NEW DRIVERS NOT FIT FOR ROAD • The recent debate
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and controversy about HGV training has prompted me to put my view and experiences forward.
In the past three months the company I work for has given a chance to several newly-passed HGV drivers. These men have, thankfully, been allowed out with one of our own drivers for a day or two. Unfortunately this experience has shown how woefully inadequate the standard of HGV training really is.
These new drivers have no comprehension of how to drive a modern loaded truck or how it reacts while cornering or braking. In one instance the driver actually rolled one of our six-wheeler tippers down a 10foot drop into a stream, writing it off but escaping unhurt. This was his first, and last, trip in a loaded lorry.
I know people write to you asking for employers to give them a chance to gain experience, but how can anyone seriously expect to be allowed on to the crowded public roads in a potentially lethal machine — let alone someone's machine worth 40,000-plus? The fact is that the standard of HGV driver training in this country has no credibility within the transport industry.
It may be a hard pill for the training associations to swallow, but anyone who has pas sed a test on their empty, small, flat-backed training vehicle has not got the foggiest notion of how to drive a truck realistically. The principle is the same as airline pilots. Would you fly in a jumbo jet if you knew the pilot had only ever flown a glider?
I believe that it is just as important to reform training methods as it is to investigate the lost-wheel mystery. Surely the time has come for training to be done on a realisticallysized vehicle of the class being taken, and that this vehicle be loaded for most of the training period and all of the test.
It would be no bad thing if drivers had to work their way up through the classes as they gained experience. Driving is all about experience, but first you must have the basic knowledge to gain that experience in safety.
The public has a right to expect that our trainees are proficient before we unleash them. I am sure that everyone in our industry is aware of our very bad image among the general public, a lot of it deserved, but surely a more careful and professional approach to training the drivers would result in more careful and professional drivers.
T Mycock, Peak Dale, Nr Buxton, Derbyshire.
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