Unions join in ' young Myer , plea
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• When a strong and unanimous case for lowering the permitted age of hgv drivers was put by employers and unions to the Department of the Environment last month, representatives of the DoE admitted that there was a shortage of drivers, which would become worse in the future.
The case for younger drivers was made by representatives of the RHA. FTA the three transport frade unions and the RTITB. They stressed that it was essential to establish a career structure in road transport for school-leavers by giving them proper professional training from the start.
The RTITB representative made it clear that he knew of no reason why a man under 21 could not be taught to be a safe and efficient driver; statistics purporting to show young drivers as particularly liable to accidents were dismissed as irrelevant (for example, they included riders of motorcycles, and there were no figures to show how many youngsters involved in accidents were driving goods vehicles).
It was proposed that 18-year-olds should be allowed to drive four-wheeled hgv (class III) progressing to 6and 8-wheeled rigids (class II) at 19/20 and to articulated vehicles (class Wat 21.
Other work in a transport depot, it was suggested, could be found for boys in the period between leaving school and reaching the age of 18.
(Leading the RHA representatives on the delegation to the DoE was the chairman of the education and training committee, Mr Edgar Williams, who has written on this subject for CM in the past year, and his proposals have been strongly supported by this journal.)