truckyboy:
I am sorry to have to mention Poland as one example of the driving test…where they can take a HGV test, and obtain their licence for a class 1 vehicle, for simply driving a farm tractor with a trailer on the back.
this starts to be boring, but I was called on duty by PM so here I am to put it straight:
■■■■■■■■.
I already explained that several times, the full information on how the test for truck driving licenses looks in Poland can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=68205&p=859962&hilit=polish+maneuvres+class+1+youtube#p859962
Also, as I want to make it clear once for all: If someone needs be affraid about lorry drivers who never passed appriopriate tests, he should be affraid about BRITISH drivers, as there are some folks even on that forum, who never passed their license at all, not to mention proffesional licenses.
This is off course not a case of Poland, as we have Polish highway code and licenses from 1921 and even if someone old enough is still alive, there were no grandfather rights (unless someone gained his licence under the laws of the Prussian empire, which was occupying part of Poland till 1918 and these laws were in use till 1921 when they introduced new, Polish law. But even then, it was just exchange of existing qualifications and you had to pass some test in Prussia empire as well).
So even if there is someone born in 1903 still on the road (as the age of 18 years was needed to obtain the driving license) he had to complete the course, pass the test, and to obtain one of the five categories: category V was the lowest and allowed the bearer to drive motor cycles, while category I, the highest was allowing the bearer to drive Heavy Vehicles, including buses.
Another thing was that from day one there were two kinds of driving licenses: amateur and proffesional. To obtain proffesional driving license you had to complete additional course and pass aditional test. So, in a way of speaking, Poland introduced it’s CPC in 1921. So if you have someone who obtained class I category driving license in Poland in 1921 (as there weren’t any amateur lorry and bus licensed), he’s already qualified proffessional driver.
(interesting fact: there was speciall category allowing the bearer to drive Ford T only, as the controls were slight different from the newer cars, but despit it being a bit outdated, it was still very popular in poor countries like Poland after first world war).
To obtain the licence, candidate had to be at least 18 years old, and pass the theoretical-practical exam, including knowledge about construction and principies of how the vehicle works, he had to pass test on departamental and natiuonal highway code and practical test in driving, maintentance and minor repairs.
Driving license was valid for three years.
And just as an example: YMCA, which was one of the institutions running driver’s school in pre-war Poland in 1921 had about 1500 students, of which 389 managed to complete the course and 241 passed their test. That shows you that it was not easy to obtain driving license in pre-war Poland, and it is also not easy today (I dare to tell it’s much harder than in Britain - see my post quoted above).
Here is example of Polish amateur driving license issued on 4th of April 1933 in Warsaw:
There is another example:
Here you have proffesional driving license from 50’s.
It’s category III (the highest was the category I, so he has still two to go)
The bearer is allowed to drive:
- cars, except taxis
- lorries, except the ones with diesel engine
- lorries and tractors with up to one trailer with train weight up to 7 tonnes (remember, it’s fifties!)
- tractors with up to three trailers, with train weight up to 9 tonnes, as long as the max speed is not higher than 20 km/h.
Points system? Is that anything new?
Well, this is Polish driving license from 1931 otr 1951*, I am not sure, as it looks different. Judging from the picture it sounds rather 30s than 50s, don’t you think? Or maybe it’s just some aditional bit like counterpart:*
On the right side you have four fields. First two are for warnings.
After that you have two spaces for driving bans.
If you feel all fields, the licence will be revoked.
Later they introduced something similar to your counterpart licence:
So you had your “photocard”
and then you had this bit:
This is “wkÅ‚adka kontrolna” - controlling insert. You got four coupons at the bottom, after you’ve been nasty, the bit was cut off. When you lost all four, your licence was cancelled.
IMPORTANT BIT: this is driving license from 1959, and it allows the bearer to drive motorbikes and tractors (with up to three trailers (!) but no lorries. So you can clearly see that there was distinguishment between tractors and trucks more than half a century ago. So there is a slim chance, that you will meet Polish trucker who made his license driving a tractor, if he did it well over half a century ago. But if he was driving safely for more than half a century, I dounbt you should be affraid about his qualifications.
One more bit of the point system - there weren’t only warnings and bans, not penalties only but also encouragements. This is a “Exemplary Driver Shield”:
Central evidence of Drivers? Well, in Poland since 1923. Automobilclub of Poland was keeping the track, at the beginning they were printing names of all license holders in monthly “Auto” magazine.
To compare: Britain had no central evidence of Drivers till 1970’s 
I am struggling to find when in Poland the categories you now have in Britain were introduces (you know, A, B, C, C+E, D etc). I can’t find the exact date, but I can say it was something 60ish or 70ish.
Definitely they were in when I obtained my first driving license in 1998.
So bash Poland as much as you like, but please stick to the facts. Yes, there are some countries where some legal solutions were more advanced than in Britain. I am sorry that one of them is Poland, I know how you don’t like when you can look at Poland from your position on the pedestal, but the facts are as they are. And I have to say, I found it quite fascinating reading all that historical material, I never knew many of these things before. Thanks for inspiration
Can we do this in the uk,
No, you AFAIK in UK you can’t pass your truck license on a tractor and trailer, but I heard that you can pass your clas 2 by riding a sheep, and class one by riding a sheep which is shagged at the moment. 
or what other countries within the EU can get away with what i call a very dangerous practice…and then let these drivers loose on the highways of the Eurozone. As far as i am aware, there are no other countries that use and abuse this practice.
Well, somehow 100s of British drivers who obtained their driving license on grandfather rights were cruising along the whole Europe for years and there wasn’t any carnage I heard of. So what’s your points? Is it really about drivers without proper qualifications? As in this case you should focus on Britain, as this is one of the last countries in Europe to introduce modern driving licenses at all…
But I am afraid this is just about Poland, not qualifications.
Thank you for your attention. I will book this post for further reference