Anyone think that the old school driver was “born” into the game.
By that l mean his father was probably a driver, he’d go out in the shool holidays, learning to load, rope and sheet, after school he was either in the workshops, working on the wagons and trailers learning how everything worked, shunting them in and out the garage, parking them up the yard, or maybe a drivers mate and having a turn at the wheel, again learning how reverse them etc, by the time they were 18 / 19 they could maintain them, rope and sheet 'em and reverse them in anywhere, and all different types of lorries from 4 / 6 / and 8 wheelers with danglers, to artics with all those different trailers, 4 in line, single / twin / tri axle, low loaders, and perhaps the bigger tractor / ballest wagons. Many will have taken the vans or smaller lorries out, learning the roads, getting the feel of the motors, learning short cuts, like an apprentice. At 21 they were more than ready for the road, and crucially, experienced.
SOME, not all, of today’s drivers are a different breed. They decide driving could earn them a living, pass a test, and become a qualified professional lorry driver… on paper… they are then presented with a powerful 44 ton artic and no experience. I’ve read some of the postings on the “other side” on this forum, and some of the questions asked make you weep, supposedly coming from professional drivers. So I’m not sure that the modern lorries are the problem, in some cases, its the modern driver not coming up through the “apprenticeship”
ParkRoyal2100:
Carryfast:
newmercman:
Saviem touched upon the real issue with modern lorries,To be fair most of the control freak thinking seems to be a continuous ever increasing feature of the EU regulations…While in general the rest of the English speaking world still seems to be able to provide drivers with something closer to a good old school truck at least regards a decent constant mesh manual box and engine brake
Well, not so much. Yes the Yank iron is here with 3 pedals and a lever but much of the rest is European and Japanese. Both the latter have gone pretty much electronics-a-go-go for everything, which is all very well if it works as intended and provided its entire working life requires nothing more than an attendant to press the right levers and buttons. Regrettably - and predictably - the Jap versions of automated manual transmissions are without exception utter crap (the ones I’ve driven anyway).
Take the one I drove today - an Isuzu less than 6 months old, whereas the tired old Hino with 3 pedals and a gear lever I usually drive is well over a decade old. This newfangled thing seemed to me the worst of three worlds:
it’s not a proper manual so I couldn’t skip shift or take off downhill in 3rd (or 4th or whatever), and its “brain” wouldn’t let me go down a cog if it thought it knew better. If I left it to its own devices it would hold high gears way longer than was appropriate.
nor is it a proper automatic with a torque converter and a gear lockout, that (when set up properly) help make the most of an engine’s power and torque characteristics.
nor is it a double-clutch affair, and changes (whether in ‘auto’ setting or me knocking the lever about) took eons.
The run I did today involved climbing quite a few hills out west of Sydney. This new thing trundled up the same hills slower than the old dunger, even though it had less load on, partly because the engine has neither torque nor power in the right places, partly because the gearchange is so woefully slow. And it chewed up more fuel in the process too.
So given all that (and many other things besides, like the fact the engine is so quiet I couldn’t hear what it was doing on a hill - accelerating, holding or slowing down), I have to ask: where’s the progress?
PS don’t start me on the Euro5+ etc. gubbins that ■■■■ up time, power and fuel efficiency (and money), all in the name of an empty gesture (true environmentalists are no more fooled by this nonsense than you lot are).
Which leaves the fact that there is nothing stopping anyone down under from still actually buying that ■■■■■■■ etc powered wagon with an 18 speed fuller because Euro bs regs don’t ‘yet’ apply in the old Brit colonies unlike in the old country itself. 
Meanwhile back here they’ve made sure that no one can have that ■■■■■■■ etc etc/Fuller combination even if they want it.Although they can have a Fuller just so long as it is automated and called Volvo I shift. 
newmercman:
Jack Straw has just been awarded a directorship of a company he helped win a 75million contract by lobbying his mates in Parliament, it’s downright criminal, yet more people will have read and talked about who killed Lucy Beale.
They’ve not finished yet.By all accounts they are going to make a storyline that effectively says if anyone’s young son murders his older sister it’s only right that he should be looked after and told it’s all ok just pretend nothing happened and then when the law stitch up the wrong person for ‘the crime’ don’t worry about it.Which seems to fit the prevailing situation of dodgy dealing politicians taking kick backs to force us into a marriage with ze Germans called the EU to provide us with ‘clean energy’ and trucks that allegedly drive themselves. 
Fergie47:
Anyone think that the old school driver was “born” into the game.
By that l mean his father was probably a driver, he’d go out in the shool holidays, learning to load, rope and sheet, after school he was either in the workshops, working on the wagons and trailers learning how everything worked, shunting them in and out the garage, parking them up the yard, or maybe a drivers mate and having a turn at the wheel, again learning how reverse them etc, by the time they were 18 / 19 they could maintain them, rope and sheet 'em and reverse them in anywhere, and all different types of lorries from 4 / 6 / and 8 wheelers with danglers, to artics with all those different trailers, 4 in line, single / twin / tri axle, low loaders, and perhaps the bigger tractor / ballest wagons. Many will have taken the vans or smaller lorries out, learning the roads, getting the feel of the motors, learning short cuts, like an apprentice. At 21 they were more than ready for the road, and crucially, experienced.
SOME, not all, of today’s drivers are a different breed. They decide driving could earn them a living, pass a test, and become a qualified professional lorry driver… on paper… they are then presented with a powerful 44 ton artic and no experience. I’ve read some of the postings on the “other side” on this forum, and some of the questions asked make you weep, supposedly coming from professional drivers. So I’m not sure that the modern lorries are the problem, in some cases, its the modern driver not coming up through the “apprenticeship”
To be fair ‘some’ of us,who could still be classed as ‘old school’,had a Grandfather who drove horse and carts then moved on to steam wagons but who was long dead when we were born.Who in an ideal world would have been brought up as you described,but who’s father,having rejected his dads job in favour of engineering,was still good enough to drive tank transporters in wartime Europe.But then went back to engineering on being de mobbed and then wanted his son to follow the same job path with the advice don’t be a lorry driver because the job isn’t good enough.Trust me you know you want to do the job when you’ve got all that against you before you even start being rejected by employers saying sorry you don’t have enough ‘experience’.
newmercman:
The yank iron is all going European anyway, Volvo, well say no more, Freightliner and Mercedes Benz are one and the same, the complete driveline is now Daimler. Mack are just rebranded Volvo. Paccar engines and Eaton autoshifts are almost standard in Pete and KW now. The ■■■■■■■ ISX is available as an option in everything but the Mack, but they are dreadfully unreliable and the vertically integrated engines have no Jacobs Brakes, so Geoffrey it looks like you need a time machine mate, the American dream is no more…
It would probably be fair to say that if I was an Oz or NZ buyer I’d still be able to order something with a Detroit and Fuller 18 speed in it and/or something fitted with a jake at least ?. 
Carryfast:
Which leaves the fact that there is nothing stopping anyone down under from still actually buying that ■■■■■■■ etc powered wagon with an 18 speed fuller because Euro bs regs don’t ‘yet’ apply in the old Brit colonies unlike in the old country itself.
newmercman:
The yank iron is all going European anyway, Volvo, well say no more, Freightliner and Mercedes Benz are one and the same, the complete driveline is now Daimler. Mack are just rebranded Volvo. Paccar engines and Eaton autoshifts are almost standard in Pete and KW now. The ■■■■■■■ ISX is available as an option in everything but the Mack, but they are dreadfully unreliable and the vertically integrated engines have no Jacobs Brakes
To be fair to both of you, being as I’m not a buyer myself, I have nfi what someone who has the readies to shell out could buy down here in the Colonies with respect to choice of driveline. I suspect, however, that newmercman is at least partly right in that the new, locally-assembled US stuff is following the European lead with automated shifts and whatnot, if only because parent companies (Paccar, Daimler Trucks, Volvo) want to “rationalise” products sold to differing markets as fas as possible. If anyone on here knows different (Jelliott?) please correct me.
Carryfast - it’s merely a matter of time before the same regs apply here as now do in the EU. From what I see around eastern New South Wales, every new wagon (no matter whether light, medium or heavyweight, or what the maker’s nationality) is at least Euro5 compliant. Government and transport authority regs are one thing, but to my mind the much more pervasive and persuasive influence is multinational heavy vehicle makers wanting to rationalise what they offer to diverse parts of the world.
Fergie47:
Anyone think that the old school driver was “born” into the game.
By that l mean his father was probably a driver, he’d go out in the shool holidays, learning to load, rope and sheet, after school he was either in the workshops, working on the wagons and trailers learning how everything worked, shunting them in and out the garage, parking them up the yard, or maybe a drivers mate and having a turn at the wheel, again learning how reverse them etc, by the time they were 18 / 19 they could maintain them, rope and sheet 'em and reverse them in anywhere, and all different types of lorries from 4 / 6 / and 8 wheelers with danglers, to artics with all those different trailers, 4 in line, single / twin / tri axle, low loaders, and perhaps the bigger tractor / ballest wagons. Many will have taken the vans or smaller lorries out, learning the roads, getting the feel of the motors, learning short cuts, like an apprentice. At 21 they were more than ready for the road, and crucially, experienced.
SOME, not all, of today’s drivers are a different breed. They decide driving could earn them a living, pass a test, and become a qualified professional lorry driver… on paper… they are then presented with a powerful 44 ton artic and no experience. I’ve read some of the postings on the “other side” on this forum, and some of the questions asked make you weep, supposedly coming from professional drivers. So I’m not sure that the modern lorries are the problem, in some cases, its the modern driver not coming up through the “apprenticeship”
Good post Fergie. You’re expanding on something I was hinting at earlier. I wasn’t born into the game - Dad was a copper - but even as a youngster I’d been fascinated not just with cars and lorries and buses but with the skill (art?) of driving them properly. When I was learning to drive Dad was my principal teacher, and though I had to get a session with a “proper” driving school (just to brush up on what was new) it was always my old man’s experience and knowledge (being a motorcycle copper he’d learnt Roadcraft) that made me a good driver. With that and a fascination with lorries and buses, the result was all but inevitable. I’m not for a minute saying I’m the best, but I’ve always been interested in finding out how I can get the best out of what I’m steering, without thrashing engine, gearbox or brakes, and I’ve always - even now - practised the art of interrupting traffic flow as little as possible no matter what I’m driving.
In some ways, I was lucky in my early “career” to have driven things like TKs and D-series for a living: in 1980 or so, I had 4 speeds, about 100bhp on a good day and brakes the size of a saucer, but driving these things every day taught me more about saving the brakes and keeping up the momentum (by watching well ahead) and so on than I can remember. Somehow, I can’t see today’s new blood having quite the same experience to rely on when it all turns to custard. Then again, the previous generation who grew up with Albions and Fodens and 120 Gardners would have looked at the likes of me - with synchro gearboxes and heaters and seats that moved fore and aft - and snorted, so perhaps all we’re doing here is repeating history.
ParkRoyal2100:
(snip)In some ways, I was lucky in my early “career” to have driven things like TKs and D-series for a living: in 1980 or so, I had 4 speeds, about 100bhp on a good day and brakes the size of a saucer, but driving these things every day taught me more about saving the brakes and keeping up the momentum (by watching well ahead) and so on than I can remember. Somehow, I can’t see today’s new blood having quite the same experience to rely on when it all turns to custard. Then again, the previous generation who grew up with Albions and Fodens and 120 Gardners would have looked at the likes of me - with synchro gearboxes and heaters and seats that moved fore and aft - and snorted, so perhaps all we’re doing here is repeating history.
[/quote]Funnily enough this was what happened when I went full time driving! My father had been a truck driver for most of his life, Foden, Bedford, Leyland, Seddon etc in the 50’s and early 60’s but when I started on Fodens and a Sed Ak 400 in the early 80’s with air operated 12 speed or Fuller gearboxes he could never accept that I was a ‘proper driver’ as I had power steering and full air brakes which, to him, was only for cissys and encouraged driver’s to have an easy time of it. He never did accept me as a driver, when I used to phone him on a weekend and try to tell him where I had been he would rapidly change the subject. So every new generation seems to have things easier than the previous ones, the truckers in 20 years time will probably be astounded that driver’s in 2015 were using a steering wheel to guide the thing, very quaint!
Pete.
ParkRoyal2100:
Carryfast:
Which leaves the fact that there is nothing stopping anyone down under from still actually buying that ■■■■■■■ etc powered wagon with an 18 speed fuller because Euro bs regs don’t ‘yet’ apply in the old Brit colonies unlike in the old country itself.Carryfast - it’s merely a matter of time before the same regs apply here as now do in the EU. From what I see around eastern New South Wales, every new wagon (no matter whether light, medium or heavyweight, or what the maker’s nationality) is at least Euro5 compliant. Government and transport authority regs are one thing, but to my mind the much more pervasive and persuasive influence is multinational heavy vehicle makers wanting to rationalise what they offer to diverse parts of the world.
The fact is I don’t think there’s anywhere in the colonies where EU type approval or emissions standards are the relevant criterea.Hence the fact that,as I’ve shown.anyone there could still order that Western Star with a Detroit engine and a Fuller 18 speed manual box.Which then obviously raises the next question of the dumbing down that we’re seeing especially in Europe and starting in the colonies is just as much,maybe even moreso,an operator buying choice issue as much as control freak government imposition,in trying to dumb down the skill set of drivers to widen the pool of available labour thereby lowering wage levels.Possibly with catastrophic results as pointed out by the OP at the start of the topic.
ParkRoyal2100:
When I was learning to drive Dad was my principal teacher, and though I had to get a session with a “proper” driving school (just to brush up on what was new) it was always my old man’s experience and knowledge (being a motorcycle copper he’d learnt Roadcraft)
Ironically in this case the idea of driving trucks according to the police system contained in Roadcraft is unarguably that of the doctrine of brakes to slow gears to go at least for well over the past 30 years.