My EPIC card is due to expire next month and the only firm i can find who deliver these courses and include it as a qualification towards the DCPC are not running any courses and didnt know when they would be. The woman i spoke to said they need at least 15 people to be signed up to make it viable. It seems crazy that the quarry, readymix and construction industries insist that drivers have these qualifications and yet nothing is available. I did google the subject and the firm i rang, Mineral Products Qualifications Council is the only one that a search threw up,unless anyone on here knows different.
Do the sites you deliver to that require these not have anything? normally if its a requirement they’ll at least know of something, or I’d be surprised if they don’t help organise a course every few months themselves, even if they don’t pay for it.
Scarab:
Do the sites you deliver to that require these not have anything? normally if its a requirement they’ll at least know of something, or I’d be surprised if they don’t help organise a course every few months themselves, even if they don’t pay for it.
The construction sites that want drivers to have the EPIC card (which is mainly the big ones) wouldnt have any info on where to get the qualification,only that you should have it.The same goes for the quarries and again it is the the big ones and they will probably point me in the direction of MPQC. As for the readymix firms they will do in house EPIC courses which dont include the DCPC part but the courses they are providing now are few and far between because the EPIC lasts for 5 years so unless they have a lot of drivers coming up for renewal they wont bother to organise anything.
Mines due later in the year,was speaking to a trainer about a different subject n he mentioned that they do it as part of dcpc,Metcalfe plant/training,don’t know where you’re at,they’re up in Penrith ■■■■■■■■■■■■ plant/haulage outfit,if its any use try 01768 868686,training blokes called Nigel.
First thing c.c is where about are you based,then hopefully some of the tipper men will be able to help. Personally I think this epic card thing is total crap, I pull out of a quarry every single day but because I drive a bulk powder tank I don`t need it, go figure!
None of our 30+ drivers have ever been asked for our EPIC card. It’s a bs money making exercise that insults your intelligence. We spent the afternoon being bored to death by “safety when carrying coated stone”. Despite several of us pointing out we don’t carry it (no insulated bodies) we had to be lectured on the safety of the lab man who takes samples, watching out for men who lay it (the irish in breeding ones i’d take out no questions asked)
Thanks for the info lynchy.I live in Norfolk but if i have to travel so be it. I know what you mean muckaway,i have had the card for the last 5 years and only got asked to produce it last year when i was doing some mixer relief for an o/d on C&H Quickmix because one of the sites had insisted any drivers delivering to them had to be EPIC qualified.
The term “qualified” should be used as loosely as possible! If this crap had been around when I was a kid riding shotgun with Dad I reckon I could’ve passed it 
Muckaway:
The term “qualified” should be used as loosely as possible! If this crap had been around when I was a kid riding shotgun with Dad I reckon I could’ve passed it
I totally agree and it is the same with the DCPC, which is an even bigger waste of time and money but at the end of the day it is an arse covering exercise so there is someone to hang out to dry if something goes ■■■■ up. “He/She has had training so it is down to them.” However if it is going to prevent me from earning a crust by not having it then i am only shooting myself in the foot.
ive had one for the past 18 months have never been asked to show it,
mind you our gaffer would send you on a course to learn how to wipe yer own backside if he thought it would be useful on a site one day
Strangley enough ive been asked for mine about 4 times this week anybody that goes to the salt mines are asked every time to show theirs.Also had to show it in a quarry in Neath on saturday but most of the big quarry groups have it on computer against the registration of the truck.
My card was gained on a coarse through my employer at a Aggregates Industries coarse and one of our new drivers is off for hers in the next week or so
I go in all the big ones bretts hansons lafarge etc and never get asked for it and i wont be doing it either unles my firm want to pay for it for me 
lynchy:
Mines due later in the year,was speaking to a trainer about a different subject n he mentioned that they do it as part of dcpc,Metcalfe plant/training,don’t know where you’re at,they’re up in Penrith ■■■■■■■■■■■■ plant/haulage outfit,if its any use try 01768 868686,training blokes called Nigel.
I rang this lot today and spoke to Nigel,a nice guy as well,and he told me,basically, they are not running anything at the moment due to needing bums on seats to make it worthwhile. Also found out that EPIC is now MPQC,the lot that told me without adequate numbers they wont be running anything.When i asked when is the next course the reply was how long is a bit of string,which leads me to wonder if we have to wait for everyones EPIC to expire before they look at making eveyone go through it again.The whole thing is a joke.
I have e-mailed someone at Lafarge,so i await their response.
Our firm put us through en-masse an put a few subbies through in return they dedicated themselves to working for us during the week the courses ran. How many name changes do they need? When I started on Smiths in feb '99 as a plant op in the gravel pit, I had NVQ2s in earthmving, which the Quarry Products Association (then EPIC, now M-whatever) as good as didn’t recognise it and I had to re-learn the plant as apparently it’s different driving in a quarry than on hire (WTF it’s the same machine ffs).
Our subsidiary (concrete) firm do the EPIC practical stuff for the mixer drivers so I’ll bet it’s only a matter of time before we need “a ticket” to operate the tipper 
they only need to see it when it suits them, i had one about 10 years ago when i was on earthmover repairs, went to a quarry in n wales, and was asked for it, but i didnt have it with me, but because the loading shovel was down they let me in anyway and just said bring it next time.
the next time was the same story, in fact I dont think i ever did produce it to them.
wood73:
they only need to see it when it suits them, i had one about 10 years ago when i was on earthmover repairs, went to a quarry in n wales, and was asked for it, but i didnt have it with me, but because the loading shovel was down they let me in anyway and just said bring it next time.
the next time was the same story, in fact I dont think i ever did produce it to them.
The old double standards is rife in quarries; when we did the plant training for EPIC, one old timer (the navvy driver, naturally) refused to do it on my machine because of the “computer stuff” on it (ie the onboard weigher reversing camera and cb that I’d fitted). He threw his toys out of the pram in true steam-navvy driver style he was awarded it without doing anything whereas we had to endure all the BS.