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• COMMENT DRIVER TRAINING
Page 5
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• For a government so committed to privatisation, the publication last week of the Department of Transport's Review of Driver Testing must have come as a bit of a disappointment. It disappoints others for different reasons.
After nine months, and at a cost of 216,000, the review rightly concludes that, while it might be possible to set up private sector driver testing, a reasonable service could be achieved at less cost by tackling the shortcomings of the current system.
Roads and Traffic minister Peter Bottomley was not in the mood to elaborate on why HGV driver training and testing should not be carried out with a laden vehicle beyond the fact that he feels there is unlikely to be any significant gain by using laden trucks and artics.
Commercial Motor, and many others in the road transport industry, however, feels there are safety benefits to be gained from learning to drive in the most realistic environment possible, and that includes driving laden goods vehicles.
The right time to learn to drive a laden HGV is as a provisional HGV driver with a qualified instructor sitting next to you — not alone at the wheel of a fully freighted 38-tonner on an icy downhill gradient two days after passing your HGV class I. That is taking private enterprise just a little too far.