Not taught to reverse

NEW AND WANNABE DRIVERS (INTERACTIVE)
21

Everyone learns at different rates, some will take to it like a duck to water others won’t be much good for their entire lives with endless variances between the two extremes.

Those who take well to it are more likely to practice every second they can once they get a truck gig, others will do everything they can to avoid going backwards, the first group are likely to start with spotlessly clean windows and mirrors hedging advantage their way before they even start because they are interested in doing the job well, its not hard working out which group are going to be good at maneuvering in short order.

Regarding the test and the reversing test being seperate, does it really matter as the test reverse was a turn by numbers/markers farce anyway.

When i took my straight to class 1 back in the medievil period :cry: the course was two weeks, plenty of time to spend a whole day if needs be on the maneuvering pad, my instructor wasn’t happy until you could reverse the half the airfield assault course he laid out as well as drive through it forwards, there simply isn’t the time now on a standard course.
I’ll also point something else out that many will disagree with, maneuvering in manuals is much easier than in an auto due to the infinite control the driver has over the clutch itself irrespective of throttle control.

22

Juddian:
Everyone learns at different rates, some will take to it like a duck to water others won’t be much good for their entire lives with endless variances between the two extremes.

Those who take well to it are more likely to practice every second they can once they get a truck gig, others will do everything they can to avoid going backwards, the first group are likely to start with spotlessly clean windows and mirrors hedging advantage their way before they even start because they are interested in doing the job well, its not hard working out which group are going to be good at maneuvering in short order.

Regarding the test and the reversing test being seperate, does it really matter as the test reverse was a turn by numbers/markers farce anyway.

When i took my straight to class 1 back in the medievil period :cry: the course was two weeks, plenty of time to spend a whole day if needs be on the maneuvering pad, my instructor wasn’t happy until you could reverse the half the airfield assault course he laid out as well as drive through it forwards, there simply isn’t the time now on a standard course.
I’ll also point something else out that many will disagree with, maneuvering in manuals is much easier than in an auto due to the infinite control the driver has over the clutch itself irrespective of throttle control.

I must admit I can’t stand my windows and mirrors being dirty.

23

Zac_A:
Interesting to see the comments about the current test not being hard enough, it’s been getting steadily dumbed down for years: Gear changing exercise went, and “controlled stop”, hill starts too essentially gone as modern gearboxes hold it for you rather than you having to show clutch control.

Not to mention the plethora a newer drivers who are completely unable to drive 16-speed gearbox, and the widespread support on these boards for the option of going straight from B to C+E

What’s the point of having a test for technology that no longer exists? The vast majority of new HGV’s are automatic.

When EVs take over, I’m sure the manual license will become defunct.

24

Let’s cut to the chase. Marky-p is the “BIG I AM” now that (insert relevant pronoun) is a shunter.

25

Noremac:
Let’s cut to the chase. Marky-p is the “BIG I AM” now that (insert relevant pronoun) is a shunter.

No ‘chase’ to be had my friend. Shunter means diddly squat. I sense some insecurity at your end

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26

stu675:
What’s the point of having a test for technology that no longer exists? The vast majority of new HGV’s are automatic.

  1. Whilst that last line is broadly true, the manual gearbox does not “no longer exist”, it’s just (unfortunately) much rarer. IMO the only time an auto is preferable to a manual is in crawling traffic. Fully loaded in challenging conditions (eg twisty-turny country roads with many hills, or getting bogged down in snowy/icy conditions) - give me a manual any day of the week.

  2. What was the point (ever) of the gear changing exercise? It was there to demonstrate ability with the vehicle, same with the controlled stop, same with every aspect of HGV driving that required a smidgeon of diligence and effort in order to become proficient.

There’s a ridiculous number of today’s crop of drivers with no apparent interest in trying to become truly competent, and many others who are utterly irresponsible, but they think they’re god’s gift just because they have the HGV entitlement.

Meanwhile a proportion of these guys commit moronic acts like running out of diesel on a major road (one of my former drivers did this on the the A19), driving onto a beach and becoming stuck (Kinaxia driver at Marske beach, near Redcar, a week or two ago) or (topically for today) whacking a motorway gantry with a raised tipper body. Those incidents are not run-of-the-mill accidents that could happen to anyone, these are the product of the “HGV driving? C’mon, any idiot can do it…” approach so prevalent today.

Meanwhile employers struggle to find someone they can trust with their vehicle, even though every driving job (here in the north east) is inundated by 200 or even 400 applicants for a single vacancy, but many of these applicants the typical TM wouldn’t trust with a shopping trolley.

stu675:
When EVs take over,

EV just means Electric Vehicle, not self-driving vehicele, and I for one do not see electric trucks taking over in my lifetime, they don’t have the range, nor can they deal with 200-300 miles of driving with additional hiab or roro tasking too.

stu675:
I’m sure the manual license will become defunct

Yes, lets give an HGV licence to every unskilled monkey 'tard, with zero sense of professionalism, who wants one, we can see right now how well that is working out. To paraphrase gun-nut Charlton Heston, “You can pry my manual entitlement from my cold, dead hand”.

27

Zac_A, i’ll only take one issue with your above excellent post.

‘‘Meanwhile employers struggle to find someone they can trust with their vehicle, even though every driving job (here in the north east) is inundated by 200 or even 400 applicants for a single vacancy, but many of these applicants the typical TM wouldn’t trust with a shopping trolley.’’

The problem is employers have the same problems in their management circles, in that often the wrong people are in the wrong job, or old school people steeped in transport who know the difference between a lorry driver and a steering wheel operative retire and get replaced by those that have come from ‘‘pile it high one size fits all’’ logistics giants where in the majority of cases they really don’t know the difference between a LD and SWO.

They then go about dumbing the previously skilled job down so ‘we can get anyone in’, into a one size fits all operation based on the lowest common denominator, cutting back on previous good contracts which meant they never had to advertise for staff and treating their skilled loyal staff like schoolchildren, the quality of applicants diminishes because the very reasons for wanting to work there are disappearing…but what is truly astonishing is that these clever buggers haven’t a clue what they’re doing to their skill base because next thing you hear is ‘we can’t get good drivers any more’ or ‘where have al the good drivers gone’…and when some outspoken sod :blush: tells them to their faces it simply doesn’t compute…because we’re management and we’re right.

Skilled drivers don’t need to be micro managed, yet these people can’t wait to drive the very people they should be keeping away.

This isn’t just in our industry of course, its rife throughout the country right up to the shining beacon of wrong people wrong job farce in the corridors of Westminster, the end results are always the same, ruin.

28

Agreed - crap management is every bit as common as are crap drivers. In a way the industry is it’s own worst enemy, staffing the office with people who aren’t aware of, eg drivers hours rules, who then begin to dictate to drivers what they should do.

Like a manager this week who is telling my ADR candidate he’s not eligible to claim 21 or 28 hours of DCPC for this week’s course. It took three of us to tell her the same info before she’d accept it.

29

They teach you a ‘S’ reversing. Docking is another thing.

30

osark:
They teach you a ‘S’ reversing. Docking is another thing.

In theory, if you can do an S, then you should be able to do anything. I think the problem is that the bay you need to get into is far larger than what is acceptable lining up with a dock bay door.

31

Marky-p:
Recently, a chap drove into our depot with an artic and took 15 minutes to reverse onto the bay. Once on, he said he had never been taught to reverse?! I didn’t dig that deeply into the subject with him but I presumed he was a new pass.

So what’s the current format now? Do the training schools not even touch the reverse aspect any more? Is it not even examined at the test centres now?

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So a guy that is probably a new pass reversed onto a bay and your digging him out for taking too long? I take ages to get onto the bay but I don’t care because I’m still new and learning.

32

Dales556:

Marky-p:
Recently, a chap drove into our depot with an artic and took 15 minutes to reverse onto the bay. Once on, he said he had never been taught to reverse?! I didn’t dig that deeply into the subject with him but I presumed he was a new pass.

So what’s the current format now? Do the training schools not even touch the reverse aspect any more? Is it not even examined at the test centres now?

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So a guy that is probably a new pass reversed onto a bay and your digging him out for taking too long? I take ages to get onto the bay but I don’t care because I’m still new and learning.

No I was more enquiring into the fact that he said he wasn’t taught to reverse which surprised me at the time.

If someone had said this to you would you have just shrugged it off and not at least been curious about it■■?