LOADED QUESTION
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yet another shake-up may be on the way for the LGV test. Views on whether driver training and testing should be carried out using laden trucks are about to be canvassed through a Driving Standards Agency (DSA) consultation paper.
Interested parties, including hauliers, LGV driving instructors, trade associations, trades unions, and road safety organisations, will probably have until late October/early November to respond.
The DSA says it does not have a preferred option, and that the paper is likely to present the industry with a series of choices. But it is not defining these choices in advance of the paper's publication.
"It is unlikely that an act of Parliament will he required to make any changes to the existing set-up, unless they are really radical," says the DSA. "The odds are that any alterations will be made by amending the existing regulations."
Commercial Motor has long campaigned for making instruction on laden vehicles part of every driver's training programme: CM also believes tests should also be conducted in laden vehicles. This view is echoed by Ken Rogers, managing director of haulier Van Hee and a major training provider in the North-East. "I'm in favour because loaded trucks are what people drive in the real world," he says. "There is an argument for using half-laden trucks, but in my view there is no substitute for the feel of a fully laden vehicle and its braking characteristics"
Bob Smalley, chief driving examiner at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, agrees: "The advantages of testing people in a laden vehicle far outweigh any disadvantages," he states. "You can better assess the driver's ability to use the brakes, slow the vehicle down, cope with its handling characteristics and use the gears correctly."
"It would be better to have the test conducted with a laden truck because it should be as close to real life as possible," says Jim Wilson, head of business development and marketing at BRS Taskforce. While Barry Norris, personnel director at Swift Service, comments: "We would be very wary of sending a driver with no laden experience out with a load." Swift has an extensive in-house driver training programme, with emphasis placed on defensive driving.
The United Road Transport Union (URTU) will be submitting a resolution to the TUC's Brighton conference later this year calling for laden LGV training and testing to be made compulsory. "You cannot say somebody is qualified to drive an WV if they have never driven one with a load," it says.
But not everybody is in favour of change.
Road Haulage Association director-general Steven Norris argues that there is no statistical evidence that LGV drivers who qualified under the current set-up have a particularly bad accident record. He also sees difficulties in standardising test loads across the country, which could lead to claims of unfairness. "I believe the present situation works pretty well," he says.
The Freight Transport Association agrees that there is no proof that the current system is responsible for producing unsafe drivers. A spokesman suggests that concentrating on laden training and testing could lead the industry up a blind alley.
"There should be as much discussion about whether training schools should be using box-bodied or curtain-sided vehicles and trailers rather than flatbeds," he says. They are much more common than flats these days, he points out, and have blind spots which a trainee needs to get used to.
Peter Hodgson, chief executive of West Herts Training, is not a supporter of laden test trucks: "A laden test will take longer—considerably longer in my opinion than the additional 10 minutes some people have suggested—and that will make it more expensive," he warns. "It will also mean fewer tests can be carried out during the working day" Hodgson agrees that novices should have some experience behind the wheel of a loaded truck, but points out that this will also push up the price of lessons.
"It could mean increases of 20%, and this estimate is on the low side," he says.
The extra costs would be incurred by the need for schools to have laden and unladen vehicles and trailers available, or some quick and convenient means of removing and replacing cargo. "The loads used will have to be standardised, with standardised fastenings. and the amount of laden training given will have to be set down in the regulations," Hodgson adds. "Otherwise you're going to get a situation where trainees are sent twice round the block in a loaded truck and told 'there. that's your laden training'."
All interested parties seem to agree that some element of unladen driving will remain necessary during a training programme, especially in the initial stages when novices are getting to grips with the sheer size of the vehicle, the number of gears, and its general road behaviour.
"Remember too that unladen experience is as important as laden because an empty truck can be skittish on wet or greasy surfaces," says Hodgson.
Jim Thomson of Creative Training in Hampshire believes pupils should have the chance to drive a loaded vehicle, but contends that making this compulsory will increase schools' fuel and insurance costs; and this burden is bound to be passed on to pupils. "As it happens all of our trainees get two days on a laden truck," he says, "but it's easy for us to arrange because we have a small haulage fleet." Thomson adds that making training more expensive could be a retrograde step when a number of pupils are already dropping out of courses because they cannot afford to
complete them, and when the transport industry is complaining about a shortage of drivers. Putting a pupil in a loaded truck also has road safety impli
cations, which supporters of compulsory laden training's proponents might care to ponder.
"It takes longer for a laden truck to emerge from a junction or join a roundabout, for example, and misjudging just how long can put the wind up other road users," says one instructor. "And the driver may find he's descending a steep hill more quickly than he expects; an alarming experience for the instructor/examiner in the absence of dual controls."
There are strong arguments on both sides, but CA4's stance is ably summed up by Van Hee's Ken Rogers: "Surely it's better to have a laden vehicle driven under the supervision of an instructor than by somebody out on his own for the very first time, with no supervision at all?"
E by Steve Banner