because I was going 10mph too slow on a stretch of dual carriageway. I'm absolutely gutted especially to fail on something which could be deemed safer than the norm. However, Alan shows he has faith in me and lets me drive a load back to the depot.
My re-test a couple of months later also ends in failure. Although I rack up a few more minors than on my previous test, I once again feel it's gone well. Apparently not. The examiner deems my controlled stop to be too quick, and that the load would have broken in the back. The truck did not go off course: and neither did its wheels lock up. I can't believe I've failed on that.
The DSA's official line on the controlled stop is: "The regulations state the braking exercise should be carried out safely, as quickly as possible, under full control and within a reasonable distance from the designated point.
"Provided the vehicle meets the criteria, the stop will be acceptable; problems usually only occur with regard to loss of control. For example, braking too harshly or taking too long to stop."
Shortly after my test, I moved abroad. But I fully plan to reignite my quest to becoming a fully-fledged artic driver. •