I personally paid for my own training which cost me probably about £3000 all in.
I seen people in the past on the newbie forum ask about this like they entitled to it which has irked me a bit.
My issue with some of these people who do the LGV training is that they don’t want it (they just want to stay on the dole)
The others do want it but they just don’t want to pay for it as they are ‘entitled’
All the people applying for it already have a car licence with some having Cat C1/D1 so have means to get into the industry.
Whenever I’ve mentioned that they could start on vans/7.5t trucks I get accused of not taking their question seriously or ‘not understanding’.
I know for a fact people are crying out for van drivers and in particular 7.5t drivers. So the entry point into the industry is there. They also have the option for forklift driver which again is a very in demand job.
My opinion is that if they just hand out the LGV licences it devalues the licence even more but I think if they do hand them out they should have to pay them back.
I personally paid for my own training which cost me probably about £3000 all in.
I seen people in the past on the newbie forum ask about this like they entitled to it which has irked me a bit.
My issue with some of these people who do the LGV training is that they don’t want it (they just want to stay on the dole)
The others do want it but they just don’t want to pay for it as they are ‘entitled’
All the people applying for it already have a car licence with some having Cat C1/D1 so have means to get into the industry.
Whenever I’ve mentioned that they could start on vans/7.5t trucks I get accused of not taking their question seriously or ‘not understanding’.
I know for a fact people are crying out for van drivers and in particular 7.5t drivers. So the entry point into the industry is there. They also have the option for forklift driver which again is a very in demand job.
My opinion is that if they just hand out the LGV licences it devalues the licence even more but I think if they do hand them out they should have to pay them back.
No. If there was a shortage of drivers then yes. What we don’t need is more mouth breathers in the industry but it seems to be flooded with them already so what difference will a few more make really.
A lot of people say a big stumbling block is the cost, it is expensive that’s true but you’ve said that they have to have a car licence so they have a means to earn the money to pay for it. I agree that if they get funding then it should be paid back.
You could don the old tin foil and say it’s a way to flood the market with loads of new drivers who don’t have a clue about the industry as a way of keeping wages down.
We do a ‘warehouse to wheels’ thing…Company pay for all the training etc, then these feckwits that have never driven anything bigger than a car or the closest they’ve been to a lorry (before the test) is when they walk past one in the yard and are suddenly able to drive our artics and the amount of damage being caused by these noobs is unreal… watching them reverse onto a bay is painful to say the least and no, I don’t help them…these were the same ■■■■■■■■■ who used to stand on the dock watching us struggle with a tight blindside, at night in the rain in a CF (you know, the mirror behind the window that doesn’t open!!) and shouting how much of a piece of ■■■■ it was… I’ll help anybody if struggling but not these tools…as soon as they get the license they know everything and I take great pleasure in telling these fools that it really isn’t that easy…skilled drivers just make it look easy… unless it’s one of ‘those’ days!! We have one who passed a few months back and despite covering anyone who is off, still can’t reverse, will only do Cannock depot, won’t do Battersea or Paddock Wood but will swap with a regular driver and do Chepstow…he’s been told ‘you wanted to be a driver, go be a driver’! These ain’t cut out to be professional drivers, they’re just looking for the easy way out the W/hse and on to the bigger money for a lot less hours
Our warehouse to wheels scheme was hastily abandoned after only one trained monkey caused north of £130k worth of damage in less than 3 months. As the cold store lads earn £48k for 38 hours a week I can’t see many wanting to do it. In fact my enquiries of me doing a wheels to warehouse scheme have been point blank ignored!
the maoster:
Our warehouse to wheels scheme was hastily abandoned after only one trained monkey caused north of £130k worth of damage in less than 3 months. As the cold store lads earn £48k for 38 hours a week I can’t see many wanting to do it. In fact my enquiries of me doing a wheels to warehouse scheme have been point blank ignored!
I know of companies who pay for it upfront but then you sign a contract whereby there’s a deduction from your wage for a certain period for it and if you leave before that period you are signing to pay the rest of it back. Or others don’t deduct any from your wage, but sign you into an either longer term whereby if you leave you have to pay it back.
Either of the above is a good way to not have to need £3k lying about, but also means you aren’t being handed something for free.
It’s bad enough having bus drivers that might as well be security guards, for all the interest they have in their work, without creating (even more) HGV drivers that don’t care.
I don’t think this is a job you can take lightly, there’s far too much at stake if it goes wrong. Plus, if you don’t enjoy it it’s likely you’ll really hate it rather than just being indifferent. That’s not a good way to be whilst in charge of a truck.
I looked into a scheme called New deal About 25 years ago. One of the stipulations was that you had to be unemployed for six months.I paid for mine but could of had it free if I did nothing for six months.
Many lads in the army got it. Didn’t need it for their job and never used it. However, I don’t see them being called freeloaders…
I paid for mine. Don’t regret it. Owes me nothing now. Paid for itself back many times over. I won’t use it forever - but it’s been fun. Going away at the start of January… And with a bit of luck when I come back I won’t be using it again. We shall see.
Unemployed - massive drain on the economy. More likely to be involved in crime etc…
Driver - pays into the economy. Less likely to be involved in crime.
Ultimately a class 1 licence is a fantastic insurance policy. And it’s unlikely anyone would be genuinely unemployed if they hold it. So I can see the logic behind the government giving them out.
I’d rather my taxes funded someone unemployed to get a HGV license and then they could get a job than have my taxes fund someone to sit on their arse at home watching Jeremy Kyle all day on the dole.
Actrosman:
We do a ‘warehouse to wheels’ thing…Company pay for all the training etc, then these feckwits that have never driven anything bigger than a car or the closest they’ve been to a lorry (before the test) is when they walk past one in the yard and are suddenly able to drive our artics and the amount of damage being caused by these noobs is unreal… watching them reverse onto a bay is painful to say the least and no, I don’t help them
They are no different to anyone else who has just passed their test and at the start of their career and I bet you were no different when you first drove a truck, not that I expect you to admit you were anything other than a driving god who knew everything the moment you got the pass certificate. Not to help them is just being a complete ■■■■ for the sake of it. I hope one day you’re in a position where you need help and everyone there just decides to sit in their cab, video you on their phone and upload it to Youtube so we can all have a good laugh.
Conor:
I’d rather my taxes funded someone unemployed to get a HGV license and then they could get a job than have my taxes fund someone to sit on their arse at home watching Jeremy Kyle all day on the dole.
Actrosman:
We do a ‘warehouse to wheels’ thing…Company pay for all the training etc, then these feckwits that have never driven anything bigger than a car or the closest they’ve been to a lorry (before the test) is when they walk past one in the yard and are suddenly able to drive our artics and the amount of damage being caused by these noobs is unreal… watching them reverse onto a bay is painful to say the least and no, I don’t help them
They are no different to anyone else who has just passed their test and at the start of their career and I bet you were no different when you first drove a truck, not that I expect you to admit you were anything other than a driving god who knew everything the moment you got the pass certificate. Not to help them is just being a complete ■■■■ for the sake of it. I hope one day you’re in a position where you need help and everyone there just decides to sit in their cab, video you on their phone and upload it to Youtube so we can all have a good laugh.
I’ll freely admit to being crap bac then but I hadn’t completely lost any idea of how to reverse in a straight line to get it on bay in an empty yard…how much reversing do they actually have on a test these days…it is still a Diddy little ‘S’ in between a few cones? And further more, I never sat in an artic until I was 40…passed at 21 and after a couple of attempts managed to get it on a bay…not dead straight but it was on…couple of small shunts and it was all in line…and now after just over 10 years on them, I think I’m more than capable of sorting my own ■■■■ out thanks. As for ‘driving gods’, I wasn’t back then! Forgot to add, I spent 25 years on rigids so had a rough idea about length, weight, stopping distances etc etc etc…for these ‘noobs’ at ours that have to come with us to see how they fare (us reporting back to the hierarchy), you’d think that they wouldn’t tailgate, wouldn’t exceed speed limits and certainly wouldn’t text, knowing that it is mine and the day drivers responsibility to ‘say how it was’ and for ‘them’ to decide if further training is needed. I will not BS and say they are any gd if they aren’t just to get their arse on a seat… I won’t be blamed if the noobs pile into the rear of your family car because they are busy texting their mates that they are now ‘a big rigger’ and I won’t feel guilty if others say ‘they were fine’, they get let loose and it all goes ■■■■ shape…big difference between stopping a car in the wet and a fully loaded artic…or have you forgotten that? And as for being a ■■■■, that’s my choice, as and when I want to be. Also, your taxes pay for my bone idle 24 year old step-son to sit on his arse all day claiming £410/mth benefits after claiming he suffers from anxiety and can’t work…have a gd evening now, he’s just gone out to spend some of your coin on a few beers with his ‘mates’
Way back in the 90s, I had a trainee with me all week. He was on some government scheme and it was supposed to be a taster before they put him in for driver training. He was a nice enough lad but made it clear that he was only there because they would have stopped his money if he failed to show up.
Going back to the topic of shortage of Drivers,it all depends on location.
Time after time we see on here Drivers signing on at Agencies or submitting application forms to Companies,only to be left sitting by the phone twiddling their thumbs for most of the week or not even getting a response from their applications.
Location Location Location
By all means let them be trained, but solely on condition the money is paid back from earnings, and this should be followed up by if they fail to repay putting it in the hands of bailiffs so it costs them £housands more, the publicity from a couple of cases would soon gee other freeloaders up.
No it isn’t fair that the vast majority of us had to put our hands in our pockets to get our licences, probably because the vast majority of us wanted to be lorry drivers in the first place, it makes a mockery of handing free training to the disinterested who would prefer to be drawing benefits and are not likely to be model employees once they have a free lorry licence anyway.
The genuine trainees would be grateful for the taxpayer funded ‘‘loan’’ as it were and would have no trouble paying it back once in work.
As for idiots getting into the industry, well that has always been a problem but these days no one responsible at the usual suspect companies seems in the least bothered about damage.
Years ago the job wasn’t as easy for idiots to scrat by, and the people responsible in the various operators were more transport oriented than now and took their responsibilities seriously, so the idiots soon got sacked, plus the grapevine was hotter so they became untouchable, agencies changed all that, as did the foreign intake.
Personally i have no sympathy whatsoever with companies who’s vehicles you see smashed to buggery rolled or generally wrecked, they employed the twerps, they decided to pay peanuts and got the inevitable monkeys instead of offering the best terms and conditions and cherry picking the better staff, so if their yard has rows of smashed up tackle and their drivers are a living nightmare of sick notes general incompetents and wreckers, and half the fleet is in the bodyshop getting bodged up, tough.
I can understand self insurers deciding that employing monkeys on minimum or less (once worked out) wage works out more cost effective for them even taking into account the wreckage (though i can’t see how it pays), but i do not understand why the insurers stand it, high time a driver’s insurance record was linked to their vocational licence so prospective employers and insurers themselves can veto the poor risks.
This is why, along with all the other dumbing down inflicted on those of us who are quite capable of doing the job without such things, that in cab cameras are the new must have…the irony being that as in cab cameras arrive the decreasing band of competent drivers who don’t need all this ■■■■■■■■ leave either the job or the industry because they won’t be spied on, only to be replaced by numpties who need to watched 24/7 and will still wreck everything they touch, good luck with the next phase of dumbing down operators, one day the penny will drop that it’s counter productive.
It’s a bit like a carry-on film this industry at the moment.
I’ve since found out that the next 2 that are going through this are… a goods in clerk who only sees it as an easy chance for a big pay rise (he’s mortgaged himself to the ■■■■■■■■) and says we only drive up and down the motorways and ‘anyone can do that’ and the other one cannot stay awake when he’s in the office at night doing computer stuff and (according to rumours in the W/hse) falls asleep when driving the forklift… sounds like he suffers from sleep Apnoea or something… and if he gets through the training, he will be covering days & nights…I’ve refused to have him with me, as has one of the day drivers but as we both agreed to be ‘assessors/trainers’ of sorts, we don’t have a lot of say in the matter…so, Conor…be warned…Raj (yes, it’s his actual name and not an EE as probably expected) maybe coming to a road behind you very soon
I thought I’d start my hgv journey night trunking as I thought it was the easiest job going but f me it is boring.
I struggled to stay awake.
You really have to have a head for it as it’s the most mind mumbling job I’ve ever done. At least during the day you can see stuff.
