And there you have it folks, the reason why new drivers have a vastly increased (if still remote) possibility of finding themselves in an overheated braking pickle.
Correct driving for a lorry means the driver being used, becoming second nature, in how that driving is done, to expect a driver who spends most of their time on the open road attending the steering wheel and using just the throttle and brakes for going then slowing, to suddenly become an expert in correct gear usage when severe hills are encountered is simply plain wrong.
Its no different to severe hill climbing, when the shortfalls of these auto boxes can lead to stall out, its no good the drive, who up until that point has been the perfect trained plant pot selecting D pressing the throttle to go and the brakes to slow, suddenly trying to learn their vehicle, the precise downshift points and how many block manual downshifts might be required to cope with the quite shocking deceleration of these modern lorries with their engines that can’t cope with stall revs, not forgetting it might be necessary to dump the mid lift/tag air once speed drops to 20mph or so if the road is slippery and possibly turn off traction control too…hows that going to work out in the dark when the driver hasn’t a bloody clue what i’m even talking about let alone learning all this for himself in 12 seconds flat…
Yes modern brakes are marvellous, far better than when i started driving lorries, however things can still go wrong, pipes can burst valves can seize anything can happen on the road and that steady hill descent can suddenly become an emergency stop…only if you have already hot brakes it won’t be an emergency stop it might become an emergency with possibly serious consequences due to brake fade out, and you have a hell of a lot better chance of stopping if the brakes you have left are still cool than if they are red hot and you’re sailing merrily downhill in the wrong, too high, gear.
We are not driving Corsa/Fiesta on a car driving course, we are supposed to be professional LORRY drivers, not plant pots who are only supposed to select D and press the loud pedal.
I am disappointed in the training fraternity that they are so in support of the easy option, they are not preparing new lorry drivers for the real world of lorry driving they are entering.
As for auto lorries and engine/exhaust braking…almost every new large vehicle will have a switch to press for automatic exhaust braking, once you press the button the exhauster will come on and the gears will drop in blocks of 2 or more to keep the revs high enough for worthwhile braking effort.
Are these makers all wrong, should our new driver not be using these expensive and well engineered systems, the makers obviously don’t think so or they wouldn’t be fitted in the first place.
Wear and tear.
We have three identical sister lorries, from new and one regular old school driver has put probably 60% of the mileage on one particular vehicle lorry X currently approaching 600,000, the others have done slightly less mileage due mainly to (considerably in one case) extra downtime 
Of the three lorries X is the only one thats been driven in manual override continually for 60% of its life the revs as they should be both under power and braking, utilising the exhaust brake extensively at the correct revs for max deceleration and using the service brakes to assist that. Its half way through its second set of steer axle pads, just had the third set of drive axle pads fitted, and still only half way through the mid lift original pads, all discs are originals, and the wheels arn’t caked in brake dust unless the regular driver has been off a few days.
Lorry X also gets better overall fuel consumption on the same 44 ton when loaded work.
The other two have been driven normally by a variety of drivers, driven on the brakes, as modern training decrees.
Clutch release bearings went around 100k before lorry X, both have had around twice the brake relines on all axles and new discs front and rear once, plus they’ve suffered considerably more running problems.
The wheels are caked in brake dust that will never be shifted without shot blasting.
Just letting you know that this wear and tear issue suggested caused by downchanging using exhauster to maximum benefit and driving a lorry as a lorry is cobblers.
The training issue needs sorting, as i mentioned on the other thread on the main forum, where this issue has a bearing, i shall be writing to Ma’am Bell pointing all of this out, disappointingly the trainers are quite happy to carry on like this, maybe the engine driver will have something to say about it.
