Just thought I’d post about the Gillhuber / Imperial driving assessment in case it’s useful for anyone whose thinking of working for them.
All their kit is Mercedes Axor tractors with Montracon curtain sider’s and a couple of rigid box trailers. They have an on-site assessor who will schedule about a 1-2 hour assessment that’s basically one of their shorter runs to somewhere like Banbury or Kidlington return (from their Oxford base). After that, if you pass the assessment you’ll go straight onto a run on your own, so there’s no wasting time not getting paid for the assessment etc.
For the assessment itself you’ll do a through vehicle check before leaving the yard, then out onto the roads. Just make sure you do the basics, like keeping two hands on the wheel, put the parking brake on when coming to a stop (as opposed to holding it on the foot brake), checking mirrors and avoiding kerbs, not too fast into bends and round-a-bouts etc. Once out on the road I found the assessor to be chatty and friendly, but he was writing stuff down that he observed. Once at location you’ll back onto a bay, Banbury can be quite tight, but nothing too difficult and no blind-side reversing, then once loaded back to base (usually BMW Cowley) and again a back onto a bay (some of these can be quite tight so make sure you are well within the white line bay markings).
Once parked the assessor will have a chat about what he’s observed and how you’re driving might be improved. I found this useful, after years of driving I’d picked up some bad habits so it was useful to have someone give solid advice, and it was all good-natured without criticism. Then you’ll get some basic question like ‘talk me through how you’d couple of uncouple a trailer’ (there is very little coupling of trailers in the job as most tractor / trailers stay coupled and run back-to-back 24 hrs).
That’s all there is to it ! There’s no blind-side reversing, no tricky streets or round-a-bouts, mostly main roads. motorways and industrial estates, no trick questions etc, all pretty straight-forward. The assesor is a good bloke who knows his stuff, I’d say pretty friendly and chatty, he just wants to see that you have the basic skills and can drive safely.
