Ilgv chaos ahead'
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• Unless the MoT introduces an "immediate blanket publicity campaign including television shorts" regarding the requirements of hgv drivers' licensing, "a chaotic situation is bound to develop".
This was the forecast of Mr Max Newman, chief of Blox Services HGV Training School, Tooting, SW17 when addressing a Blox conference and commenting on failure figures of hgv licence test applicants.
He said: "Although the RTITB was set up in 1967 to deal specifically with easing the present legislation through, there has been generally only a negligible response to driver-training facilities being offered. I am therefore not surprised at the amount of failures indicated, or the reasons given for the drivers falling down on their tests."
He was, he said, being constantly phoned by people asking for a "couple of hours heavy goods vehicle instruction". Informed that the minimum time allotted for training was five clear days, callers "nearly go mad".
Mr Newman explained: "I know for a fact that many hundreds, probably thousands of drivers are driving about the country in complete ignorance of their need to get hgv licences eventually and the methods of obtaining them."
The employer, he said as well as the driver, was going to be prosecuted, and there would be hefty fines in many cases.
Mr Newman added: "The real 'crunch' is going to come on that not very far distant day when a driver walks into a transport yard, asks for a job and demands anything up to £40 a week for doing it. He will be a Class 1 man, and he will to a large degree be able to name his price."
Mr Newman is an ex-Metropolitan police superintendent_