My husband took his lorry driving test last Thursday and sadly he failed. He is struggling with the clutch, gears and nerves! Fortunately we have pass protection so he can give it another go at no extra cost HOWEVER he feels he would benefit from at least another 2 days training. This will cost us £276 per day. This seems crazy to me but perhaps its an average price? He is training through the LGV training company which I have since learnt is a broker and was probably not a great move. If anyone has any test / lorry training advice for him it would be greatly appreciated.
It is so difficult to pass sensible comment on what another trainer is offering (or broker). The cost does seem a little high though IMO. For any training prior to retest we charge £45 per hour as we see no need to profit from a candidate’s bad luck on test. It may well be a condition that the extra training is taken, but if it isn’t, I’m inclined to agree with ROG.
Clutch and gears?? For nearly 5 years, it has been the practice to train on auto vehicles which immediately solves the issue. Maybe ask the broker if they have a trainer running auto? But this is concerning as clutch and gears are fundamental training blocks in the early stages and should have been sorted out on day 1. Day 2 at the latest.
Hope this helps and that he gets it sorted next time.
as Rog and Pete have advised I would look at training in an automatic, I did an assessment drive with a training company and changed training company as they didn’t have autos and I was told by friends that drive hvg’s that I didn’t need to learn in a manual.
doing a driving test is stressful enough without trying to find the right gears on a dodgy gear box while trying to make sure you cover everything else you need to do .
tell him to go down the auto route and take a bit of his stress away
bamberg:
tell him to go down the auto route and take a bit of his stress away
The stress will then be much more when he turns up somewhere for a shift and is met with a manual box. If he has trained a week in the instructors manual box and im assuming drives a manual car he can’t be that haphazard.
The auto route is an interesting idea. Would he be limiting himself too much job/vehicle wise though by only learning in an auto?
I don’t know how to quote people but the member above me said something about if he drives a manual car or not. He drives a small manual car currently and is equally happy in an auto. He can drive quads, has hopped into an unfamiliar 8 seater people carrier and driven that no problem, he used to have a tractor licence a few years ago (expired now I believe). He is very good at driving and can adapt well to different vehicles usually however I think it’s the pressure to pass that’s causing him problems.
bamberg:
tell him to go down the auto route and take a bit of his stress away
The stress will then be much more when he turns up somewhere for a shift and is met with a manual box. If he has trained a week in the instructors manual box and im assuming drives a manual car he can’t be that haphazard.
Very different when driving a manual that does not have the added training/test stress
Mabelhog:
The auto route is an interesting idea. Would he be limiting himself too much job/vehicle wise though by only learning in an auto?
I don’t know how to quote people but the member above me said something about if he drives a manual car or not. He drives a small manual car currently and is equally happy in an auto. He can drive quads, has hopped into an unfamiliar 8 seater people carrier and driven that no problem, he used to have a tractor licence a few years ago (expired now I believe). He is very good at driving and can adapt well to different vehicles usually however I think it’s the pressure to pass that’s causing him problems.
If he has got a manual car licence then passing in an auto truck means he will be able to drive auto and manual trucks once he’s passed, so therefore he won’t be limiting himself in any way.
said something about if he drives a manual car or not.
For clarity, it’s nothing to do with if he drives a manual car or not. What matters is that he holds a manual car licence. Assuming he has (as you’ve said he drives a manual car) he will gain a full, unrestricted licence if he passes his test on an auto truck. This is clearly the way forward for him from what you have posted.
Most my faults on my class 2 test were for gear/clutch related things. Had 10 in total on the whole test. I did it in a manual.
Pass class 1 with three faults but non of them were gear/clutch related. Did this one in an auto.
So it can make a difference. Incidentally I then drove a XF 4 over 4 for eighteen months but I just figured the box out as I went without the stress of the test.
