Their instructor Brian is rude/ less than generally polite.
He has a high failure rate for pupils
&
He is a career soldier.
Profanity is his most commonly used way of expressing himself and he doesn’t take too kindly to people who appear not to be heeding his advice.
The rest of the staff there appear to be okay but not him in my opinion.
I don’t believe I got my money’s worth with the school with my one week training course.
From what I could see it was more like 1 hour’s on the road training am, 1 hours on the road training pm.
The rest was spent taking breaks and finding out about each other’s lives.
For my 20 hours training (40 as shared) I believe I got no more than 12 hours on the road experience - next to near useless for a person who needed over five attempts to get his car licence.
Wallace School of motororing is a no-no
&
First Class Trucking is a hit or miss - depending on how you would judge their private car parking facilities.
Both Wallace and 1st Class were trialed by me before I settled for my fateful decision of Ace.
Get rid of Brian and you should be fine.
Just be on the look out for a chain smoker in case finds out about this and decides to change his name.
Hi Ninefifty Sorry to hear about your bad experience. With respect though I don’t think many people will pay much attention to your advice as it seems to me like you just had a personality clash. Obviously I wasn’t there to see but with comments like… “First Class Trucking is a hit or miss - depending on how you would judge their private car parking facilities”. How can you expect anyone to take you serious?
I would have passed with first class had I not screwed up two gear changes which my instructor, ken can not be blamed for, so I cant see how they can be hit or miss, where they park there lorries and the fact you have to park elsewhere is a pain, but dont judge the school on that alone, I however having trained with them can, I can recommend one instructor, Ken.
( next to near useless for a person who needed over five attempts to get his car licence. )
i think you would be better going for the ten days training option that many offer as if you struggled with the car, 20 hrs shared is nowhere near enough to step up to hgv standard.
just my opinion but are you sure you are cut out for a career in haulage,
( next to near useless for a person who needed over five attempts to get his car licence. )
i think you would be better going for the ten days training option that many offer as if you struggled with the car, 20 hrs shared is nowhere near enough to step up to hgv standard.
just my opinion but are you sure you are cut out for a career in haulage,
Another route - pass the advanced car test as it WILL improve your general driving and hazard awareness - usually for under £100 and done at your own learning pace.
Ninefifty:
Profanity is his most commonly used way of expressing himself and he doesn’t take too kindly to people who appear not to be heeding his advice.-
I can appreciate the objection to excessive profanity, but what’s the point of taking the training if you’re not going to heed the trainer’s advice?
I have quite a bit of experience of being on the recieving end of this. It’s sometimes quite difficult to respond positively to someone who persistently doesn’t accept professional advice.
You might not like this, but you actually teach people how to behave toward you. If you find that someone is treating you with less respect than you would like, there is always a reason for it. To find the reason, observe the way that YOU are speaking and behaving.
mekong:
i think you would be better going for the ten days training option that many offer as if you struggled with the car, 20 hrs shared is nowhere near enough to step up to hgv standard.
just my opinion but are you sure you are cut out for a career in haulage,
Wish the office staff had advised me of that before I took up my lessons.
Then again I had told the school I have been driving my company car for over 7 years on a continous basis.
You never know if you are cut up for something until you try and 3 different schools cannot be wrong if they say they could train you based on trial lessons.
I have no regrets about my chasing this route.
I am not they only person who has dared to get into something they were never 100% sure about other than the one thing they see - the love of driving.
Personality clash or no personality clash, my ego is no bigger than the person who gives it to me.
Almost anybody on this forum can testify that until you have had your own driving test, you will never know what to expect.
If I didn’t think I was cut up for the haulage industry I would not have set foot into it.
Telling someone they are not cut up to something is as good as telling them that they are as good as useless in anything they believe they can do.
Big Nige,
That is up to them whether they want to take my advice or not.
Like Clearstone and Qualitas, every person onto themselves.
Mine is just one of many.
It is not advice, only a pointer - be aware stuff, one person had a rotten experience.
Shortfatbaldy:
I can appreciate the objection to excessive profanity, but what’s the point of taking the training if you’re not going to heed the trainer’s advice?
I was listening and heeding advice.
It was the tutor who could not see I was taking his advice.
I am not perfect, never will be.
If you speed up and down an empty country lane and the damned thing bounces, you slow down not speed up.
If you can’t control a piece of machinery, why are you holding it?
I applied all disciplines of driving my personal car into lorry driving - doing things you felt most comfortable doing bearing in mind intructor instructions.
As far as I was concerned it was my instructor who could not convert my car driving disciplines into that of what applied to lorry driving.
I am not a bad driver, trust me. Most people fall asleep when I am driving and that is because I am so controlled and smooth.
It would’ve helped if my instructor gave me praise when I was right and not demoralising me every time I was wrong which is what I got most of the time.
A hell of a lot of HGV drivers are ex army so I doubt it’s something you can easily avoid, as presumably a lot of instructors are too. I found my HGV instructors were mostly fairly blunt in what they have to say and don’t hold back much, it’s just the way they are, but often I think they do it on purpose including the swearing just to bring a slightly more informal atmosphere to put you at ease.
When you’re under stress you can snap at people or your mind is somewhere else and you can appear to be ignoring them, maybe you just had a slightly worse case of this and he didn’t appreciate it or understand it and so it all got a bit hostile. Also although you have driven a car a lot, there are differences to driving an HGV, and the instructor ought to know best what it is you have to change, so if you ignore him because you think his method is wrong, it won’t help much*. How did the other trainee with you get on?
Bumps in the road cause vibrations, when you hit them at a certain speed they can accumulate and cause big wobbles, so speeding up can stop these bumps from accumulating as the suspension doesn’t have as much time to react making the ride smoother.
Ninefifty:
It would’ve helped if my instructor gave me praise when I was right and not demoralising me every time I was wrong which is what I got most of the time.
I’ve heard this before on another post by Firebird with regard to a different instructor from another school. I wonder how many instructors there are like this? - not that many, from reading other posts by newbies. The DSA register is of no help as it does not record the attitude of an instructor. I feel that the only sure way a newbie can go about this is to ask for a school & instructor recomendation - not easy unless you find a site like this.
In your case Ninefifty, I would have tended to seek the school owner at the end of day one and demanded a different instructor.
If I have to pull up a trainee on an error then I will finish with praise on a good point - for example, a trainee fails to signal correctly at a roundabout but gets the approach speed and position correct - no point in just pulling them up on the signalling, they may think it has all gone wrong and would be totally demoralising.
I think to be a driving intructor takes extreme patience and if you don’t have it wont be a good instructor. Being an HGV instructor appeals to me but i know being realistic i have little patience and would therefore make a crap instructor.
Not experienced it myself but my ex did.
She was making silly mistakes and the instructor was shouting at her etc… this was learning to drive a car not a truck.
She came home in tears one day and told me what was happening. I spoke to the guy, i said what you think you are doing. He said she is a really good driver and is ready for her test but keeps making some silly mistakes and i get frustrated.
Her point of view was when he went mental at her,she fell to pieces and from one minor mistake the drive would go to crap. Like for example, changing lane she maybe forget to check one mirror and he would shout at her and she would panic, ended up just changing lane no indicators or anything kinda thing.
She changed intructor, moved to a female more understanding instructor and he silly mistakes vanished within a couple of lessons because she felt a lot more relaxed, the female instructor pointed out her mistakes but encouraged her.
Learning to drive you are going to make lots of mistakes.
Ninefifty:
For my 20 hours training (40 as shared) I believe I got no more than 12 hours on the road experience - next to near useless for a person who needed over five attempts to get his car licence.
I have just worked out how many “behind the wheel” hours each gets on a 2 to 1 five day course with the tests on the fifth day. It works out to 3 hours each for each of the first four days then about 1.5 hours each on test day prior to test. (13.5 hours)
THESE ARE ROUGH GUIDES ONLY (same price course)
2 to 1 training for 4 days with test on 5th -
8.30 to 9am - vehicle check, safety questions & briefing
9.00 to 10.00 driver 1 at wheel
10.00 to 10.10 leg stretch (maybe a drink at T-bar) & discussion
10.10 to 11.10 driver 2 at wheel
11.10 to 11.20 leg stretch & discussion
11.20 to 12.20 driver 1 at wheel
12.20 to 12.50 lunch & discussion
12.50 to 1.50 driver 2 at wheel
1.50 to 2.00 leg stretch (maybe a drink at T-bar) & discussion
2.00 to 3.00 driver 1 at wheel
3.00 to 3.10 leg stretch & discussion
3.10 to 4.10 driver 2 at wheel
4.10 to 4.30 end of day debrief
1 to 1 training for 2 days with test on the 3rd -
8.30 to 9am - vehicle check, safety questions & briefing
9.00 to 10.00 driver at wheel
10.00 to 10.10 leg stretch (maybe a drink at T-bar) & discussion
10.10 to 11.10 driver at wheel
11.10 to 11.20 leg stretch & discussion
11.20 to 12.20 driver at wheel
12.20 to 12.50 lunch & discussion
12.50 to 1.50 driver at wheel but feeling tired by now and starting to make errors that they would not normally do
1.50 to 2.00 leg stretch (maybe a drink at T-bar) & discussion
2.00 to 3.00 instructor at wheel going back to base cos trainee too tired and making multiple errors which leads to “beating themselves up” syndrome
3.00 to 3.30 end of day debrief
This is not the same for all trainees but is a good general guide to how I find things usually happen
Dont tell my boss but I often add an hour on to each day therefore giving each an extra 30 mins drive - Shhhhh…
Ninefifty:
Profanity is his most commonly used way of expressing himself and he doesn’t take too kindly to people who appear not to be heeding his advice.-
I can appreciate the objection to excessive profanity, but what’s the point of taking the training if you’re not going to heed the trainer’s advice?
I have quite a bit of experience of being on the recieving end of this. It’s sometimes quite difficult to respond positively to someone who persistently doesn’t accept professional advice.
You might not like this, but you actually teach people how to behave toward you. If you find that someone is treating you with less respect than you would like, there is always a reason for it. To find the reason, observe the way that YOU are speaking and behaving.
ROG:
Dont tell my boss but I often add an hour on to each day therefore giving each an extra 30 mins drive - Shhhhh…
Wish I had you as my instructor.
Don’t know who your boss is - better if I didn’t. The devil has ways of turning me around.
We live nowhere near each other.
Day 1
Disued airfield. Driver 2 with 7.5T experience drives there.
We spend whole day there doing reversing, gear changing and emergency stops.
I drive back to base.
Day 2
Out on the road
Day 3
Airfield again - Driver 2 has test next morning. Some on the road driving.
Enfield to watch somebody doing their test.
Day 4
Another driver 2 - his test is next day in the morning.
We go to Enfield to watch others taking their tests.
I get about 30mins if I remember rightly. No pm drives due to ACE boss taking other truck back to base to get gear box changed and instructor needing more time with newer driver 2 who missed out on Monday due to his employers errors.
Day 5
My test day.
Electrical fault. I have no practice before test.
they took your money under false pretence that they might train you me personally i think somebody telling you what to do got youre ego up as you know how to drive dont you
Ninefifty:
Day 1
Disued airfield. Driver 2 with 7.5T experience drives there.
We spend whole day there doing reversing, gear changing and emergency stops.
I drive back to base. OK, who had the major prob with something? - takes 1 hour to get to our airfield and with 2 trainees on their first day, the reverse and controlled stop are cracked by mid to late morning - I do the gear ex on an ind est where there are 2 roundabouts - much better and more realistic (usually cracked by both within an hour)
Day 2
Out on the road
Day 3
Airfield again - Driver 2 has test next morning. Some on the road driving.
Enfield to watch somebody doing their test. What - airfield again - is there a T-bar there that some-one likes?
Day 4
Another driver 2 - his test is next day in the morning.
We go to Enfield to watch others taking their tests. Whats the point of that■■?
I get about 30mins if I remember rightly. No pm drives due to ACE boss taking other truck back to base to get gear box changed and instructor needing more time with newer driver 2 who missed out on Monday due to his employers errors.
Day 5
My test day.
Electrical fault. I have no practice before test.
You were stuffed mate - I would not have taken all that lying down
Ninefifty:
I applied all disciplines of driving my personal car into lorry driving - doing things you felt most comfortable doing bearing in mind intructor instructions.
As far as I was concerned it was my instructor who could not convert my car driving disciplines into that of what applied to lorry driving.
I am not a bad driver, trust me. Most people fall asleep when I am driving and that is because I am so controlled and smooth.
The bit quoted above says a great deal more about why you failed than anything else.
A truck is NOT a car, and trying to drive it like one will end in disaster. You are NOT “converting car disciplines”, you are learning to drive a whole new class of vehicle. Get that through your head, stop trying to do it your own sweet way and start doing it the way you are taught, and you stand a much better chance.
Hi Lucy - I wrote my last post in red - just for you
I agree to a certain degree with your last comments but I do find that I can “convert” a good car driver better than trying to teach basics to a bad one.
From what Ninefifty wrote, in my view, he did not get what he paid for, no matter what his shortcomings were or were not.
The training company seems to have used him as a “filler” between others retests IMO.
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