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HGV training concern
Page 7
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rious 'cowboy' training schools.
Bob Sturgess of Thames Valley Training, and a member of the National Association of Training Groups, feels that the Department of Transport refuses to consider a compulsory register because it does not believe there is a problem. "The Dip says if there was a problem it would show through in HGV test results," he says. "But we in the profession argue that it is our good training which is boosting test re sults and hiding the effects of the cowboys."
Instructors are also critical of the Government's decision not to include HGVs and PSVs in changes to the regulations covering supervision of learner drivers. Supervisors of car learners will have to be at least 21 years old and to have held a licence for at least three years. By contrast, says Sturgess, "I can have a bloke who passes his HGV test in the morning and then sets up as an instruc tor in the afternoon from his front room."
John Coates, of J Coates HGV Services attacks the Government's stance on HGV training as "childish and myopic". He says: "I have heard of one fellow who failed his car instructor test so he set up an HGV school. This is a situation just waiting for a disaster. For once we need the tabloids to give us hell to make the Government realise what is happening."