Hi all,
I don’t usually do stuff like this, but I thought if I can share my experience of gaining my license with you all, it may allow/encourage somebody else to do it who has been contemplating with the idea themselves for a while. It has took my around 18 months to finally getting around to do the training for my license.
I am doing my training with the forum sponsor, Peter Smythe. I decided to do my training over a weekend, travelling down Friday, with my training on the Saturday and Sunday (8am-4pm) with my test on the Monday.
I travelled down from Liverpool so I stayed in the hotel Pete puts you up in if you live over 70 miles away. Hotel is sound, clean has WiFi and a tele in the room, the hotel is also close to many pubs, McDonald’s and many fast food places so you won’t go hungry or bored whilst being away from home.
Day 1
I was the only student in, as it was a Saturday. My trainer is Helen. I then got introduced to the vehicle I would be taking my lessons and test in. We done a walk around of the vehicle and a defect check.
Helen then drove us to an industrial estate. Once we got there I got the chance to have a drive. Around the industrial estate, we then practised simple left and right hand turns and going around round a bouts within that industrial estate.
Once Helen thought I was doing well enough we then went on to the road. Throughout the day we covered a lot. There is seven a test routes that the examiner is able to take you on. We tried to cover these as much as possible. I’m sorry I can’t tell you the ways we went and the roads we covered, but because I’m not from round here I can’t remember, and I’m terrible with road names.
We did cover some very tight junctions which are really tight and have to be carefully watching either side of the truck, different junctions, tight country roads and motorways.
When we went back to the yard, we had a practise of the reversing. After a few attempts we got this nailed. I had done something similar to this reverse before when I done my PCV license so I was familiar with it. After about 3 attempts we got this nailed. I would advice anyone reading this worrying about the reversing to just listen to the instructors and trust what they tell you with the little tips because it really does work.
Day 2
Started off doing a defect check of the vehicle. Once this was done we hit the road. We only had a few places that we had left to cover today before all test routes had them been covered. We had this done by about 11am. After this we went back to the yard and done some more reversing. Once I was happy enough again with the reversing, we headed out on a drive for the rest of the afternoon.
All test routes have been covered, now I am just ready for tomorrow for my test which is at 1:50pm, so the roads are likely to be a lot busier than I’ve had it during my training, as they’ve been quite empty as it’s been the weekend.
I will post tomorrow and give you all an update on how my test went.
