Hiya

[sqwidge]

Hi guys potential noob trucker just arrived, below is a little about me:

Names Nik, 32, couple sprogs, another due in 5 weeks!!, biker in every sense of the word, although my Bandit needs a little work at the minute, I’m a courier but work is a slow so even though my LGV training has arrived at entirely the wrong time I still intend to sink my teeth into it, been round LGV since my teens and have always been fascinated by them, spent many years travelling the country in a Foden as a passenger, don’t remember the model just that it had a million gears and it was red.

I appreciate any advice or help offered and I’m not shy to ask and I tell it like it is, so apologies if I come across obnoxious etc etc, basically I’m very easy going, anymore relaxed and I’d fall over, if I have a problem I’ll come straight to you, I’m just a regular guy.

I have been fortunate with my LGV in that my GF’s dad pulled a few strings with one of his friends (without telling anyone, was a surprise when I got the call) so that I have been offered full funding and a full time job if I pass with the biggest fish haulage firm in my area, some people will be a little jealous understandably, where as others will support it and tell me to go for it, that’s just life, whatever your opinion, your entitled to it, I’m very excited as I’ve never had the money to do this before but I’m also very nervous, I have a million questions, some if not most of them to you will seem daft but I’m only asking cause I don’t know so please bear with me.

My medical is Monday 18/2/13 and I haven’t yet applied for my Tacho Card as I’ve been told I don’t need one for lessons as training comps. are exempt, is this right?
I am on the hunt for LGV theory and hazard perception disc but can’t really afford the kit at the minute so if anyone would like to loan me a copy I’d be grateful for eternity.

[neil46]

Welcome to the site where you will hear from all sorts of weird and wonderful truckers.

[syramax]

neil46:
Welcome to the site where you will hear from all sorts of weird and wonderful truckers.

hiya to you too truckers may have a alternative spelling (but it sounds the similar)

[djc]

If you’ve got a golden ticket, why not use it?

…and yes training companies are exempt.

Best of luck with training!

[sqwidge]

Thank-you for welcome, there should be a ‘thanks’ button so when ppl are helpful you click it and said person then earns a good rep on here.

How does the CPC work? I know its 4 modules but do I have to do it before I can do lessons or is it just before I can go on the road?

[sam_millar]

Most training companies will allow you to use your digi card even if you have one, with this in mind I’m sure you’ll be aware that you don’t need to possess a HGV/LGV license in order to have a Digi card. I would probably order it now if you can that way you have it and there’s no delays after passing your test.

You need to complete modules 2 and 4 of the CPC which is regarded as the ‘inital’ CPC. Module 2 needs to be completed before lessons are started (I believe) but Module 4 can be completed at any time either before your test or after, mine was before. It is mandatory to have both modules completed in order to drive commercially. From your pass date, you then have 4 years to complete the full 35 hours of CPC training, but you’ll find if you do additional courses like an ADR or HIAB course that these hours on this can count towards your 35 hours of CPC. (Just check with the trainer).

I wish you the best of luck with your training.

[sqwidge]

I’m gonna order my Card this Weds coming just for that reason, the CPC bit worries me a little, sounds like its another test tbh, can you fail it or is it like a motorcycle CBT which is guidance and pretty much un-failable

[paul_pstt]

How does the CPC work? I know its 4 modules but do I have to do it before I can do lessons or is it just before I can go on the road?

At your age, it’s a fair assumption you dont have grandfather rights. That being the case, you need Mod 2 - case studies - and Mod 4 - practical demonstration test. Any good trainer will talk you through this.

Having passed the initial qualification tests, you then have 5 years to complete 35 hours of periodic training which, at present, has no test attached to it.

Module 2 needs to be completed before lessons are started

Not the case.

You have no need for a digicard until you’ve passed your test. It will just sit in your pocket and the 5 years validity tick away for no reason. Leave it till a week or so before your test.

All the best, Pete

[sqwidge]

Many thanks for clearing that up Pete, I reckon I’ll apply for it when I pass and send my licence off, should come back fairly close to each other then.
Excited now cause it means if I pass my medical tomoz I can send licence off tomoz and get started on training as soon as its back, well after a theory and HPT

[paul_pstt]

CPC - Mod 1 - TBA, Mod 2 - TBA, Mod 3 - TBA, Mod 4 - TBA

Wish you’d change your signature - driving me mad!

Just remove Mod 1 and 3 and it’s fine.

C’mon, humour an old man!

Pete

[sqwidge]

Peter Smythe:

CPC - Mod 1 - TBA, Mod 2 - TBA, Mod 3 - TBA, Mod 4 - TBA

Wish you’d change your signature - driving me mad!

Just remove Mod 1 and 3 and it’s fine.

C’mon, humour an old man!

Pete

Lol, just for you as I don’t need them yet

[paul_pstt]

Whoo! That looks so much better. LOL Thanks. Pete

[sqwidge]

Not really a big deal but to me it is so:

I passed my medical with flying colours

Now to get everything sent off and ask DVLA to do their thing, still need Theory book and HPT disc if anyone can lend me them, was gonna get them on weds but I don’t have enough money to send off for Theory kit and Tacho and my trainer at QS has advised me to get my Tacho asap cause they gonna push me through their system as fast as they can.
Please someone take pity on my fat ■■■.

[james_bateman2]

Congrats Sqwidge.
One step at a time and all that.

[martinviking]

Hi Sqwidge.
Good choice of Bike !
I was a courier when I was 20 back in 1980 & found it hard to make a living back then especially when i broke my leg in Fleet Street.
So I took my car test then progressed on to vans & 7.5 tonners (you could drive 'em on a car licence back then in the olden days) I was lucky enough to be put through my 16 ton/Class 3 by my Dad & drove a D Series Ford for a few years eventually paying for my own Class 1 licence around 1990 (again I was lucky because my Brother in Law was an owner driver pulling fridges in the UK & on the continent & I jumped at the chance to be trained up by him in his Iveco, 6 months of friday night loading & sundays delivering to NDC’s was very good training for my test)
You’ve got nothing to loose by gaining your HGV Licence & with the offer of regular work aswell, you’d be a NUMPTY to turn it down.
I might be wrong but I thought that all your HGV Training went towards your CPC so if you ask the training school they might they might be able to credit you with the full 35 hours ■■?
When you pass your test I presume you will be driving fridges, just try to gain as much experience as you can, ask other drivers if you get stuck, most will usually help you out.
Stick to SPEED Limits, lorries dont rev like Bandits. It will take you some time to get used to driving slow lumbering lorries after you’ve been thrashing around on that Fun filled flying machine.
Theres loads of info on here also try the VOSA website so you know what they are looking for (Drivers hours/defects/roadworthiness etc)
Good Luck, Nows the time to start earning a living !

[sqwidge]

Cheers peoples, I’m dead excited lol, got my postal order for DVLA Tacho section this morning after yet another meeting with the bigwigs at QS, seems middle March is gonna be area to start pushing my training forward so in as little as 4 weeks I could be sitting my first test.
Asked him about my theory stuff ie book/HPT cd and he said I don’t need my own as the people they use will give me all that and then put me through the theory test, anyone else ever done/heard of that? I did confirm with him that I defo would not need my own stuff and he said yes, seems weird I don’t need to buy my own books, might just get/borrow one anyway to be on the safe side.
Fail to prepare an all that.
Could really use someone close to me to sorta show me the ropes and be my ‘goto guy’ if I have any stupid questions, its ok posting on a forum but I learn quicker through hands on rather than reading and some of the older members (measured in time here and not age!) will no doubt be annoyed seeing the same questions over and over, over the years etc, I know I do on my bike forum’s when I see someone asking the age old question of ‘how do I get my 50cc piece of sh*t to go 50mph’.
Many many thanks to all of you so far, you’ve been very welcoming and a great help.

P.S. Martin - I’ve had many bikes over the years ranging from 250 - 1000cc and I absolutely love my B12, there are faster, better looking, more nimble bikes out there but nothing compares, there’s something about a B12 you don’t get from other bikes, it’s often referred to as ‘the hooligan’s bike’ maybe that’s why it fits my personality lol, it’s given/gives me its fair share of problems but I’d never get rid, she’s 15 now so starting to throw a teenagers ■■■■■ fit every now and then and when I tell her off she tries to spit me every once in a while as payback, a year back I bought her some new panels, paint and shoes so hoping this year after I’ve sorted the exhaust bolt hole on cylinder 2 and the coil problem I have when I hit a bump at speed she will be thankful and give me yet another good summer of riding.

For those that don’t understand the ‘biker way’ think of it as the ultimate satisfaction (■■■■■■, lottery win, your first beer, diddling that one bird you’ve always wanted to diddle, buying that one thing that you have wanted all your life) and your about halfway there, for me its the fact that all bikes are referred to as ‘female’ and I can ride another ‘female’ without mine getting jealous or trying to kick me out

[martinviking]

Sqwidge:
For those that don’t understand the ‘biker way’ think of it as the ultimate satisfaction (■■■■■■, lottery win, your first beer, diddling that one bird you’ve always wanted to diddle, buying that one thing that you have wanted all your life) and your about halfway there, for me its the fact that all bikes are referred to as ‘female’ and I can ride another ‘female’ without mine getting jealous or trying to kick me out

Sumed it up in 1 !

I traded in my 1998 1200 Bandit last year after owning it for 5 years-

Brought a 2010 1250 in Evil Knievel colours-

I need to grow up !!! (but I can’t )
Back wheels done more miles than the front wheel

[sqwidge]

This is my Bandit, has a couple changes now though, belly-pan, pipe gone and now run stubby from collector, single seat conversion, polished covers gone, carbon infills etc, hoping to get a wagon with a tail-lift so I can take it with me on my travels
Can’t wheelie for toffee although I did have the front up in 2nd today after taking off from the lights and giving a lil too much throttle just as I crested the bump in the road, looked good though
Can’t wait to get it sorted as the winter has taken its toll on it

[sqwidge]

Done my first ‘slave’ day today, gotta admit that apart from smelling of fish, similar to a £10 ho and even now after two showers and washing my hands numerous times with anti-bacterial, honey and milk scented hand-wash, it really wasn’t that bad of a day work wise, can’t do a lot except for hand-balling due to not having a fork truck licence but it may help me burn some excess weight so not a bad thing!!
The smell of fish is strange cause although you smell it when you first enter the docks once your there you don’t and I didn’t smell it until I got home, it’s not as strong as I thought it would be which is also weird given it’s like 90% the main thing on the docks, the rest is broken down to 7% dock/factory workers, 1% boats, and 2% local hookers.

I also got to pimp round in a brand new Scania whilst shifting trailers in the yard, learned a bit too, our units have no dog clip on the kingpin locking mech as they’re spring loaded - would of thought that this would of been a mandatory thing, our units also don’t have ad-blue fitted - I also thought this was a mandatory thing, trailer brake and its operation, line checks and what they do - this is easy on our trucks as there is 1 red airline, electrics and everything else is black, can’t remember the proper name for the bit where they connect, I think it was called ‘suzie’ or something like that, but I was amazed to see the aerodynamic panel on the back of the unit fold out for access to the lines and then see that the ‘suzie’ slides back and forth for ease of use, been a long time since I see the back of a unit but they never used to be like that, you used to have to connect lines by climbing on rear of cab as they were fixed.
Also learned that we only have 2, yes 2, manual trucks on site, both of which are ■■■■ ugly 10t rigids, everything else (all Scania’s) is automatic, sorta destroys the dream of trucking a little as to be a trucker by definition is to be able to ‘drive’ a truck, not get in it and it do 80% of the work, both unit and trailer have their own GPS and are tracked 24/7 in real-time and can tell ‘operations’ if you’ve got the right trailer, how much fuel is in tank, how many miles units covered, when your break is due, current speed, who is driving and the cab phone number!
Not even my mother checks up on me that much but then I don’t think I’m worth the best part of £150,000 either lol.

Can’t believe the count down has started to my training, I figure there’s about another 3 weeks total to pay it off although my training should start before that ‘final payment credited’ day arrives, once my licence comes back from duvler (DVLA) I will be phoning my ‘go to’ guy and asking if we can push it forward a bit.
Properly hooked and I can’t wait to get cracking, roll on my possible future career as a ‘trucker’, happy times.

[sqwidge]

Got a bunch of ‘slave’ days done and a bunch more to go, spoke to my ‘person’ at QS who said that as my tacho card and licence has come back he will try sort my theory and HPT for some time after the 17th March, it’s good that its so soon but I have my own Theory and HPT cd-rom (non-official) and I can pass the Theory side fairly easily usually always in the 90’s but the HPT I either just pass it (67-80) or don’t (61-66), personally I think its the ‘window’ where you have to click the mouse cause I either see it too early and it doesn’t register or slightly too late and I score 3-4 instead of 5, tried clicking a couple extra to compensate and sometimes it pays off and others it fails the clip, I thought it was me at first but when I reviewed the clips you can see that I’m somewhat ok and its the response window that is a PITA, has me worried though cause if I’m operating fairly badly I can’t help thinking its gonna shaft me on my proper DVLA test thus wasting money and now causing unnecessary stress making me get even more wrong cause I’m not paying as much attention as I should be.
Can feel a fail coming on.