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Is it practical? Are drivers prepared? Are the testers competent?

Since the re-introduction of the hgv driving licence there have been criticisms of the test, the testers and the training.

CM invited four men with experience of the test and training to a round-table discussion on the subject with lain Sherriff, deputy editor, in the chair.

IS: I am sure, gentlemen, that we all welcome the re-introduction of the heavy goods vehicle driving licence. Nevertheless, some aspects of the test are being questioned by training officers, drivers and operators.

There are doubts about the value of a test taken on unladen vehicles in ideal conditions and there are fears that exemptions will produce inexperienced drivers.

Can we start with you, Douglas; as a company training officer, do yOu consider the test to be practical?

DB: Of course it is practical but it has its failings; for instance, the vehicle is unladen, the route over which the driver is tested is one of a set few and he could, if he knew them, familiarize himself with' all routes before the test. Never in the test is there a tight situation where he has to full-lock in a narrow street, or shunt. There are certain tasks which a driver has to perform—getting in and out of premises, S-bends and narrow passageways, and reversing for hundreds of yards into a loading bay. This is part of the driver's job but the test, as I see it, is merely to prove to the Licensing Authority, and to the driver himself, whether or not he is a fit and able person to be capable of handling a particular class of vehicle in ideal circumstances.

JAF: I think Mr Bolton has summarized the aim of the test reasonably well. It is, as he said. to see that the driver who presents himself on the class of vehicle for which he wishes to obtain a licence can satisfy the examiner over as comprehensive route as it is possible to put together in that locality. Now, obviously, we could not devise routes which require the candidate to perform all the manoeuvres he may encounter in a day's work. We have got to be reasonable and the Ministry reckons that you have to apply a test that sets a standard in road safety.

I think Mr Sherriff will remember when we were down in Bristol and tested the then Lorry Driver of the Year. Having completed the route in Bristol driving a tanker, he reckoned he had met as many hazards on that test route as he would normally meet in a day's running, and I think we cannot ask for much more than this in a test.

RDC: I would like to see the test taken on a loaded vehicle and extended to include such things as roping and sheeting, safe loading, and fault finding.

JAF: I would agree with you that these are ideals and, if we could have a perfect world, this is what we ought to have for a heavy goods vehicle driving test—a test that goes thoroughly into every single aspect of the driver's day-to-day work. Only then could we say that he should take a maximum-gvw artic on the road fully laden with absolute confidence. But it is not an ideal world and the test has not been tailored to meet the practicalities.

First of all, look at the laden or unladen question. I don't think I need to tell you of the difficulties this would create for the operators if, on every occasion, the examiner insisted that the vehicle was fully loaded. It would just be impossible and if you do not have it fully loaded, then where do you start? A third loaded or a quarter loaded? He would also be required to check the load to see if it was safe for the test. All this sort of thing would cost the operator a fortune and we, at the Ministry, felt that this was just not a practical proposition.

BW: I see the problems associated with this—although I probably take a slightly different view of the practicalities.

Training and testing a driver under unladen conditions is unreal. I accept what Mr Fazakerley said, I accept the practical difficulties in it but we, for our part, when writing training recommendations for hgv drivers have tried to take into account all the practicalities of the job. Skill in roping and sheeting, mechanical problems and a man's basic understanding of the vehicle in order to get a return on vehicle sympathy and less downtime, are important. We do insist, in fact, that this type of training is included in company programmes. We also urge that part of the training, preferably in the later stages prior to the test, is on a laden or part-laden vehicle.

JAF: Training is a different thing; we were talking about the testing situation but when we receive enquiries about laden or unladen or specific additional requirements, loading, sheeting, mechanical aspects, we always recommend that the training should go as far as it possibly can. I know that the RTITB training manual says this in clear terms and we support it entirely. It is not that we do not want people to know as much as possible about this, but simply that in the practicalities of the test, we cannot include it.

DB: I think that a company should not send a man to the test unless they are satisfied that he can drive a laden vehicle and fulfil all the functions of an hgv driver.

RDC: How can people who claim exemption state they are competent to do the things that we have been talking about? They might be very good drivers but hopeless men operationally.

JAF: This is the distinction between competence and experience. The claimant merely satisfies his company and the Licensing Authority that he has gained experience during the 12 months ending on February 1 1970. 1 would agree entirely that it is not an ideal situation that we have at the present time. By far the largest proportion of heavy goods vehicle drivers have not proved their competence. This, again, is a situation which defeats the practicalities because we estimate that there must be somewhere in the region of 600,000

hgv drivers who require to hold a licence. We could not hope to deal with this number in the time that has been set for the transition.

RDC: Obviously you could not test everybody initially but in the three years' currency period would it not be possible for those people who have been given a licence on exemption to be called to take a test before they get their licence renewed?

JAF: It would be more possible than testing in the first instance but, even so, there would be a pretty astronomical number who would require tests, plus, of course, all the new entries. We are geared to conduct something like 100,000 tests a year on the basis of new entrants to the industry, plus the portion we estimate will require more than one test If we were to test the exempted men in the first three years, we would be getting into fairly high figures; this would mean more examiners and additional administration and it would put up the cost of the test. It could be done, but at what cost?

RDC: Doesn't this exemption for all time make the value of the heavy goods vehicle driver's licence rather like the wartime provisional driving licence, when anybody could get a driving licence by filling in a form. At the end of the war, this was made a full licence. What good is the hgv driving licence if, in fact, 85 per cent of all the people who hold one have never proved their ability to the satisfaction of an examiner?

DB: 1 think that before a man is let loose on the road with a vehicle of possible 24/30/32 tons gvw he should be required to prove his competence before he is licensed. I am satisfied that classified licences are essential and before a man can graduate from a lower class vehicle to a higher class vehicle, he should take the test.

RDC: The union officials are complaining that a lot of chaps are losing their jobs because they cannot pass the test. Too bad! We should not be protecting the man who is not competent. After all, let's face it, any vehicle is a lethal weapon and you do not allow any Tom, Dick or Harry to have a gun licence. I still say test them all.

IS: I appreciate the Ministry's administrative difficulties but I would have thought it possible to treat the hgv driving licence in the same way as has been done with operators' licences. That is, a staggered currency period so that a man who claims exemption might get a licence for one, two or even five years—but before he got the renewal he would get the test.

DB: We've overlooked one very significant point here—you cannot, in fairness to the individual, grant him a licence by exemption and then say to him: "Sorry chum, but you've got to take a test now, we're not satisfied." We've got this exemption situation and we shall have to live with it. The real benefit of the hgv driving test will be in the long term.

RDC: I do not accept that we have to live with the situation. I think a test at some stage is essential. Think about the young man of 25 who claims exemption: he has 40 years driving ahead of him and class one vehicles are likely to get bigger, heavier, faster and carry more dangerous cargoes in the next 40 years.

DB: Surely the employer has some say in this. A responsible company would not allow any Tom, Dick or Harry to drive their vehicles. In our company, we have a selection system now. We do not start a man without first putting him through a test and he goes through a medical.

RDC: If, one day, you found that you had 25 vehicles standing in the garage because you could not get employees to match your standard, I wager your driver selection would go by the board.

DB: I don't think we would drop our standard in any circumstances.

RDC: What about the not so particular company who is an employer of drivers: they make up the greatest part of the industry.

BW: 1 agree with what Doug said, but as Ron rightly points out, Doug is talking about the better firms. I think that, probably, the majority will accept only a minimum standard, and grudgingly—the minimum being the MoT test. But things will level out. I believe there will be a 10 per cent failure rate on the medical side. This assumption is based on psv experience. This 10 per cent medical failure added to a 10 per cent natural wastage within the industry will take us well on the way to the state when all drivers have been tested. I agree that it is a solution to an administrative problem that existing drivers should be given exemption, but my experience as a trainer indicates that a large percentage of these drivers are not fully equipped to do their job properly. There will always be a certain percentage of drivers who are now aged 30/40 who will continue driving until they are 65 barring any serious accidents, or medical failure at the age of 60.

IS: Assuming you are right, Brian, is there not a case for lowering the entry age to 18 as has been suggested in other places?

DB: A man of 18, even a young man of 25, has got much less chance of failing a medical than a man of my age of 55 but I would only agree to bringing the age limit down if the man had received adequate practical training prior to passing the Ministry test. But I do not sec it as a possibility. I think the time is coming when we will have hgv drivers on an apprenticeship basis so that at 21 they can take their hgv test. By this system, employers will know that the man is physically fit, a competent driver and a well-trained company man.

JAF: Can I ask Mr Bolton: does he think that this could work with apprentices from the age of 18? Does he think that at the age of 18 a man is mature enough for such a responsible job as a hgv drive;?

DB: A young man can be trained for any type of work much easier than an older man.

JAF: You can teach him the skill at that age probably better than you could teach him at any other age. But can you give him the maturity necessary to make the right decision in a vehicle of that size and of that lethal potentiality in an emergency?

DB: 1 would prefer Mr Wilson to answer that one, but I think that if in training a young man is capable of learning the skills, but does not have the ability to exercise these skills on the public highway, then he should never have been selected for training in the first place.

BW: There is really no training problem that I can see in teaching the young person to drive a heavy vehicle; in fact, it is much better to teach the inexperienced man than to try to un-teach habits which have been developed through experience of the wrong type. A recent experiment at MOTEC underlined this fact; people who had limited experience of goods vehicle driving, as opposed to those who had none, took a slightly longer time to reach our standard. Against all this, there is evidence that the younger man will tend to lose his concentration after he has had a reasonable amount of time at the wheel and this, again, is backed by evidence.

DB: Mr Wilson, there is one point I would like to raise. You obviously would not like to see men of 18 in the industry. Have you considered that by the time a man is 18 he has chosen his career and, because we can offer little until he is 21. the transport industry has too often been left with the dregs of the labour market? I think it is only right that we should give the young man the chance to come into the industry before he has made up his mind to go elsewhere. The transport industry has been left with the drifters who don't know what the hell they want to do.

BW: I entirely accept this. Ideally, people should be brought into the industry at 18 and get to know it. I think this is vitally important if we are going to get the right type of individual into the industry but what I am saying is that as the industry is constituted, at present, I think the number of operators who could operate an apprenticeship scheme is extremely limited. IS: Are we training properly? Are we just training men to pass the test or are we training them to do the job that they are employed to do?

DB: There are two types of training, one type which is geared specifically for the company's need and the other type which enables the man to pass his hgv test but in our normal training programme we have

tried to combine these two. We have set standards which we consider are above the MoT testing standards and we include in our training product handling, ancillary equipment handling, general safety and everything that goes with handling vehicles in our fleet. One thing which we have not mentioned yet, and in which I think training plays a very big part, is overcoming test nerves.

RDC: I agree with Douglas absolutely. I think nerves are the biggest single cause of people failing their driving test. I do not know whether the Ministry examiners take this into account but I understand that they don't.

JAF: The Ministry is quite confident that every examiner takes this into consideration. It does not matter what examination it is, whether it is a learner driver test, hgv test, the test that the professional driving instructor takes, all examiners are very well aware that there is considerable stress and strain on the candidate. Under the eyes of the examiner he tends to be flustered; the fact that somebody is sitting there examining you is the problem. If an examiner sees the man is almost overcome by nerves, he will ask him to pull up and attempt to calm him down, but what he cannot do is to accept potentially dangerous situations attributable to nerves.

IS: And this is something which will not show up in his medical. As 1 recall, there is nothing in the hgv medical that finds out how highly strung or well balanced the man is. But surely if he is trained just to pass the test, nerves will not manifest themselves.

BW: The idea of training a man specifically to pass the test horrifies me. I shudder at the situation where people are being coached purely and simply for a test or any examination. I know a lot of it has gone on in the past and a lot of it goes on now; I certainly hope it isn't a lasting situation.

DB: I want to make one point clear: we have an intensive course, but we do not specifically train men to pass the test. This is not what it was meant for. The sole reason for having that particular week's course is to enable a man who had been off attics for some time to familiarize himself again.

IS: Failure rate and type of failure are important considerations for training officers. Is this an area where the Ministry would be able to give assistance or not?

JAF: Most certainly. We do give assistance

if we are asked to, and what we can do is to look at any particular failure or group of failures. We can analyse carefully the driving throughout the test, find out where the man has gone wrong—we can do this from the examiners' reports—and provide the answers to the candidate concerned.

RDC: Would it not be a good idea, Mr Fazakerley, for this information to be given anyway? I have always felt this is rather unfair on a person who fails the test not to be told why he has failed.

JAF: But he does know up to a point. Now, obviously there has to be some point at which the examiner must stop. At the time of the test he is very tightly programmed. He hasn't unlimited time to provide chapter and verse, in the case of a failed candidate and give every single detail of where he has failed and how to rectify the defects.

RDC: So you agree, he doesn't know the reason he has failed?

JAF: But he does. In every test failure the examiner makes a statement of failure. Now this underlines those points to which the candidate should pay attention before submitting himself for another test. From this and the guidance booklet, the DLG 68, he should, with the assistance of his instructor, easily be able to put the points right. He marks out these points and makes a statement of failure. He asks the candidate if he has the guidance book, DLG 68, and, if not, he gives him one. He is then told that he should put these points right with the help of his instructor.

Now, if he still is in difficulty then he, or his instructor, should write to the supervising examiner, who will give him the more detailed guidance that I spoke of. If he does not want to do this, he can write direct to HQ, to Driving and Motor Licences Division, and we can provide all the details of his particular test failure.

DB: The one thing that the supervisor cannot do is to give any specific point where the incident or dangerous occurrence which caused failure occurred.

JAF: Usually he can provide that information from the examiner's report. Before he replies, the supervising examiner will get the full detailed report completed by the examiner. If this is insufficient, he will go back to the examiner for further details. This is one of the reasons why we keep

these detailed reports, so that we remember the circumstances of the test.

RDC: Are you, then, saying that the chap fills in this report immediately after he has completed the test?

JAF: That's right. Immediately, from the mark sheet he has completed during the test. DB: Couldn't that report, Mr Fazakerley, be posted to the man's employer?

JAF: This is a confidential report. It could certainly not be posted to the employer. The test is between the candidate and Ministry. DB: But the company is paying for this test. JAF: That may or may not be the case on some occasions but, so far as we are concerned, it is the candidate who is being tested and we could not accept a situation in which we would pass a confidential report on to any third party.

RDC: Could it be passed on to the candidate?

JAF: Not in its original form. For easy compilation it is a coded form and the report goes on the back.

RDC: This seems rather like civil service red tape to me. You have the facility for providing a useful service to the community but you are failing to do so.

JAF: We give this additional information when we are asked for it.

RDC: Wouldn't it be much more useful to give the facts back to the people who are responsible for training the candidates to the test level?

JAF: I don't know that it would serve the purpose that you think. Now, as I say, the report is made out immediately after the completion of the test. If the candidate has failed, then the manuscript report on it amplifies the failure points in a manner that the department can interpret. It would need to be• written in a far more understandable way if we were to give this report to a member of the public. Each report would have to be transcribed again.

What happens is that if a candidate cannot understand the information on his statement of failure and aas for further details, the report on the test goes to the supervising examiner or comes to us at HQ and we interpret it and write a full and detailed explanation to the candidate or to the instructor telling him exactly what happened, why he failed, the points which contributed to his failure and where they happened. We very seldom get a second come-back when we write a letter like this. We don't get many such requests, however, less than one per cent I should think, because most candidates who fail are able to understand the DLG 24.

DB: We were so concerned with our failure rate that I asked, as indeed we are doing here: "Is my training on the right pattern?" I analysed what we were doing and had my programme vetted by the RTITB. I looked into the method of instruction and could not see where it was wrong; the chief instructor is qualified, MOTEC trained with a very, very good record. The only other place we could look was the examiner. Is he fully conversant with the different types of vehicles that he comes up against?

RDC: I think this is the important thing—are the examiners conversant with all the vehicles on which men report for test?

IS: I think this raises another question. We know the examiners leave Harmondsworth all examining to a standard pattern. Now, how often are the examiners re-examined to make sure that they are maintaining the standard?

JAF: They are supervised while actually conducting tests as frequently as possible; this, of course, in the hgv driving test depends on the availability of three-seat cabs. They are supervised in the manoeuvring area very frequently. This can be done easily and the supervising examiner is there to see that the standard we require in the manoeuvring exercises is maintained. But for the practical part, the road part of the test, well, of course, the examiner and the supervising examiner ride together and they compare their mark sheets. Normally, the situation is that the markings agree within a very, very narrow margin.

IS: I think we can sum up by saying we agree that the heavy goods vehicle driving test is as practical as it can be in the circumstances, but that we would like to see it made more practical. However, we cannot have any more examiners or any more money spent on it, which seems to be a matter of concern to you all. We feel in general we are training towards the test and towards the company's own requirements in only a few cases. Ron made the point, and I think we all agree with him, that if it were possible, those who get an exempted licence should be required to pass a test during the currency period of the licence. In short, gentlemen, we feel the hgv driving test and training for it are good as far as they go but neither go far enough.