Motor car drivers to be allowed to drive trucks

To balance off the traffic increases, anyone remember just how awful the 7.5 tonners of yor were.
Sat on a set of Michelins in a D707 i’ve had full oversteer slides on wet urban motorway bends below 40mph, particularly the M8, appalling levels of braking performance from the drum brakes even if air assisted, not as you’d be chucking the anchors on because ABS hadn’t been considered on such vehicles and the aforesaid lack of wet grip guaranteed a full lock up if you didn’t brake carefully.
No power steering added to the joy, flat out at something around 55mph, which was an improvement on the previous D300 which managed 48mph tops.

Handling was much improved when Ford introduced the A series, which had a raised Transit cab and was a much more refined riding/handling vehicle, sadly the one i had was saddled with the York 2.4 4cyl Diesel with no turbo, i can tell you without fear of contradiction running at any weigfht up to its 7.5 ton max was a grim task, there was an option of a 6cyl version of the same engine which was obviously better but a rare option ordered.

In comparison the modern light lorry is even more car like than the larger vehicles that will still require a full hgv licence to drive, i really can’t see this being the thin end of the wedge where HGV licencing is gradually removed as a necessity to drive one.
We’ve all seen just how rapidly the Royal Mail light trucks can cover ground, seemingly wet weather making no difference to the speed they can take wet corners.

I think it would be a good thing to ease the restrictions off and let those that passed their car test after 97 enjoy the same as those of previous test passes, it would be easy enough for a mandatory short familiarisation training period with a recognised training school to be a requirement before the licence would be upgraded.
The bonus for those thinking of going full size HGV driving is they could step gently into the world of lorries and see if it’s really for them before blowing some £3k+ on a full HGV licence whence they find they detest the job, as so many here admit they do.