HGV test chaos looms
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by Juliet Parish • Training schools say that their businesses will be left in chaos unless the co-ordinator of Britain's truck driving tests ditches plans to stop schools reserving blocks of tests.
From October the Driving Standards Agency will allow trainers to prebook a test only if they supply the name of the candidate to be examined. This will stop trainers' existing practice of booking regular slots with the DSA and deciding which learner is ready for each test up to the afternoon before it takes place.
Under the DSA's proposal, schools will have to give at least five days warning if they want to substitute a driver for a particular test, otherwise they will lose their £62 test fee.
One of the biggest concerns for Purfleet-based school Roadtrain is that a driver may have to wait weeks for a test after completing an intensive driving course: "All of the training will go to waste," says its chairman Nick Smith.
And Poole-based Wessex Transport Training says it will be impossible to plan its training schedule, not knowing what tests to expect.
Managing director Tony Graham says the change will cost WTT £30 a month in extra phone calls to book tests individually, and another £800 to adapt its literature and computer.
The DSA says training schools have six months to recommend changes to its proposal, which it says will save it an annual £148,000.