ROG:
shep532:
If a driver works for a crap employer and is forced to spend his own hard earned cash paying for the DCPC then surely he would want to shop around and get on different courses?
I would have said that economics comes first - if the cheapest way to get it is to do the same £40 course five times then that is what I would do just to get a DQC
Better than spending more unless there is something specific that I wanted to do or learn
Here is the ultimate question for dcpc provider - what do I need?
If I think I need nothing and the dcpc provider/trainer cannot tell me then what?
Good reasoning and a sensible way of looking at it I suppose.
The problem for the DCPC provider is what does the customer want? Unfortunately the answer is difficult because the industry is so diverse. What one company wants - another doesn’t. Clearly the DCPC provider is running a business and therefore profitability (no its not a dirty word) is a governing factor. To develop a course and gain approval costs. JAUPT charge £252 per 7 hour course. If that course can only be delivered to a handful of companies it won’t be viable.
In my own catchment area I have heavy haulage, frozen foods, general haulage, car transporters, shoe factories, skip wagons, plant hire, tyre fitters, timber merchants, builders merchants, scaffolders, builders, engineers, horse people, pallet makers, cash & carries, tippers and the list goes on and on. The mix of vehicles is everything from a 4t van to a full 44t artic. The problem is where is the common ground? Pretty much the answer is Drivers Hours, Vehicle Checks and maybe Load Security. Perhaps fuel efficient driving■■?
Lets look at the tipper drivers. They start at a resonable time, drive around 4 hours, stop for lunch, drive around 4 to 5 hours and go home working only Monday to Friday. Daily rest is not an issue and never will be, weekly rest is 45+ every week, never go on a ferry or double man, WTD is covered. They drive digi tachos and simply put their card in then take it out. get them sat in a classroom for Drivers Hours training and you simply have a group of uninterested switched off blokes with a bad attitude. Try talking about fuel efficient driving - not a blind bit of interest and neither has their boss. Vehicle checks? Apparently the mechanics do that every evening and morning the drivers just drive.
However, each of the above companies will have some bespoke ‘unique to them’ requirement which could be covered for DCPC if only they wanted to put some effort into identifying the needs and paying for the development of the training. Again using the tipper drivers - biggest complaint from the boss is the drivers wreck the easy sheet, tyres and rear doors on the tipper. Clearly those are issues that need concentrating on, finding out the whys and wherefores then putting them right. That could all be done as DCPC. But no - send them on a tacho course - THREE TIMES!
I have a customer running around 200 vehicles at various sites. They have provided DCPC for all of their drivers over the last two years and made sure there is a variety of courses suited to their needs. We have done the run-of-the-mill Drivers Hours and Vehicle Checks followed by some bespoke courses written just for them to cover load security for the loads they carry, health & safety for the sites they deliver to and company policies and procedures. These courses have been paid for by that company including JAUPT fees etc. THIS is how it should be done.
I have another customer who simply booked five dates for his drivers not even asking what the course content was and some courses were repeated. THIS is NOT how it should be done.
Of course we could argue drivers from the first company who may leave and move on won’t have received much training relevant to their next job … going from Timber Haulage to Tesco deliveries is a big difference and there lies the problem. The industry as a whole is extremely diverse. The tipper drivers who sat playing on their phones throughout the drivers hours course find themselves changing jobs and maybe dropped into general haulage where the hours are pushed to the limits and they are now struggling …
The DCPC can never be a one size fits all. Companies need to take it on board and make sure it suits them.
