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RRORS of skill, that result In tragedy, should be dealt with more harshly than errors of judgement that have the same result. This concept, which is one of the factors taken into account when assessing culpability, is part of the fabric of English Law.
Civil aviation has learnt that skill has to be perfected to such a high degree that judgement is almost negated.
The distinction between skill and judgement is training; when skill is developed it gives the ability to "know" something is not right instead of just thinking that something is not right and the ability to develop resolutions to specific problems. Often skill is referred to as instinct — often the product of years of training and often without the training being realised.
Ability in many industries is screened and tested and, once assessed, the training takes over to increase and perfect that ability and, after a period, a skill is deemed to be in place.
Skill can be developed and achieved in many ways but in sensitive industries; such as civil aviation, most skills are developed before taking command. Road transport has been ignored in the main because if one evaluates the overall training availability to the industry it is interpreted to be extremely insensitive. But, as 85% of commodities move by road, it should be categorised as highly sensitive with a degree of training available equivalent to that of civil aviation. The environment is affected by road transport on a scale far in excess of any other industry and the nature of the vehicles used makes road haulage susceptible to immense pressures from many lobbies.
Why then are the operators such bad ambassadors? The general public have no respect for the car transporter fully laden doing 70mph or the empty bulk tipper that sounds like the very caverns of hell. Nor for the skip lorry with swinging chains or the artic tailgating on the motorway. The list is endless and it is all as a direct result of the lack of training available or given to drivers, transport managers and engineers.
One sector of road transport does achieve high degrees of skill and training — tankers for gas and flammable liquids and trucks in the chemical industry. This is because the loads are physically sensitive.
Transport management is a skill as it involves many areas of communication, evaluation and administration.
Drivers of modern HGVs are in command of a very technical piece of machinery and poor performance of just one driver in a fleet can have a drastic economic effect. The difference in arrival time of two drivers leaving London for Glasgow, one travelling at speeds up to 58mph and the other up 68mph, is about 15 minutes as the average speed is quite close. However, the fuel consumption can be greatly different. Up to 58mph the 38 tonne artic could average 8.5mpg but up to 68mph it would be some 7.5mpg. On a run of 400 miles a difference of some 6gal. On two runs a week, 40 weeks of the year, £550 difference in cost a year. And excessive speed also increases wear and increases the likelihood of preventative maintenance costing more.
Drivers need to be trained in how to drive defensively within the legislation, how to address themselves to the vehicle and how to be a better ambassador. They need constant training in regard to hours law legislation enabling them to get the best out of a working day. They need training in roping and sheeting and general loading to avoid overweight offences.
Merely teaching them to pass an HGV test is not enough and, as many transport managers are ex-drivers, good training will provide a pool of partly skilled managers for the future. Drivers normally work to instructions from a person who does a schedule. They need to be trained to think logically in the face of the schedule being disrupted. They need training in the basic requirements of Construction and Use Regulations. The old defence line of "I'm a driver not a mechanic" does not work any more and the incident of mechanical failure resulting in tragedy would diminish.
In some large companies it might be practical to rotate drivers through a traffic office for two to three weeks, but, in most, this is not possible.
Transport managers are just as high on the list for the training requirement. Just-in-time delivery schedules and systems are okay and a fact of modern distribution but, in the event of system failure or intervention by an unforeseen third party, the highly trained transport manager will have contingency plans. However, the majority of road transport in the UK is not involved in just-in-time and, when problems arise, decisions may be taken by managers who rely on their past experience. Without adequate and continuous training how do they know that past decisions were correct or, indeed, whether they were logical or even economic?
Accountants often tell transport managers that it is better to run a vehicle at an operating loss rather than to leave it doing nothing but running up standing charges. Managers blindly accept this; train them to understand. Labour relations with drivers have historically been a strong plus for the transport manager if his background is that of driving but it doesn't necessarily make for a good relationship with other management. Therefore, training in communication and expression is necessary. If a manager is not trained to look for the obvious or to ask the right questions of his staff and elicit information enabling him to fine-tune his strategy, then growth and expansion are greatly hindered.
Workshop personnel in transport generally act as fitters rather than engineers but, in the sophisticated vehicle, there are many parts all waiting to enact Murphys Law. The distinction between fitter and engineer can best be made by saying that the fitter mends things but the engineer mends things and also finds out why it went wrong and makes sure that it doesn't go wrong again. This coupled with preventative maintenance is how the civil aviation industry views the role of the engineer. The commercial vehicle fitter's role should be no different but the lack of training makes this goal unobtainable.
Many large companies are facing lean years ahead due to unavailability of trained personnel. The biggest single factor that hinders training is economic pressure on the operator. The Royal Society of Arts which issues the Certificate of Professional Competence to candidates successfully sitting an exam, is not qualified itself to issue the curriculum. It is regrettable that a CPC is needed for hire or reward but not for own-account and yet Licensing Authorities can judge own-account users for good repute or the ability to maintain vehicles just as harshly as hire or reward users. A syllabus for the correct qualification should be drawn up by a committee of the three major institutes and this, in itself, would envoke a degree of training. It should be mandatory that all holders of operators' licences demonstrate the ability to comply and to train their operatives. There