18 year old lgv drivers

Having very recently had a meeting with the Rt. Hon. Patricia Hewitt Member of Parliment for Leicester West, i feel the need to ask professional LGV drivers their unbiased opinion on 18 year olds driving artics.

My own opinion is to abolish this ridiculous rule. A good alternative is to bring back the apprenticeship/drivers mate scheme. The same type of thing that i did with my father when i was a lad of 14 yrs old, obviously, the scheme will start at 18 yrs old now. (I’m now 50 and been in the business all my life.)

I’m now waiting on a meeting with Sadiq Khan MP, Minister of state at the department of transport. I have been informed that this meeting will take place following a 4 week period. I need to know opinions from experienced drivers. Please note, any comments that are made will be taken with me to this meeting with prior permission from the person posting the opinion unless the poster expresses not to have it noted.

Could we have a vote please.

All in favour of 18 year olds driving LGV vehicles please make your vote accordingly

All those against 18 year olds driving LGV vehicles please make your vote accordingly.

Please post all comments about this, giving permissions or not at your earliest opportunity please.

(Edited for sp)

army lads do it with no problems i did my test at 17 in the army had no problems :wink:
probably would be better if they had more training though

A 4 page thread discussion on this - ARTIC drivers aged 18 !!!

I think that young would be drivers should be apprenticed to the job, it would give more work time to a team of two drivers splitting the driving time 8 hours for the full licence holder, 4 hours for the learner, with appropriate breaks.This will give more working hours for less driving time in a day.
the government will of course have to subsidise the transport firms for the extra wages that will have to be paid out, but it cant work out any more than paying out dole or jobseekers allowance for these lads .

I dunno really, I only got my car license at 18 BUT - I can’t see what’s wrong with it, they’ll not get a license if they can’t drive the thing and even if they do they’ll struggle to get a job because of the under 25 problem with insurance :confused:

To be honest I think the insurance will stop most 18 year olds getting work anyway and most of those that make an effort to get thier licence would normally be above average as drivers and well motivated, but as with the young drivers scheme I think there should be extra conditions with young HGV drivers.

I don’t see that it should cause any problems, it’s not exactly a difficult job is it?
With good tuition and on-going training such as is given by the company I work for and other good companies you can end up with good drivers.
ASDA train a lot of warehouse colleagues to drive C+E and have very few problems.
My permission is granted.

ROG:
A 4 page thread discussion on this - ARTIC drivers aged 18 !!!

That’s a fair point and perfectly true ROG, … however,

The OP has clearly stated the purpose behind the request, so although the opinions given in the topic to which you refer are good, there’s no sense of the posters’ permission having been given for the OP’s intended use of the info.

:laughing: :laughing: RTFQ :laughing: :wink: :grimacing:

I voted ‘yes, but with restrictions.’

My reasons are (IMHO)

  1. It would be unfair to completely deny all 18 year olds the opportunity to get a qualification and a foot on the career ladder.

  2. It would be unrealistic and possibly unsafe to give complete carte blanche to 18 year olds to drive any and all LGVs, even if they can pass the driving test, because accident statistics speak for themselves.

If 18 year olds who really want to pursue truck driving as a career are made to wait until they’re 21 to train for an LGV licence, they might find another career whilst they wait, and they might be lost to our industry. On the other hand, if there were a structured approach designed to ease youngsters into the industry step-by-step, we’d have new entrants who could see career progression and have something to work towards.

But that would require the use of a panoramic view and joined-up thinking from government. Oh well, maybe one day. :grimacing:

By the way chaps, this was in the OP and some of us appear to have missed it, so I’ll make it a bit bigger:

instructorone:
Please post all comments about this, giving permissions or not at your earliest opprotunity please.

instructorone may use my comments in a meeting with any MP of his choosing. :smiley:

I voted No, but mainly because we have a glut of unemployed drivers looking for work and adding more drivers to the pool of redundant truckers will only serve to depress wages further and keep people out of work longer, also I dont think the typical 18yr old lad could be trusted with a laden truck on the U.Ks busy roads. You need alot of “roadsense” to keep out of trouble and I believe a few years behind the wheel of a car would be must safer for everyone than being able to drive an HGV after 1 year of motoring. If I started driving a lorry aged 18 im sure I would have killed myself.

Of course theres nothing stopping a 40 yr old taking a car test and then an HGV test the following week but you then have maturity on your side.

Just my opinion! you may publish it if you wish…

I voted no for the reasons given by Lankytim, Rocky and others. There’s nothing that can teach you experience, and if you go out as a mate with a sensible driver that’s been doing it a few years, you can see an awful lot that goes on, not only on the road, but in yards / factories, etc.
I had the advantage of going out with me old Dad when I was a kid, and by the time I was old enough to get a licence, I was better than some blokes who’d been doing it a while. Not just the driving, but loading, securing and protecting the load, etc, and looking after the lorry. I don’t drive anymore, but I see young blokes here in artics and rigids that are revving the crap outa their engines, whacking the clutch in and generally trying to drive them like sports cars. I know there’re people that have been driving for years and still wonder why they break half shafts, burn out clutches and so on, but we’ll always have people that’ll never learn. However, a year or so with another driver once you’re 21, can teach you a great deal.

I voted No due to when i was 18 like most young lads today i was a boy racer bombing round the country at speeds god only knows how i,m still here.My point is i think you should give young lads the chance to be young lads get all the agression and boy racer stage out of there system before even think of giving em a 44tonne killing machine.I do think that they should have to get there license through about a 3 year training period so by 21 its a full hgv 1 license once they been with fully qualified drivers who they can watch and be taught the job from a day to day persective.

I,m now 32 still only young and once i got into my 20,s i slowed down and plus i became a dad which really brought it all home, that theres kids in cars we are all driving behind etc out on the roads,to be honest i really wouldnt like to think an 18 year old was driving a artic when my wife and children was out driving too,but thats just my take on things.

fozzie:
army lads do it with no problems i did my test at 17 in the army had no problems :wink:
probably would be better if they had more training though

army driving is completly different than civvy driving, the army has discipline where as some lil kid whos just passed his c+e will think hes king of trhe world and untouchable…untill he crashes.

I voted yes with restrictions, IMO a maximum of class 2 entitlement should be imposed until they’re 21 then they can gain the class one entitlement, that way they’ll be able to build up their driving skills rather than being thrown in at the deep end.

Also by allowing 18 year olds to get experience of driving a hgv I think it will make them better drivers and have respect for trucks on the road, so hopefully we’ll have less numptys on the road that drive like maniacs and think it’s ok to cut up a 40 ton motor :confused:

Nothing to do with age - just manner and attitude

This will sound like an excellent idea (i.e. inexpensive governmental kick in the goolies for LGV drivers) until some bright spark with 3 days experience wipes out a family whilst chattin’ to his bird or turning left over the footpath. An 18 yr old with less than a year in a car is totally unsuited to piloting 44 tonnes, especially if he takes his test unladen. As for insurance, ha! Imagine the TM at wages time. “Look, we’ve given you a job but the insurance premium has doubled so there’s no money for a pay rise, for you or the rest of the drivers!”
There’s a point. At 18 yrs old will they be expected to work for the minimum wage?

i’d think twice about leaving an 18 year old in charge of a sack barrow! I know this because I was one once! This industry has an image problem as it is and spotty herberts in 44 Tonners with big bore exhausts ain’t gonna help! There isn’t any shortage of drivers, never has been but the magazines are still full of adverts from training schools wanting to part the unwary from their hard earned cash and how more naive can you get than an 18 year old having wet dreams about getting his sweaty little mitts on a biggun?

There’s no crime in touting for business instructorone, sometimes I think there should be. Feel free to use my comments!

:stuck_out_tongue:

The Dsa in there wisdom have stated that more accidents are caused by younger drivers so they feel the car test should become harder.

So in there wisdom they drop the age of LGV driving to 18 .

Does this make any sense ?

instructorone:
‘… I … need to ask professional LGV drivers their unbiased opinion on 18 year olds driving artics…’

I’m wondering what is wrong with having bias? Surely it represents opinion needed to achieve overall objectivity of an issue?

Anyway, why should the chance of achieving/proving an accountable quality of learning for (& passing a) test be restricted to those achieving little more than the arguable nonsense of an often meaningless numerical quantity? I was still as stupid at 30 as I had been at 18.

However, are we shying from a reality whereby those able to submit to test at age 18 are most likely to be socially/financially advantaged, ie, have a rich mater & pater - which might upset some seeing similar disadvantage nobbling kids from the humble mainstream?

gogzy:

fozzie:
army lads do it with no problems i did my test at 17 in the army had no problems :wink:
probably would be better if they had more training though

army driving is completly different than civvy driving, the army has discipline where as some lil kid whos just passed his c+e will think hes **king of trhe world and untouchable…**untill he crashes.

everyone i knew in the army thought they were this :laughing: :laughing: :wink:
i know what ya mean though :wink: