Well said Orys & if you need a massuese for the Hungarian girls with ■■■■■■■■ let me know, I don’t have two years experience, but I’ll give it my best shot
Orys, I’m going to use you as an example, in the past two years your English has improved a lot, yet two years ago you had been speaking Polish for your whole life, your ability to speak Polish didn’t help you speak English, two years of speaking/writing English is what helped you, it’s the same for experience on a rigid, it doesn’t help you drive an artic, driving artics is the only way to get that experience, yeah it’s catch 22, but it always has been, always will
Deathstar:
If there was a shortage of Drivers, the Insurance Company requirements would soon be forgotten about.Just view Inurance Companies as Bookmakers,they’re not going to take risks if they don’t have to.It’s much easier to have a blanket rule against inexperienced drivers than to assess each one individually to weed out the bad ones.
Well put. The insurance co.s base their premiums on hard statistics & you cant bet that they show a newly qualified class 1 driver is a lot more likely to have an accident than an experienced one. you add to the mix the damage that a 44tonner can cause even at low speed it shows why they are so wary.
For the same reasons women drivers (especially young newly qualified women drivers) often pay a lot less on their car insurance than their male counterparts. Again statistics show they have less accidents, & when they do crash it’s usually costs less.
If the race of a driver got recorded in accidents, & it was shown a certain race were a higher risk, then again the insurance co. would charge more.
In fact in way it does. It been mentioned on here Asian drivers deliberately hitting HGVs in order to obtain compensation in certain locations. Now you can bet if an insurance co. receives a claim involving a car driven by Mr Patel, & an HGV in one of these locations, they will investigate a lot more closely before shelling out.
Again all the above to do with statisics not descrimination.
Actually the comparison between Insurers and Bookmakers is a very good one.
When you hand over your premium to insure your car, you are basically placing a bet that says you are going to have an accident. If you do crash then you win — the Insurer loses by having to pay out a lot more than you paid him, just as a Bookie pays out “odds” when you back a winner.
Insurers calculate “odds” by having sophisticated computer programs that take account of myriad different factors like: age, experience, location, occupation, vehicle type etc. They then vary the “odds” by looking at their risk spread. This means that they don’t want too many drivers of one category (old, young, whatever) or too many sports cars or 2CVs.
When you place a bet on a horse you get “odds”. These are initially calculated by the track record of the animal and the jockey but; as the race approaches, they are altered by the bets placed by other punters. The Bookie wants to spread his risk as widely as possible so he shortens the odds on popular (favourite) horses and lengthens them on the three legged donkeys.
Another similarity is that when a Bookie finds that he has exposed himself to too much risk on a particular race he will “lay off” the bet with Ladbrokes or W Hill. That means he will make less profit but also he carries less risk of losing his shirt. Insurance companies do exactly the same — It’s called re-insurance and some global companies like Munich Re or Swiss Re, take over £50 billion in premiums.
newmercman:
Orys, I’m going to use you as an example, in the past two years your English has improved a lot, yet two years ago you had been speaking Polish for your whole life, your ability to speak Polish didn’t help you speak English, two years of speaking/writing English is what helped you, it’s the same for experience on a rigid, it doesn’t help you drive an artic, driving artics is the only way to get that experience, yeah it’s catch 22, but it always has been, always will
Feel free, as this is a good example. But to be fair, it took me more than these two years
I would even add something more to it: I never learn English in any organized way, it’s just learnt by hands on experience (that’s why you can see all that grammar mistakes). My gf spend last three years in college on ESOL course working hard of her English. She has plenty of certificates (Scottish and international), yet although she’s doing less grammar mistkaes than me, it’s me who has more freedom of speaking. Because this is experience who makes your skills useful, not some bit of paper.
Given this 2 year insurance thing it must be safe to assume that the vast number of Artic Drivers have held their licences in excess of 2 years.Inexperienced Drivers must be in a very small minority.If you are not allowed behind the wheel,who is having all the accidents,surely not those with experience ?
Deathstar:
Given this 2 year insurance thing it must be safe to assume that the vast number of Artic Drivers have held their licences in excess of 2 years.Inexperienced Drivers must be in a very small minority.If you are not allowed behind the wheel,who is having all the accidents,surely not those with experience ?
I guess that most of the artic drivers with class C+E driving license gained less than 2 years ago have less than 2 years C+E experience…
And off course, that most accidents happen to experienced drivers. But unexperienced driver is more likely to have an accident. So if there would be mostly unexperienced drivers driving on the road, there would be even more accidents than we have now.
well if nothing else this post has started a debate of sorts the origional post was only a thought train nothing more nothing less i certanly wasent planing on taking any action against any body but it certanly was interesting to read some peoples thoughts i now have a job which involves driving artics if only on a holiday cover basis the rset of the time its wagon and drag so with perserverance i have found a company with some foresite cheers fellas
I once begged, pleaded, cajoled and threatened my Insurance company to allow me to employ a 23 year old driver, at a horrendous excess.
He only worked a week then left
I’m not saying I would never do it again but I would think long and hard before I did.
If you go to the dealer, you are a customer. You can have a choice, a cheapest nokia at 10 per month or fancy smart phone at 35 per month with the same minutes.
You have a choice, service provider has right to charge you more for more costful service…
I guess it’s the same with the drivers issue. As employing unexperienced costs more, they choose the cheaper option. Simple.
just looking through the van den bosch post seems even if your exxperienced theyssend you to there training school dont no of any uk firms that do that but it might widen there choice but i supose it would be to expencive
bjd:
i am sure we understand discrimination in the work place i e if your able and qualified to do a job but because of age or maybe the colour of your skin your excluded from so doing .Would it therefore follow that if you have passed the LGV Cass one test and a compamy insurence say 2 years experience required are they discriminating against new passes ? after all your qualified in the eyes of the department of transport, i can understand that they may prefer some comercial driving experience but some one with 20 years class 2 who gos on to gain there class 1is hardly inexperienced
Do you under stand the word RECESSION theres a lot of heavily experienced artic men on here ,
who may not have a permannant job or accept a ■■■■ sight less for a permannant job,
if i drive a van i couldnt care is it permanant ,
A JOB IS A JOB,
YOU will get youre chance just not at the momment ,
Weve all had it.
bjd:
Just looking through the Van den Bosch post, it seems even if you’re experienced they send you to their training school, I dont know of any UK firms that do that, it may widen their choice, but I suppose it would be to expensive
As many will tell you, in this job you can learn a new thing every day, so it makes sense for companies to train their new drivers, especially when working in a niche market like VdB, even general haulage firms should do it, times, technology & rules change so fast, nobody is going to know everything (even though some of us think we do ) The question should be ‘Can I afford NOT to train’ or it should be, not the usual ‘I can’t afford to train’ Even to the point of getting the best from the lorry, proper training on how to drive it efficiently can bring savings of up to 30%.
I’ll give you an example, back in 2000 I applied for a job at TRUCK magazine, I had been driving artics all over Europe & beyond for the previous 14yrs, so I had plenty of experience & I was a pretty decent driver, TRUCK’s Andy Salter & Commercial Motor’s Brian Weatherley must have thought so too, because after the road test I got the job as road tester/staff writer. My first assignment was to go to Daf HQ in Thame & go out with their number one demo driver, I spent a few hours in his company, smoking around in a 530 SSC & I learned more about driving a lorry properly in those few hours than I had in the previous 14yrs, that’s training for you, every single one of us can benefit from it, no matter how good we may think we are
) showed that nearly 90% of Polish drivers thinks that they belong to group of 10% of the best drivers 