18 year old lgv drivers

Joshh:
To be honest, i think it’s a great opportunity.
Only the sensible 18 year olds that know what they want and will fork out all the money for the licence will do it so really theres not going to be any fools on the road?
Plus how many 18 year olds are going to get jobs as lorry drivers straight away? but instead have gained there licence at a younger age there for can get more experience.
You probably will all disagree but why not give them a chance, it’s nothing to do with age more to do with attitude towards the trade your going to need to stand out by a mile to even get a interview between 18 and 21 so no company is going to employ a fool anyway.
I’m 15 and i have wanted to be a driver ever since going in a wagon for my first time, it’s what i want. And now that i can gain my licence at a much younger age i am happy.
:smiley:

The problem is in the real world once you get started Joshh you’ll find that there’s a catch 22 which has always been there in which getting that licence at an early age won’t always get you that experience which you need.You’ll run up against that old no experience no job too often just like I did as soon as I went into haulage from factory testing and transport while I was still 21.The real sickener comes when you see younger blokes in the industry who started much later out there running international work because they’ve been lucky enough to get the breaks while you don’t.In that scenario it’s quite possible that you could find yourself still doing local multi drop or UK trunking with anything from an artic to a 4 wheeler when you’re 30 while someone of 28 who passed the test at an older age gets international with a top grade wagon.Sometimes that can happen in the case of those trained army drivers or people coming from other industries who never had any intention of getting into the industry at the age which we both did or even at all.They just get the free training from the forces or the jobcentre and sometimes then just get very lucky.If not then you’ll also run into the issues of seniority in which old drivers don’t like giving way to younger ones when it comes to the best versus worst types of work and trucks.Anyway I’m not one of those who disagree take every opportunity you can and hopefully you’ll find a decent firm that will take an open minded view of taking on new younger drivers.But as I remember it the young drivers training scheme operated by the RTITB at the time was there even when I left school in 1975 and that would have also allowed me to get a class 1 before I was 21.It just might have made a slight difference in helping me find a better career path in the industry than the one I was dealt but I doubt it though.