Looking through various jobs some large companies want 2 years experience. the excuse is because of insurance policy fair enough their toys they get to set the rules.
However, look on the company website and the have an apprenticeship program where they pay for you to get your license etc. Yet the class 1 job needs 2 years experience
how does this work
Probably it is due to insurance… If the insurers believe that the new driver has had extensive training through an apprentice scheme, rather than is a lucky pass with minimal training they might well be happier.
Exactly as Frangers says. They are insurance companies and can make the rules up just like companies can to suit themselves. With company training you will do more than just learning with a training company and spend more time usually in trucks and doing things like being taught to reverse more etc. So in theory you should be more qualified and and better at risk management. I say in theory that depends who you do training with of course.
you both make a fair point i have no idea what training is involved. I assumed it was no more than sitting them in a room for 35 hours cpc and handing them the materials for their theory test then booking them lessons.
i did watch someones blog once where the boss made them reverse a trailer around the yard and on and off bays etc for the first 3 days and thought that was a good idea
Sometimes it is 2 years of holding the licence to meet the insurance criteria, not necessarily experience.
Essentially it is a risk profile they are looking at, so it sometimes might not seem logical given a specific situation.
In my case, when I went on class 1 on agency with no experience, a call was made to the insurance company who considered my extensive 7.5 tonne / class 2 experience, and agreed to put me on the particular policy. They can look at specific situations if you ask sometimes, or they may not bother.
Passing the test after a 2-3 week course is not an apprenticeship.
Many apprentices will spend time both as a passenger and learner not just driving but learning the job of that company. For employers and insurers that can make an apprentices much better risk
I understand that and can see that a company that has employed their own instructor can teach a lot more than a driving school therefore would be a better bet than someone that has just had 4 days instruction. However, even if the company taught candidate can go straight to test without going through a formal driving school they could still train the person with a license that’s a year old for the same cost. All the in house training for the job has nothing to do with the insurance for driving the truck
Rather than seeing the requirement as an excuse, try looking at it from the company’s point of view.
Insurance and the likelihood of claims is one thing.
Arguably, actually being able to drive a lorry around the King’s highways is less than half of the skill needed to do a decent job.
However, that is all that acquiring the licence teaches you to do.
As a new driver, you have no past record that they can ask about, so you are an unknown, to yourself, as well as your prospective employer.
You are quite likely to waste time getting lost, or worse, following a satnav to a dead end.
You may never have driven a fully laden 44 tonner, you may never have driven a lorry with a manual gearbox and a clutch pedal.
You will probably not have ever been to an RDC, or a quarry, or loaded in a field or indeed ever reversed into somewhere really tight and so on and so on.
Road haulage in this country is not in a good place at the moment and if the choice is beteen a novice and experience, experience, backed by a decent reference, will win every time.
Finally, you could be driving £150,000 worth of kit.
If it was yours, would you let a novice out in it?
Haulage companies and their insurers will be thinking in the same way.
Good luck with your search, some of the larger companies seem to still have adverts on the back of their trucks, Culina, DHL, those sort of people, may well be looking for new starters to train in their ways.
totally agree shame that they would rather take on someone with no experience no matter what training they have done from the passenger seat over someone that has their license for 18 months and has 18 months real job experience.
the real reason i suspect is they want yes men that are contractually obliged to put up with having to do everyone else’s job as well as their own for less money.
That is something that goes with the territory, I am afraid.
Where I’m at they do a warehouse to wheels programme every so often where they’ll train staff from manufacturing or distribution who want to become lorry drivers at the company. They will get put through a quite decent length training with a local driving school to pass their test and cover other basic stuff like load securing etc. They’re then put on shunting for a few weeks so they can learn how to reverse and then they’re out with another driver as a second man for a month or two. Then at some point one of the driver trainers will sign them off and they’re put on specific runs for a bit longer, usually trunk runs, before being thrown into the general pool.
i agree with something like that as i said above. however as far as the insurance goes what stops them taking on a new pass and starting at the shunting point.
yes i realize that someone walking through the door has no proven track record as far as work ethic etc .
When i ran a company, the insurers would allow us to take on a brand new driver, but it was with a higher excess. As we double manned i never overly wortied and gor a new pass it was a good way to get experience .