muckles:
This is a statement from the company on what happened, nice to see them backing a new driver, who made mistakes, I’m sure there are some on here who were born great drivers, but I wasn’t I made a few silly errors, fortunately they didn’t cause that much damage and everyone and their dog didn’t have a mobile phone to publish my errors on social media, however I did work for a supportive family run haulage company who like MRA backed me and helped me.
Following on from recent events we are aware of a video circulating on social media involving one of our vehicles. The incident involved one of our drivers who is new to HGV Driving. Due to inexperience misjudgements were made. However we were told by police at the scene that the same mistake had been made by numerous other drivers in recent times and the house has been hit on many occasions. Indicating that all fault does not lie with the driver. Management has assessed the situation, everyone has to start somewhere and mistakes do happen. The driver is fully supported by everyone at MRA and further training will be given. Due to the nature of the business, unfortunate situations do arise, this is why we have the insurance in place that we do. Our insurance team are working to get all matters resolved. We appreciate people bringing the video to our attention, and thank you for your continued support
I would say there would be very few companies that would be prepared to help a new driver nowadays unfortunately. As far as training goes the problem arises when some take a lot more time than others to learn. Most candidates have five days training on average and you can only spend so much time on reversing as they need to be able to go forwards as well. I would say a lot pass more by luck than judgement especially with reversing. Also a lot depends on who does the training. I have worked with instructors who are not very good themselves. Some schools definitely provide a higher quality of training than others as well.
Personally I was lucky because I could reverse a trailer before I did my class one and that obviously makes a big difference but saying that the company I trained with did do real life reverses and not only the test exercise where as today it is all about getting the student passed their test and not teaching them to be a driver. Its all about money of course.
It would be a good idea if companies could send an experienced driver with a new start and if he or she got into an awkward situation as in the clip advice could be given but what company would waste time and money on that when they have a driver with a licence who can supposedly drive already.
My advice to anyone who is struggling either to pay for extra training or somehow borrow a trailer and practice practice practice.
Own Account Driver:
The training for the test would probably benefit from letting trainees do a lot more real world stuff like finding their own places to turn round and that sort of thing though I know they have changed things a bit on the test but the training itself still leaves new drivers badly prepared for reality.
Nail on head.
Test candidates ain’t being taught to drive a truck in real terms, the priority is learning a test route and how to get around it.
This has gone on for years, I myself did not learn to reverse until after I passed my test, I was given a licence and could not reverse for peanuts.
‘‘They’’ would rather prioritise on the derisory drivers cpc and call it ‘‘training’’.
No, it has not gone on for years but that’s the way it is now. Maybe you picked a poor place to train! Don’t know what areas you are talking about but where I lived in the UK most driver training and cpc training were completely separate. I did my cpc training with a coach company who did not do driver training but maybe more driving schools are now incorporating DCPC?
Own Account Driver:
The training for the test would probably benefit from letting trainees do a lot more real world stuff like finding their own places to turn round and that sort of thing though I know they have changed things a bit on the test but the training itself still leaves new drivers badly prepared for reality.
Nail on head.
Test candidates ain’t being taught to drive a truck in real terms, the priority is learning a test route and how to get around it.
This has gone on for years, I myself did not learn to reverse until after I passed my test, I was given a licence and could not reverse for peanuts.
‘‘They’’ would rather prioritise on the derisory drivers cpc and call it ‘‘training’’.
When I was learning, however many years ago it was, the training did teach you to appreciate that the approach had to be spot on. I had a ratchet handbrake, single-drive Ford D series six wheeler. I got stuck up against the earlier, longer version of the white railings here when trying to turn left, completely unable to move backwards because of wheelspin. Quite how the instructor managed to recover the situation himself is now lost in the mists of time. IIRC it was Gordon himself although I can’t be sure. It taught me a lesson very, very early in my career. My Test Route was in Purfleet, but we had a day driving around Central London including some instruction on following a route to the M4 and M1.
TheNewBoy:
The gentleman in the house will probably claim whip lash for his whole extended family
Oh, yeah I see cos he’s a ■■■■■■
Brilliant
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
it looks like a 2 bedroom house so that should mean at least 27 claims going into the insurance company though i think they might smell a rat if he starts claiming for the rest of them that are still in bangladesh?
He only GOAL-ed after hitting the house(s) though…Kudos to the company for standing up for him. Also, allegedly there were “Unsuitable for HGVs” signs on both sides of the road
TheNewBoy:
The gentleman in the house will probably claim whip lash for his whole extended family
Idk about this but for sure his £2,000 laptop and his £1000 phone were damaged by the tremors, surely, indeed
jakethesnake:
Just backs up my theory how some drivers don’t check their mirrors when they should. I mean how could you not see a house in a mirror?.
Probably because it’s an artic and all he’d see in the mirrors when it was turning with the unit at an angle to the trailer would be across the front of the load deck and the wall of the house on the opposite side of the road to one he hit.Or a mirror full of trailer side if it was a box trailer.Part of the ‘fun’ of driving artics is knowing that it ain’t going to make the turn before you start it.
Electric mirrors are great, you can at the flick of a finger tip move them to see what’s going on, the wonders of modern technology.
I do feel sorry for the lad, everyone makes mistakes, and believe me its made a lot worse by some ==== with a phone plastering it all over facebook. Fair play to the hauliers sticking by him.
Nah it’ll be someone like you who is so incapable of thinking for themselves they just post comments that other people did which was funny 10 years ago but has become quite boring a long time ago.
jakethesnake:
No, it has not gone on for years but that’s the way it is now. Maybe you picked a poor place to train!
It has been going on for years. I passed my car test in 1987, it was going on then. I passed my Cat C over 25 years ago and my training was with the Army School of Mechanical Transport which was hardly a poor place to train and it was much of the time spent doing test routes. My Cat CE I did in 1994 as a civvy again it was the same story, much of the time spent doing test routes the local test centres took you on. The MOD used the same test routes as the civvies did.
ETS:
He only GOAL-ed after hitting the house(s) though…Kudos to the company for standing up for him. Also, allegedly there were “Unsuitable for HGVs” signs on both sides of the road
On the end he got out of. Plenty of us will tell you that’s not always the case at the other end and lots of those who do deliveries for building supplies and turf companies will tell you many of their deliveries are down such places.
jakethesnake:
No, it has not gone on for years but that’s the way it is now. Maybe you picked a poor place to train!
It has been going on for years. I passed my car test in 1987, it was going on then. I passed my Cat C over 25 years ago and my training was with the Army School of Mechanical Transport which was hardly a poor place to train and it was much of the time spent doing test routes. My Cat CE I did in 1994 as a civvy again it was the same story, much of the time spent doing test routes the local test centres took you on. The MOD used the same test routes as the civvies did.
Conor what you say may be perfectly true however what you seem to fail to realise is where you went and what you were taught was dictated by your instructor especially in the early days before it became DST.
The LGV Instructors course at Leconfield was not so good in these days and obviously that had a big effect on the training given. I personally know many employees at Leconfield and know exactly what has gone on over the years. The standard for driver training has not always been very impressive and that boils down to individual instructors and bad management.
Just to add Conor, you mention 94. That was in the days of the yellow pearls (Fords) just before they changed to Leyland/Daf. I can tell you in these days instructors could go anywhere (scarborough,leeds,york etc) they liked and they had loads of time to train students. AT least one month or more. So either you had a really sad instructor (going round test routes everyday) or your driving was that bad he had no choice. In the words of DD you are talking absolute pish.
Nah it’ll be someone like you who is so incapable of thinking for themselves they just post comments that other people did which was funny 10 years ago but has become quite boring a long time ago.
TheNewBoy:
The gentleman in the house will probably claim whip lash for his whole extended family
Oh, yeah I see cos he’s a ■■■■■■
Brilliant
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
it looks like a 2 bedroom house so that should mean at least 27 claims going into the insurance company though i think they might smell a rat if he starts claiming for the rest of them that are still in bangladesh?
