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
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
Money wise a lot cheaper then being an owner driver. Less red tape by miles.
From memory on previous threads on this discussion so don’t take it as gospel.:
No TM CPC required.
No actual training legally required.
No O licence required.
No 6-13 week periodic maintenance required.
To name a few things.
But getting enough work and gaining a decent reputation in any type of business is the hard bit.
Not to mention area you live and competition and prices you can charge compared to others.
I might be out of date,but its not so simple as no training etc etc. When I was working our Driving Assessors had to go through training and a driving test to qualify as Instructors.
As for vehicle requirements I would think there would be the usual things like Insurance etc etc and third party business Insurance
Sure there must be guidelines somewhere on a ministry site.
Or go down the DSVA driving test examiner route for a couple of years to get the feel for the sector in your area, they’ll provide you with all the training etc
We have a wealth of member (singular) here who often proclaims his training prowess, if you can find him, figure out what name he’s going by today then just maybe you can pick his brain cell.
Any decent training company with have properly qualified instructors. I would think very carefully because it ain’t for a lot of people. Apart from needing to have a high degree of patience you are required to be very concise when delivering any form of training if you want good consistent results.
the maoster:
We have a wealth of member (singular) here who often proclaims his training prowess, if you can find him, figure out what name he’s going by today then just maybe you can pick his brain cell.
And as if by magic… 
peirre:
Or go down the DSVA driving test examiner route for a couple of years to get the feel for the sector in your area, they’ll provide you with all the training etc
Interesting idea but will it lead to becoming a qualified instructor rather than examiner? No offense to the DVSA HGV people but noone of them look like they’ve ever done any on the road driving. They just look like chaps with HGV licenses who judge other people on their driving following a simple check list of this and that. Where as an instructor’s role is to teach people how to actually get things done (albeit the DVSA way again…) and not just give out instructions, I mean a totally different sort of training would be needed for the 2 roles.
In fact look what I found on the dvla itself:
You must have had a large goods vehicle (LGV) driving licence for at least 3 years to supervise a learner driver.
You don’t need to take formal training or to be registered to teach someone to drive an LGV.
You can ‘‘voluntarily’’ register as ‘’
Register as an instructor voluntarily
You can apply to join either the:
national register of LGV instructors - it’s endorsed by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA)
national vocational driving instructors register
‘’
for a humble fee of £600 for the exam
ETS:
No offense to the DVSA HGV people but noone of them look like they’ve ever done any on the road driving.
You mean, they don’t look bitter, haggered, angry, old, overweight, and depressed? 
rtitb.com/4-reasons-to-have … nstructor/
Although I doubt you are really interested ETS here is a little insight into becoming an LGV instructor.
I did part of my LGV instructor training through RTITB many years ago and at the time it was invaluable
although it was by no means easy.
ezydriver:
ETS:
No offense to the DVSA HGV people but noone of them look like they’ve ever done any on the road driving.You mean, they don’t look bitter, haggered, angry, old, overweight, and depressed?
Yeah they look and talk like robots who spend half their week in an office behind a desk burried under A4 sheets and the other half being driven around by candidates. Honestly this was the most stressful part of the exam meeting my examiner and hearind those dreadful words ‘How would you prefer me to address you’ and ‘Take me to your vehicle’. I met quite a few of them too by the time i finally passed (don’t ask…)
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?
As I mentioned earlier there is no legal requirement to be trained or registered as an LGV instructor.
As also mentioned there are 2 voluntary instructor registers that you can join subject to the requirements to join.
So yes you could set up tomorrow quite easily. But as also said most decent professional companies have fully trained and registered instructors.
Also as above good advice again in terms of where you would park the truck, where you would do reverse exercises, have you ever trained other people before.
Even with doing a training course and registering the set up costs would be cheaper and less red tape than being an owner operator.
Speak to a decent provider and they will give the full low down on it all. Either Peter Smythes or any other reputable training company.
simcor:
Speak to a decent provider and they will give the full low down on it all. Either Peter Smythes or any other reputable training company.
Just lol if you think those companies will tell you anything positive, they will say its a sinking shop blah blah, cause your basically competition, well this is pretty much with everything owner driver related no one will share/tell you how much there getting paid and if the load is light or w.e
best advice just do it, and use your brain worst case scenario you can sell the truck back on ebay and lose a couple of 100
TruckDriverBen:
simcor:
Speak to a decent provider and they will give the full low down on it all. Either Peter Smythes or any other reputable training company.Just lol if you think those companies will tell you anything positive, they will say its a sinking shop blah blah, cause your basically competition, well this is pretty much with everything owner driver related no one will share/tell you how much there getting paid and if the load is light or w.e
best advice just do it, and use your brain worst case scenario you can sell the truck back on ebay and lose a couple of 100
A decent provider will give you all the information you need to become an instructor. Most decent training providers offers driver instruction training, so it’s in their interest to get you to train with them to become a trained and registered instructor.
Peter Smythe has often given out the information on what is and isn’t required to be an instructor on here free of charge when it’s come up before.
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
If you give us a call next week I will be more than happy to take you through everything and talk to you about the NVDIR training we offer. You don’t need this of course, but it would mean your training would be at a better standard and would enable you to give your candidate the correct training to pass their driving test. Just call 01623620062 and ask for Paul
just Remember a lot of these kids will drive ( loosely worded ) like they drove there Saxo, corsa vxr , believe it or not most new starters were put with me as I was deemed to be a sensible driver , I did it for a while but some frightened the bloody living daylights out of me , there’s a tight turn on 617 before Newark with a Barrier on the left , with a 20 mph limit , or a sensible speed , but no they didn’t even slow , or not much & the last one was on the wrong side of the road , I refused to take any one out after that .
How someone could do that every day I don’t know , I value my life too much
You make a good point dozy and I can understand your feelings however as an assessor of new drivers there needs to some form of control to keep you safe and free from anxiety.
I don’t blame you for not wanting to take anymore out and in reality the company know you are doing it for nothing but nothing actually changes. You got scared to death and the new driver carries on
not knowing any better or thinking you are talking rubbish.
This is why regular assessments should be carried out (by a qualified person) not only on new drivers but also on experienced drivers.
Unfortunately drivers gain bad habits and become complacent about a variety of driving methods without even realising which can eventually lead to an accident.
the maoster:
We have a wealth of member (singular) here who often proclaims his training prowess, if you can find him, figure out what name he’s going by today then just maybe you can pick his brain cell.
Like button please
Dizy makes a good point there - remrmber you don’t usually have dual controls on a truck and not everyone will take notice of what you say. It’s probably a good idea to get proper training even if not required as there are certain things you might not think of, eg: never say “straight over at the roundabout” incase they take it literally.
That A617 bit would be a good type of road to test people on more than the inner town ones as theres loads of hazards and potential for real world problems vs Maple and her mobility scooter. Bet the candidates didn’t slow for the narrow bridge there either!