ERF ECX:
First and foremost, my heart goes out to the families who lost their loved ones , but also that poor kid must be going through hell aswell.
When he set out that morning he had no idea the day would end as it did, and until the vehicle he was driving has had a thorough examination and results made public then no blame can be apportioned.
Modern vehicles are easier to drive and control than their counterparts of twenty years ago technology really has come on in leaps and bounds since then. How ever I feel that lowering the age limit to 18 to obtain an LGV licence is a wrong move, as is allowing the test to be taken in a vehicle with an automated transmission. I assume the line of thought is most people can drive a manual car so if they do encounter a truck equipped with manual gearbox at same stage in their career they will be able to handle it.
Well as we all know stopping a fully laden truck be it a rigid or artic is a lot different to to stopping the average car and this ethos as mentioned earlier of “gears for going” “brakes for slowing” is also wrong.
My nephew passed his test a few years back and when he came out with me in a truck with manual transmission as I approached a roundabout and slowed to drop a couple of gears he asked what I was doing?
He then told me that they no longer taught this practice in training, and also the gear changing exercise was scrapped also.
I personally think auto boxes in trucks are the worst thing to be introduced to the industry and while some drivers may think they’re the best thing since sliced bread there are many who loathe them. I see drivers roaring up to roundabouts throw everything on at the last minute and generally have no respect for the size of vehicle they’re in control of.
Aspects of the LGV test need addressing for sure, the industry is desperate for new blood but at what cost?
Yes, yes, a thousand times YES. There’s no substitute for experience and in road haulage that experience MUST be gained by starting from the bottom rung of the ladder and gradually working your way up. That’s how I started. To give an 18/19 year old a big motor and say “off you go” is wrong IMO
The post in question seemed to rightly mainly be referring to the flaws in the training regime not just driver age.
So where’s the difference in what age anyone happens to be on their first day on whichever type because at that point they are all as inexperienced as each other regardless of age and regardless of type of wagon.IE it makes no difference wether someone is 21 or under when they first drive a wagon and drag or an artic or 25-30 +.
While the fact is the basic function of slowing down a heavy truck,wether on the approach to a roundabout etc,or down a steep hill,needs to be instinctively programmed into a driver’s mindset at the instruction stage and they won’t do that that by filling their heads with the idea of brakes to slow gears to go or training them to just auto box,or even synchro box,use standard.While in an ideal world that instruction needs to be carried out with a max weight loaded vehicle.
Given that criterea let me guess under your ideas it would be better to put a 25 year old out on his first day on an artic who’d been trained to the old standard than an 18+21 year old trained to the new standard.
As for me I went from passing my test a few weeks after my 21st birthday onto up to 38t gross 6 wheeler fire trucks.Then after that 5 years of mostly driving a 4 wheeler Clydesdale on the council because of my lack of so called ‘experience’.
Guess which one was more difficult to stop. Bearing in mind in the case of the Clydesdale loaded with a dozer going down Reigate Hill and bearing in mind that a decent 5-6 axle drawbar outfit could have hauled two with more braking capacity.
The first HGV I drove in 1972 was a Bedford TK pantechnicon loaded to the roof. It rolled on cambers and the A75 was a nightmare where the bends were designed for speed and Bedfords weren’t.
It taught me much about the way a loaded vehicle behaves and leaf springs give you much more warning of roll than air suspension. I therefore take all bends and roundabouts with caution and have kept out of trouble by doing so.
Perhaps if the driver training and test were carried out with a laden vehicle it would help the driver get the proper feel of things.
ERF ECX:
First and foremost, my heart goes out to the families who lost their loved ones , but also that poor kid must be going through hell aswell.
When he set out that morning he had no idea the day would end as it did, and until the vehicle he was driving has had a thorough examination and results made public then no blame can be apportioned.
Modern vehicles are easier to drive and control than their counterparts of twenty years ago technology really has come on in leaps and bounds since then. How ever I feel that lowering the age limit to 18 to obtain an LGV licence is a wrong move, as is allowing the test to be taken in a vehicle with an automated transmission. I assume the line of thought is most people can drive a manual car so if they do encounter a truck equipped with manual gearbox at same stage in their career they will be able to handle it.
Well as we all know stopping a fully laden truck be it a rigid or artic is a lot different to to stopping the average car and this ethos as mentioned earlier of “gears for going” “brakes for slowing” is also wrong.
My nephew passed his test a few years back and when he came out with me in a truck with manual transmission as I approached a roundabout and slowed to drop a couple of gears he asked what I was doing?
He then told me that they no longer taught this practice in training, and also the gear changing exercise was scrapped also.
I personally think auto boxes in trucks are the worst thing to be introduced to the industry and while some drivers may think they’re the best thing since sliced bread there are many who loathe them. I see drivers roaring up to roundabouts throw everything on at the last minute and generally have no respect for the size of vehicle they’re in control of.
Aspects of the LGV test need addressing for sure, the industry is desperate for new blood but at what cost?
Yes, yes, a thousand times YES. There’s no substitute for experience and in road haulage that experience MUST be gained by starting from the bottom rung of the ladder and gradually working your way up. That’s how I started. To give an 18/19 year old a big motor and say “off you go” is wrong IMO
The post in question seemed to rightly mainly be referring to the flaws in the training regime not just driver age.
So where’s the difference in what age anyone happens to be on their first day on whichever type because at that point they are all as inexperienced as each other regardless of age and regardless of type of wagon.IE it makes no difference wether someone is 21 or under when they first drive a wagon and drag or an artic or 25-30 +.
While the fact is the basic function of slowing down a heavy truck,wether on the approach to a roundabout etc,or down a steep hill,needs to be instinctively programmed into a driver’s mindset at the instruction stage and they won’t do that that by filling their heads with the idea of brakes to slow gears to go or training them to just auto box,or even synchro box,use standard.While in an ideal world that instruction needs to be carried out with a max weight loaded vehicle.
Given that criterea let me guess under your ideas it would be better to put a 25 year old out on his first day on an artic who’d been trained to the old standard than an 18+21 year old trained to the new standard.
As for me I went from passing my test a few weeks after my 21st birthday onto up to 38t gross 6 wheeler fire trucks.Then after that 5 years of mostly driving a 4 wheeler Clydesdale on the council because of my lack of so called ‘experience’.Guess which one was more difficult to stop loaded with a dozer going down Reigate Hill.
My feeling is that you’re better learning to drive on something smaller, so that you gather some experience and road sense, before climbing aboard a loaded artic. I think that applies whatever age you are. After all, nobody learns to fly in a 747.
I too drove Bedford TK’s from the age of 20 at 14 ton gross, and they were hard work to drive,as waddy640 says,a lot of body roll when loaded, and the one’s I drove were at 14 ton gross, which doesn’t sound much these days. Those lorries only had servo assisted brakes, so you had to know how to drive them .
Previously I had driven BMC FG’s which were under powered and overloaded.
Running away on hills was a common occurrence in the 1950’s and 60’s,and not much better in the late 60’s when I started on tippers.
It was a terrible tragedy that happened in Bath, but as I and others have stated, accidents by the law of averages will happen.
RIP to the people who lost their lives.
John West:
My feeling is that you’re better learning to drive on something smaller, so that you gather some experience and road sense, before climbing aboard a loaded artic. I think that applies whatever age you are. After all, nobody learns to fly in a 747.
John
Firstly aircraft pilot training is done on a system of basic training for all then on type.In which case someone who is younger could be qualified to fly a 747 whereas someone who is older could only be qualified to fly something different which might well be smaller.While trucks are really just a case of rigid,drawbar or artic.The method of slowing them,which is what matters in terms of the issues related to the OP’s comments,will be the same in all cases.Possibly more difficult in the case of smaller vehicles with less axles and less engine braking capacity and easier in the case of heavier ones with more capacity in that regard.While from a training point of view,unlike aircraft,the issue of basic training and type training is combined in truck driver basic training.Which as I said then means the same for all regardless of age in gaining ‘experience’ on type which is just a matter of doing the job regardless of age.
There are some very sensible and good points being made and I think most of us agree that the modern truck gives the driver a sense of false security unless that driver has sufficient skill, knowledge, and experience.
Yes I think they do, give me a twin splitter any day! Uses less fuel in my opinion and a much better drive if you know how to use them.
Very soon we will be the dying breed that have driven a manual lorry and I feel we have seen seen the best days of driving go for good when the auto’ box was introduced a good ten years ago.
One other thing to be taken into consideration is the amount of physical work now involved in driving a lorry.
Everything is power assisted and those controls that we do have to do more than to push a switch are fingertip light now. We also have a lot of through the back door loading/unloading, flat trailers are almost non existent, tippers have remote tailboards and automatic sheeting systems.
It used to be that a lorry driver would have a decent pair of shoulders, my old mum could easily drive any of today’s lorries.
Oh, and by the way, I drive the new 14.6m semi trailers in double deck configuration for Royal Mail and let me tell you they drive great when empty but put 10 ton on the top deck you open a whole new can of worms. They stick to the road like glue and follow you around roundabouts like a rigid but over cook it even slightly and the back end kicks out and the lean over is awful.
Who would have thought these trailers would exist twenty years ago.
However we rarely load the trailer to full weight and we are VERY careful that we load the heavy stuff on the bottom deck and the roll cages are all locked and strapped according to the load plan clearly labelled on the side of the trailer by the back door.
Our training, however, consisted of a two hour drive around the city centre, empty, and a whole load of paperwork to sign, not good enough in my view but it did count as a module for my CPC.
The tractor units are good but I NEVER use the cruise control as it sends me to sleep and like I said in the previous post, give me a twin splitter any day over an auto’.
The exhaust brake is ok if you know how to use it properly, by manually knocking the engine down a gear or two which you can do on the stalk and thinking ahead.
I agree with many of the points made above, I have many friends who have and do work at M.I.R.A. ( Moter industry research association ) and many of them have said the same thing, that is that development safety and otherwise is walking a very fine line. The losing of the" feel " of a vehicle can have an adverse effect on both safety and eficientcy eg, If you are in a moter that is warm quiet and comfortable and it is below freezing outside it can give you a false feeling of security (you only have to see people up another moters arse in bad conditions ) couple this to the fact that because the road looks ok dry ect and you have a recipes for problems. Its no good having a little light on the dash warning of ice when half the people dont know what it means. How many car drivers or for that matter truck drivers have read the manual that comes with the vehicle ? not many I cant say i have,add to this a lack of basic mechanics ,how can you drive something when you dont know whats happening under the bonnet ? Put an Auto in it now you only have to select drive put your foot on the pedal and go. I dont say that we go back to the days when you knew it was icy because you hadnt got a heater but you see my point. Cars and Trucks have come a long way in the last 30/40 years and many more developments are in the pipeline but at what cost? as my friends have said the point is very close to being reached were safety can be compromised . People believe the the hype when they are sold a car and as a result if they by a car that has a safety feature that applies the brakes if you try and drive it into a wall they take it as read it dosent make them a better driver. I feel for that young lad and the people involved in the tragic accident, a week ago he stood proud as punch having passed his test, now with his face plastered all over the media ( I hope the person who was quick to provide the picture gets piles and is made to sit on a plastic seat for eternity ) and facing charges and having to live with the enormity of what happened , the industry would be better off providing better hands on training instead of the dcpc shi…e we have now. Older hands had the advantage of having had to drive older tackle which required a different style of driveing you learnt to drive looking ahead ( not 20yds in front ) brakes were used as a last resort . A new generation of drivers are never going to get the chance to experience what the older drivers on here have and unfortunately because a lot of the old hands have had enough and are packing it in a lot of the skills and knowledge are never going to be passed on.
One of the best things I ever did was to attend a course that was made available to the public by Lancashire Constabulary Police Driving School at Hutton, near Preston forty years ago. It was one evening a week for 6 weeks consisting of classroom tuition and discussion and then about an hour with 3 “pupils” and a police driver in an unmarked police car. Each pupil had about 20 minutes behind the wheel and it did include motorway driving, (let it go, ignore the speed limit we were told!). The Police driving instruction manual was “Roadcraft” and it was a very useful and informative 6 evenings, stressing safe driving techniques, anticipation of hazards and other drivers, but perhaps above all drive according to what you see well in front of you, not just 20 yards ahead. I also did an advanced driving course but the police instruction was the better of the two by far. It also gave me a respect for the skills of a properly trained Traffic Police Officer, which there seemed to be far more of in those days, rather than the “plastic police” VOSA drivers we mainly have nowadays.
gingerfold:
One of the best things I ever did was to attend a course that was made available to the public by Lancashire Constabulary Police Driving School at Hutton, near Preston forty years ago. It was one evening a week for 6 weeks consisting of classroom tuition and discussion and then about an hour with 3 “pupils” and a police driver in an unmarked police car. Each pupil had about 20 minutes behind the wheel and it did include motorway driving, (let it go, ignore the speed limit we were told!). The Police driving instruction manual was “Roadcraft” and it was a very useful and informative 6 evenings, stressing safe driving techniques, anticipation of hazards and other drivers, but perhaps above all drive according to what you see well in front of you, not just 20 yards ahead. I also did an advanced driving course but the police instruction was the better of the two by far. It also gave me a respect for the skills of a properly trained Traffic Police Officer, which there seemed to be far more of in those days, rather than the “plastic police” VOSA drivers we mainly have nowadays.
Ironically the idea of brakes to slow gears to go that many of us who know better are complaining about actually comes from that book.Yes the police drivers are good but in general it was widely accepted that a decent ‘wheelman’ trained in the finer points of race driving techniques of sequential downshifts to save the brakes amongst others could outrun the best coppers.Probably because police driver training is based on the idea of compromise in that regard to get the required pass rate.
Don’t forget CF I’m writing about something from 40 years ago and Roadcraft will have been revised umpteen times since then to reflect “modern thinking and ideas”. I clearly recall that even with a car back then the Police Driving Instructors did teach using a combination of gears and brakes to slow down, which I am in 100% agreement with you about. The other pieces of advice that I still follow to this day is awareness, and anticipation, looking far ahead, and driving to what I can see. These traits, I’m afraid, seem to be totally lacking with many drivers today, irrespective of what type of vehicle they are driving. Even now, all these years after the course I will be mentally telling myself what I can see hundreds of yards ahead. When whoever was driving the police car they had to provide a running commentry of what they could see ahead, such as pedestrians, children, cyclists, buses. etc. etc.
Like many others on here I will not profess to be a brilliant driver, but I like to think that I CAN drive and I know what’s going on around me and my vehicle. I do firmly believe that the Police course all those years ago did make me a better and safer road user, and much of what I learned was equally appicable to lorry driving, which I was doing at the time.
gingerfold:
Don’t forget CF I’m writing about something from 40 years ago and Roadcraft will have been revised umpteen times since then to reflect “modern thinking and ideas”. I clearly recall that even with a car back then the Police Driving Instructors did teach using a combination of gears and brakes to slow down, which I am in 100% agreement with you about.
Thanks for that information gingerfold.At that point in time I hadn’t started driving being only 16.
I can confirm that Roadcraft ( the basic system as they called it ),as of when I did my class 2 in 1980,certainly was based on the idea of brakes to slow gears to go and which was certainly a major point of contention between myself and most of my instructors with a few old school exceptions.
Although strangely I drove on my car test in 1976 having been taught to drive by my dad and class 2 in '80 and class 1 in '85 ( having defied most of ) my instructors,on the basis of using gears to slow and never had any problems with the examiners accepting it in all cases even to the point of a compliment regards same in the case of my class 1.
If anyone has watched some of the recent new series programmes of Top Gear, like me, you would probably have been appalled by the “three stooges” and their suggestion that the car braking distance from 70 mph specified in the Highway Code is unrealistic for modern cars. They had calculated that a car travelling at 112 mph could stop in the 70 mph distance. Whilst I personally don’t take anything on Top Gear seriously, I think that it is highly irresponsible for a mainstream TV programme to propogate such ideas. Again, it is encouraging drivers to be completely reliant on their brakes.
gingerfold:
If anyone has watched some of the recent new series programmes of Top Gear, like me, you would probably have been appalled by the “three stooges” and their suggestion that the car braking distance from 70 mph specified in the Highway Code is unrealistic for modern cars. They had calculated that a car travelling at 112 mph could stop in the 70 mph distance. Whilst I personally don’t take anything on Top Gear seriously, I think that it is highly irresponsible for a mainstream TV programme to propogate such ideas. Again, it is encouraging drivers to be completely reliant on their brakes.
To be fair I’d guess they’re only referring to a one off emergency stop within design limits.I’d expect that even Clarkson would admit that it doesn’t matter how good even supercar/race car brakes are they’ll cook like all the rest given enough heavy applications.While in the case of trucks it is the massive amounts of energy contained in the inertia of the massively larger weights that reduces their braking design limits.IE slowing/stopping a heavy truck from 50 mph + on the flat,let alone holding it to 20 mph on a steep hill,involves getting rid of a lot more energy than stopping a 1.5 t car from 100 mph +.Even allowing for the best case truck axle/weight scenario like a 6 axle 44 tonner.As opposed to a 4 axle 32 tonner or two axle 18 tonner.
bazstan009:
Thing is, if the comfort and techno aids are so bad would this not show up in per mile accident stats?
In the case of stopping power in addition to service brakes I don’t think that any current technology could be considered as too much.Also there’s nothing really modern about a Jake brake or Retarder and both are still about as good as it gets.The only real problems as I can see is not enough operator speccing of such technology and a driver training regime that institutionally teaches the avoidance of the use of engine braking wherever possible.Which firstly totally defeats the object of the former anyway while also reducing the object of the latter which is still meant to be used with engine braking and/or to facilitate better use of engine braking in addition.Ironically something like I shift would probably be better in that situation being that it actually defies current driver training in that regard.While ironically same also removes the driver skill set in the case of controlling a vehicle properly.
As it stands I’d suggest that on balance the results of the dumbing down of driver skills are being hidden by the extra margins provided by things like 6 axled vehicles with more braking capacity v weight and easy motorway running.As we are seeing things get a bit more grey when routing goes away from motorways or in motorway conditions where the type of skills in the anticipation levels required to drive a heavy vehicle safely are often found wanting.
There being no substitute for a proper manual constant mesh box and a proper Jake brake in providing the combination of a truck which ‘makes’ a driver drive properly and which will help to slow a truck down properly when asked to do so.
bazstan009:
Thing is, if the comfort and techno aids are so bad would this not show up in per mile accident stats?
In the case of stopping power in addition to service brakes I don’t think that any current technology could be considered as too much.Also there’s nothing really modern about a Jake brake or Retarder and both are still about as good as it gets.The only real problems as I can see is not enough operator speccing of such technology and a driver training regime that institutionally teaches the avoidance of the use of engine braking wherever possible.Which firstly totally defeats the object of the former anyway while also reducing the object of the latter which is still meant to be used with engine braking and/or to facilitate better use of engine braking in addition.Ironically something like I shift would probably be better in that situation being that it actually defies current driver training in that regard.While ironically same also removes the driver skill set in the case of controlling a vehicle properly.
As it stands I’d suggest that on balance the results of the dumbing down of driver skills are being hidden by the extra margins provided by things like 6 axled vehicles with more braking capacity v weight and easy motorway running.As we are seeing things get a bit more grey when routing goes away from motorways or in motorway conditions where the type of skills in the anticipation levels required to drive a heavy vehicle safely are often found wanting.
There being no substitute for a proper manual constant mesh box and a proper Jake brake in providing the combination of a truck which ‘makes’ a driver drive properly and which will help to slow a truck down properly when asked to do so. :idea:
