Hullo all. I’ve been thinking for a while that I’d like to try driving as a job, but I have no clue how to get started. How do you get experience when you have no experience? - that’s the age-old question! No experience of commercial driving, I mean. I passed my test in 1988, so I do have the advantage of those ‘grandfathered’ categories. I’d like to get experience in driving things larger than a car - what ways are there of doing that?
I’m a middle-aged small-sized woman, so I’d be looking for driving, not driving plus lifting, which reduces options a bit.
Any bright ideas?
Hi,
You could start of getting your PCV license, that would have the advantage of getting you experience with larger vehicles as well as letting you know if you will like driving as a career before you spend any of your own money on getting your lgv license.
I know First will put you through your pcv and give you a job at the end although I think they tie you down to working with them for 1-2 years for the training.
With reference to the lifting aspect , most firms have electric pump trucks to pull around heavy pallets and the tail lift will lift several pallets at once to load up .
Being small and middle aged is definitely not a barrier to get in to road transport and there are plenty of firms taking on new passes with no experience and some have apprentice schemes and may pay for the driving test if you remain with them for a set period similar to First buses .
Lifting can also mean hand ball where the driver is expected to muck in and unload or load a trailer manually if the load of small or big boxes of which is obviously not popular for some drivers.
Container drivers never hand ball their load and supermarket driving is unloaded by the store staff using cages with wheels but some may insist drivers help out and multi pallet drivers can split down pallets to break it down and hand ball it down a cellar or up several flights of stairs.
Google Brakes food transport.
What you are after is RDC to RDC work or regional distribution centre or NDC national, sometimes picking up a trailer already loaded, tip it , come back empty, or reload it and bring it back .
Thanks everyone, that’s helpful. Glad to know that being a small, middle-aged woman is not a major strike against me 
I was wondering if I should try to do something like this, to get a bit of experience - delivery of vehicles, very flexible (assuming I could get any jobs), not great pay, but could be a way to get some experience with incrementally larger vehicles. Does anyone have experience of this, or similar, agencies?
engineius.co.uk/become-an-engineius-driver
Jobiska:
Thanks everyone, that’s helpful. Glad to know that being a small, middle-aged woman is not a major strike against me
I was wondering if I should try to do something like this, to get a bit of experience - delivery of vehicles, very flexible (assuming I could get any jobs), not great pay, but could be a way to get some experience with incrementally larger vehicles. Does anyone have experience of this, or similar, agencies?
engineius.co.uk/become-an-engineius-driver
I would avoid self-employed myself if possible, it’s a minefield. I don’t know where you are based but in London the bus companies are offering free training as long as you can commit to two years with them, not a bad deal at all.