This whole Equal Opportunities business is to stop the discrimination against gender, age, race and a few other things. Why can’t experience be added to this list? I fully understand why people are wary of putting someone with no experience out in a machine worth not only a lot of money but potentially very dangerous.
Technically we are being discriminated against something that is outwith out hands. This would cover 1) getting a job, 2) getting rid of a pathetic excuse by insurance parties.
The old saying still stands, “how can I get experience if I can’t get a job?”
Unfortunately Sam its supply and demand as always, and there is a over-supply of drivers at the moment. So you’ll just have to bide your time, at least you’ve passed your C and have got it out of the way, and it was funded so didn’t cost you much. I bet there are drivers on here who have paid thousands for their licence and have a wife and kids to feed, and a mortgage, and still can’t find a job. Imagine being in that position.
Your young and have lots of time to get a driving job, and you have your C+E to look forward to
Foxstein:
Unfortunately Sam its supply and demand as always, and there is a over-supply of drivers at the moment. So you’ll just have to bide your time, at least you’ve passed your C and have got it out of the way, and it was funded so didn’t cost you much. I bet there are drivers on here who have paid thousands for their licence and have a wife and kids to feed, and a mortgage, and still can’t find a job. Imagine being in that position.
Your young and have lots of time to get a driving job, and you have your C+E to look forward to
While I understand and accept what you’re saying, regardless of whether it’s funded or not is irrelevant. I had done my research and knew before I was even about sit my C training and test that it would be hard getting a job, and with my CE just a few weeks away, coming out of my own pocket, it doesn’t deter me, just makes me more eager… but still rather frustrating.
The reason that insurance companies load younger and more inexperienced drivers is that their past experience has shown that drivers in these categories are more likely to have accidents. So in that sense it is not “discrimination”.
All I can say is that if you keep plugging away, you will eventually find work.
Insurance is always quoted as being the culprit.
I look after the O licences of 4 other operators. I was on site this afternoon at one of them and, amongst the documents presented to me, was their insurance. The ONLY restriction for age or experience was on a Chrysler Crossfire! No restrictions on age/experience on 44 tonnes. (BTW they have no vacancies either before the pm’s start!).
So frankly, it’s nonsense. Most of the time. Some insurers do impose arbitary conditions on age/experience.
But if they dont want you, that’s life. They’re just finding a nice way of telling you (and everybody else they don’t want!)
Keep plugging away. Pete 
The ONLY restriction for age or experience was on a Chrysler Crossfire!
I love them things!
Maybe they should all be driven by crazy 17 year olds and that way they’ll be destroyed as soon as possible!
Pete
Exactly, how man 17 year olds driver Chrysler Crossfires! lol
Just keep doing what you’re doing, keep knocking on doors, writing letters phoning companies etc. You thought about asking your dad to see if he knows anyone who can get you rolling? When you get your C&E that will open up more doors for you. You’ll get your break eventually 
Cheers
Jonny 
jonnytruckfest:
Just keep doing what you’re doing, keep knocking on doors, writing letters phoning companies etc. You thought about asking your dad to see if he knows anyone who can get you rolling? When you get your C&E that will open up more doors for you. You’ll get your break eventually
Cheers
Jonny
Dad has tried everyone he knows too, and believe me that’s a lot of people alone lol!
Peter Smythe:
Insurance is always quoted as being the culprit.
I look after the O licences of 4 other operators. I was on site this afternoon at one of them and, amongst the documents presented to me, was their insurance. The ONLY restriction for age or experience was on a Chrysler Crossfire! No restrictions on age/experience on 44 tonnes. (BTW they have no vacancies either before the pm’s start!).
So frankly, it’s nonsense. Most of the time. Some insurers do impose arbitary conditions on age/experience.
But if they dont want you, that’s life. They’re just finding a nice way of telling you (and everybody else they don’t want!)
Keep plugging away. Pete
Exactly.
Most of the ‘insurance conditions’ are the fault of agencies, inventing the two year rule to make life easier for them and to allow them to have a ‘drivers’ indemnity policy…’
Put another way, you’re being ■■■■■■■■■■■…
But as Pete says, that’s life…incidentally, I know a fair few 18 and 19 year olds and apart from one or two, I wouldn’t trust them with a shopping trolley let alone an artic…
It’s wrong to tar all the youngsters with the same brush - but unfortunately there are enough of them that act very stupidly when behind the wheel to ensure a hard time for all of them…
So, blame all your peers that keep crashing… 
Sam Millar:
This whole Equal Opportunities business is to stop the discrimination against gender, age, race and a few other things. Why can’t experience be added to this list?
Do you want the bloke flying the plane you go on holiday on to have been given the job even though he had no experience the airline couldn’t discriminate against him? Or the brain or heart surgeon operating on you while consulting Wikipedia on his laptop after he got the job despite no experience because the hospital couldn’t discriminate against him? Those would be just a couple of reasons why experience can’t be added to the discrimination list.
Coffeeholic:
Do you want the bloke flying the plane you go on holiday on to have been given the job even though he had no experience the airline couldn’t discriminate against him? Or the brain or heart surgeon operating on you while consulting Wikipedia on his laptop after he got the job despite no experience because the hospital couldn’t discriminate against him? Those would be just a couple of reasons why experience can’t be added to the discrimination list.
Coffee, I feel you have inadvertantly provided 2 perfect examples of exactly what is wrong with this industry 
Pilot is a generic term, you don’t get to fly as captain until you have done many many hours in the right hand seat as co-pilot putting into ptactice what you learned to actually get your wings. Likewise, surgeon is a generic term made up of all sorts of grades. The lower grades learn their trade with an experienced hand beside them (well opposite them in most cases). It is because there is no descernable apprenticeship or mentoring system for young drivers to learn from the experienced hands that we are in this situation.
iDriver
But Surgeons and Airline pilots are classified as ‘skilled’ professions.
Coffeeholic:
Sam Millar:
This whole Equal Opportunities business is to stop the discrimination against gender, age, race and a few other things. Why can’t experience be added to this list?
Do you want the bloke flying the plane you go on holiday on to have been given the job even though he had no experience the airline couldn’t discriminate against him? Or the brain or heart surgeon operating on you while consulting Wikipedia on his laptop after he got the job despite no experience because the hospital couldn’t discriminate against him? Those would be just a couple of reasons why experience can’t be added to the discrimination list.
Pilot with no experience wouldn’t bother me as they have taken the relevant training on simulators to get to where they are today… just like I’ve gone through the relevant training to drive legally on British roads as an LGV driver.
Being a heart surgeon is slightly different, no doubt you work up to that position.
Sam Millar:
Pilot with no experience wouldn’t bother me as they have taken the relevant training on simulators to get to where they are today… just like I’ve gone through the relevant training to drive legally on British roads as an LGV driver.
Yes, but the fact remains that as a new driver you are more likely to cause a claim than a more experienced driver. When you are an experienced driver, several years down the line, you will look back to this point and understand what I mean.
If you are making the assumption that passing the driving test means you are a good and competent truck driver then I am afraid you are at the start of a very sharp learning curve.
Harry Monk:
Sam Millar:
Pilot with no experience wouldn’t bother me as they have taken the relevant training on simulators to get to where they are today… just like I’ve gone through the relevant training to drive legally on British roads as an LGV driver.
Yes, but the fact remains that as a new driver you are more likely to cause a claim than a more experienced driver. When you are an experienced driver, several years down the line, you will look back to this point and understand what I mean.
If you are making the assumption that passing the driving test means you are a good and competent truck driver then I am afraid you are at the start of a very sharp learning curve.
I might be 18 but i’m not ridiculously numb to the fact that young drivers have a higher clame rate that more experience drivers, obviously. I’m getting rather fed up of it.
All you can do is keep plugging away. I know that at 18 it seems a lifetime, but you will stand far more chance of finding work at 21, and again at 25. We will be out of recession sometime between those two times and work then becomes much easier to find, in fact they just won’t stop pestering you to do some work for them.
Harry Monk:
If you are making the assumption that passing the driving test means you are a good and competent truck driver then I am afraid you are at the start of a very sharp learning curve.
Ok, that I understand, experience comes with time.
BUT
In my case.
41 years old
Driving coaches since aged 18.
Driven 14m 75 seater double deck Neoplans round Central London and up snow covered mountains in Austria
Have toured Britain and Europe
Never been lost
Never been stuck
Never killed anyone
Never had an at fault accident
Never had any points on licence.
Only passed class 1 27th January this year
Nobody will give me a shot even on rigids, most of which are shorter than what I’m used to.
If I’m carrying humans, someone’s loved ones, I’m a good risk but I’m too “green” to be trusted with a few pallets of crisps or weetabix.
It does not make any sense, how the younger lads without any large commercial experience at all get a break I really don’t know.
AndyH71:
Harry Monk:
If you are making the assumption that passing the driving test means you are a good and competent truck driver then I am afraid you are at the start of a very sharp learning curve.
Ok, that I understand, experience comes with time.
BUT
In my case.
41 years old
Driving coaches since aged 18.
Driven 14m 75 seater double deck Neoplans round Central London and up snow covered mountains in Austria
Have toured Britain and Europe
Never been lost
Never been stuck
Never killed anyone
Never had an at fault accident
Never had any points on licence.
Only passed class 1 27th January this year
Nobody will give me a shot even on rigids, most of which are shorter than what I’m used to.
If I’m carrying humans, someone’s loved ones, I’m a good risk but I’m too “green” to be trusted with a few pallets of crisps or weetabix.
It does not make any sense, how the younger lads without any large commercial experience at all get a break I really don’t know.
I feel for you, I really do. 
I refuse to pack up and accept that I won’t get a job until I’m 21 or 23, 25 etc. I know plenty of people my age, that are friends, and they’re out driving artics with full time jobs.
