ETS:
I’m thinking of maybe one day retiring from active driving and becoming an HGV instructor. Anyone familiar with the route/requirements for that? How much easier/harder would it be than going into the transport business for yourself, in terms of red tape, money required to set up
Are you talking about working as an instructor or setting up on your own? I’d suggest you might want to try the former before embarking on the latter, get a practical idea of how much can be involved in the task of training.
Here’s a few things to consider:
Are you “a people person”? Can you tolerate the company of folk who are a PITA without losing your rag? Are you renowned for being a patient guy?
Do you have any experience of teaching anyone anything? If so, did you actually enjoy the teaching process?
How would you finance it? You got a big stash or would you be borrowing? If the latter how would you cope with stuff like Covid? Some companies scraped by doing online DCPC until the lockdowns were over.
Most truck trainers also offer DCPC and ADR (and other classroom stuff), would you be planning on competing on that level?
What about teaching and examining Mod 4? If you are your own examiner you need someone else to teach it and vice versa
Who’s going to look after your Admin and bookings?
Are you going provide a start-to-finish package for your trainees? App form, medical, provisional, theory study material with monitoring and mentoring, arranging tests etc.
Just like being an owner-driver is more about running a business than it is driving a truck, being an HGV instuctor is more about the instructing than it is about the HGV.
If you were anywhere near me (Tyne-Wear-Tees) I could suggest a truck trainer who might potentially be amenable to giving you a bit of experience at some point in the future, assuming things ever do return to anything remotely like normality.
EDIT: Forgot to include, where will you park the truck? Do you have access to somewhere to do your manoeuvering?