Jimmy Morrison and methods of driver instruction

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS OLD TIME LORRIES, COMPANIES AND DRIVERS (INTERACT
1

A two part question this.

I passed me test in 1976, just typed 1066 and sometimes it feels like it… :wink: , was trained by a tough and wiry Scotsman by the name of Jimmy Morrison (spelling right i hope), who was the senior instructor at Export & General’s, Dunstable, driving school in those days.

I recall one of the other instructors telling me that Jimmy had won lorry driver of the the year competition several times in previous years, when he was a full time driver presumably.
Anyone remember him please, is he still kicking about perchance?

Whether this LDOTY was true or not i have been eternally grateful to Jimmy, he, like other old school intructors of the time, taught me and others to drive a lorry, and not just to pass a bloody test.

2nd part.

Which brings me on to the new way of teaching HGV drivers.

I am particularly disturbed by the new eurosafe driving practice, ‘brakes to slow gears to go’ mantra that is the current must do.
I won’t go into the arguments, as i doubt there is a real lorry driver here who doesn’t make as much use as possible of any retarder fitted to their vehicle, for all the reasons we do this.
Most new lorries have some sort of retarder fitted some good some useless, some of which have an automatic max ■■■■■■ function which automatically selects the lowest gear possible for maxiumum engine braking, so that tells me the makers haven’t yet signed up to eurosafe.
But new drivers are not taught to maximize engine braking any more, just use the brakes…WHY?

I can imagine Jimmy, broad Scottish accent airing his views on this and some other current training fads, it would be colourful to say the least.

Why can i ask haven’t the instructors got together and told the bloody head honchos that some of the things they are having to teach are plain wrong.

2

I suppouse where brakes are a lot better and more efficient they can take a lot more punishment than trucks of years gone by. Still doesn’t make the modern training method right.

3

The subject is all here on this topic.You’ll need to go across the Atlantic and do their test if you want to see the same type of instructors and the same type of trucks. :wink:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=62682&hilit=block+change#p761132

4

Just skimmed through that. Use a clutch on a fuller box? I was taught only touch the clutch to start and stopped and have never seen a clutch used by drivers who drive them for years.

5

I’m surprised no instructors have come on to put the case for the defence.

Maybe this would better asked on the new drivers forum, i really would like a sensible set of reasons why the emphasis on no engine braking.
Indeed i understand new drivers no longer have to show full gearbox control by going up and down the gearbox on test, nor perform a controlled emergency stop.

No one remember Jimmy Morrison?

6

Hi, Juddian,

Just read your post on driver training. Many years ago I did a year or two as an instructor on HGV’s. The company I worked for then who will remain nameless but they did a lot of steel out of Scunthorpe, used to run beginners courses, from a car licence to a Class1. Halfway through that course we used a loaded trailer to give them the feel of a loaded artic. I never heard of another driving school that did that.
An amusing anecdote concerning training. We had to convert some local borough refuse drivers to Hgv 3, at that time they could drive them on their old licence,I told one driver what I wanted him to do regarding the gear changing exercise, he said OK . I told him to carry on and we set off from crawler to overdrive and back down to crawler and we hadn’t got to the end of the layby !! And no he didn’t go straight from crawler to overdrive , he took every gear in turn.
Cheers Bassman

7

Hi, Juddian,

Just read your post on driver training. Many years ago I did a year or two as an instructor on HGV’s. The company I worked for then who will remain nameless but they did a lot of steel out of Scunthorpe, used to run beginners courses, from a car licence to a Class1. Halfway through that course we used a loaded trailer to give them the feel of a loaded artic. I never heard of another driving school that did that.
An amusing anecdote concerning training. We had to convert some local borough refuse drivers to Hgv 3, at that time they could drive them on their old licence,I told one driver what I wanted him to do regarding the gear changing exercise, he said OK . I told him to carry on and we set off from crawler to overdrive and back down to crawler and we hadn’t got to the end of the layby !! And no he didn’t go straight from crawler to overdrive , he took every gear in turn.
Cheers Bassman

8

Jimmy Morrison sounds very similar to the guy who taught me how to drive; Herbie Taylor at the RTITB, Mendlesham, Suffolk. Herbie used to shout at you every time you did something wrong and didn’t miss a thing.
" You don’t seem to be enjoying this," he remarked after the end of week two.
" Don’t worry, I’ll shut you up," I replied.
" That’s the spirit, boy."

A great man whose teachings still help me, every working day. Stuff like: “Be in the right gear at the right speed; all the time.” Nowadays, with an automatic gearbox, you can hurtle into a round-a-bout and know that the truck will find the correct gear for your exit. But with the old constant-mesh gearbox your approach speed and gear had to be spot on. How much safer was that?

9

@ Bassman.

I bet that driver training was a frustrating job at times, must have been a bloody long layby… :wink:

I used to train the lads on the car transporters at one time, the most memorable was a bloke my gaffer asked me to teach on a 3 deck artic (with peak remember), well the first day all we did was load and secure cars in the yard, and this bloke took to it like a duck to water, superb he was.

Next day we took a load out, strewth he was bloody terrifying, he couldn’t drive a lorry to save his life, hadn’t a clue how to change gear, couldn’t manage a 3 series Scania, we’d enter roundabouts at 20 mph without stopping regardless of traffic already on or coming cos he couldn’t bloody change gear…remember we had an artic with peak so bad enough to help a proper driver cope at first, this clown?..i abandoned the training and informed my gaffer that this bloke was not trainable…use your imagination as to me actual wording, not as long as got hole in arse featured…
This is when i started to realise that the current driver training system was seriously flawed, he had recently passed his class one, presumably by a blind or dead examiner.

My gaffer got the 'ump with me and decided to train the bloke himself, which he did, and three weeks later the geezer stuffed the fully loaded motor into a low bridge at 50mph.

@ ChrisArbon.

Yep i know where you are coming from, i can still hear Jimmy bellowing ‘‘clear the hazard’’ at me whenever we got past whatever constituted the hazard…he meant get your bloody boot down and move it.

Remember the zig zag cones they set out for you to drive through, he had me reverse them too.

Bloody test and examiner was doddle, pleasing Jimmy was the hard part.

One anecdote from my training week, sorry fortnight.

JImmy was doing something else so another instructor took over, it was wet and the Mastiff we were using felt skittish on the road to me, having driven the previous 3 years in a Ford D series on Michelin X’s i knew a fair bit about skittish.
I was in the passenger seat and the instructor in the middle, we were on the open A road between Leighton Buzzard and Hemel and things felt a bit slippery to me and to be honest i thought too fast on the bends, so i quipped ‘‘and with a touch of opposite lock we’re round’’, i can still recall that as if yesterday…sure enough about 5 seconds later the bloody thing lost drive axle traction, and we went straight over the road and into the ditch.
Me and my big gob… :unamused:

10

kr79:
Just skimmed through that. Use a clutch on a fuller box? I was taught only touch the clutch to start and stopped and have never seen a clutch used by drivers who drive them for years.

By the book no clutchless changes for the reasons (rightly) given by the instructor.

dds.ga.gov/commercial/Rules.aspx#12

Confirmed by fuller’s own instruction.Nothing about floating gears there. :wink:

youtube.com/watch?v=5XxuM75a … re=related

11

Interesting. Il have to read the instruction book I could be needing it soon :exclamation:

12

kr79:
Interesting. Il have to read the instruction book I could be needing it soon :exclamation:

Good luck with that, phew.

13

In the past four years I haven’t even seen a synchro box, I’ve done over 600,000miles in a truck (we don’t have lorries here :laughing:) with an 18spd Eaton Fuller Roadranger, I only ever use the clutch to pull away, after that the clutch pedal is redundant, shifting gears is all about timing (which I manage 99% of the time :blush: ) In my usual driving, which involves a lot of mountain driving, I also hardly ever use the brake pedal either, mainly that gets used to bring the vehicle to a complete stop, all my slowing down is done by being in the correct gear and using the Jake Brake and my eyes to read the road and the conditions.

Driving a lorry in the same way as you drive a car is mental, so all this gears to go, brakes to slow ■■■■■■■■ is just that, a load of ■■■■■■■■.

And Carryfast, if you need a clutch to shift a Fuller, then this smiley was invented just for you :unamused: and this is how you should fell after making such a statement :blush: and this is how I feel after reading it :laughing:

14

Juddian,
You have started the memories flowing now about driver training. As they say I could write a book about it .You mentioned the Leyland Mastiff, where I did my instructor training, a place near Shrewsbury called High Ercall, they had one of them Mastiff’s there, fortunately I never went on it . I was taught to be an instructor on a quality truck. an Atkinson Viewline , lovely motor , 220 roller ZF 6 speed box. The two of us who were on it thought it was the bee’s knees until one day we pulled into Keele Services and doing it by the book changed down, or tried to but couldn’t cos the bloody gear lever snapped off. Well it’s late n the afternoon , Belly’s are rumbling and we are a long way from that tea table. if we send for a fitter we are going to miss tea so we had to improvise. We found a short piece of tube that just slid over the stub left of the gearlever and with one of us laid across the bonnet with both hands on this bit of tube and one of us working steering wheel and clutch we set off . Every time the one driving (wetook it in turns cos it was uncomfortable laying across that bonnet with both arms down between drivers seat and bonnet cover) shouted change he dropped the clutch and the other one banged this bit of tube into the next gear. Proper team effort but we got it back and was still in time for tea . NewMercman would have been proud of us but you couldn’t have done that with an auto.
Even after that I still rated them Viewlines highly.

Cheers Bassman

15

Bassman:
Juddian,
You have started the memories flowing now about driver training. As they say I could write a book about it .You mentioned the Leyland Mastiff, where I did my instructor training, a place near Shrewsbury called High Ercall, they had one of them Mastiff’s there, fortunately I never went on it . I was taught to be an instructor on a quality truck. an Atkinson Viewline , lovely motor , 220 roller ZF 6 speed box. The two of us who were on it thought it was the bee’s knees until one day we pulled into Keele Services and doing it by the book changed down, or tried to but couldn’t cos the bloody gear lever snapped off. Well it’s late n the afternoon , Belly’s are rumbling and we are a long way from that tea table. if we send for a fitter we are going to miss tea so we had to improvise. We found a short piece of tube that just slid over the stub left of the gearlever and with one of us laid across the bonnet with both hands on this bit of tube and one of us working steering wheel and clutch we set off . Every time the one driving (wetook it in turns cos it was uncomfortable laying across that bonnet with both arms down between drivers seat and bonnet cover) shouted change he dropped the clutch and the other one banged this bit of tube into the next gear. Proper team effort but we got it back and was still in time for tea . NewMercman would have been proud of us but you couldn’t have done that with an auto.
Even after that I still rated them Viewlines highly.

Cheers Bassman

The very same Atkinson Viewline of which you speak:


Atkinson Viewline by richfergi.t21, on Flickr

And here’s what became of it:

I rated the Vewline highly too - I owned one for 19 years!

16

Hi, 240,

Is that really the one from the RTITB at High Ercall. IIRC the RTITB had 3 of them but not all at the same place. In their day they were a cracking truck to drive , a bit hot in summer due to that windscreen, but this is England , how often did that bother us?
Is that short bit of tube still laid behind the drivers seat where I chucked it after we got back to Base? Daft question , but is the ,driving experience still the same, I remember the excellent field of vision with that screen and how nearly everything felt right about it. ( I am talking , I think 1970).
I remember Bass Charringtons running a fleet of them, yes they were a Premium truck in their day and note the capital P !

Cheers Bassman. PS , At the time I was doing the instructors courses the Viewline ran with a 33’ tandem flat loaded with 18t of concrete blocks.

Is that Whittlesey brickworks in the background?

17

Bassman:
Hi, 240,

Is that really the one from the RTITB at High Ercall. IIRC the RTITB had 3 of them but not all at the same place. In their day they were a cracking truck to drive , a bit hot in summer due to that windscreen, but this is England , how often did that bother us?
Is that short bit of tube still laid behind the drivers seat where I chucked it after we got back to Base? Daft question , but is the ,driving experience still the same, I remember the excellent field of vision with that screen and how nearly everything felt right about it. ( I am talking , I think 1970).
I remember Bass Charringtons running a fleet of them, yes they were a Premium truck in their day and note the capital P !

Cheers Bassman. PS , At the time I was doing the instructors courses the Viewline ran with a 33’ tandem flat loaded with 18t of concrete blocks.

Is that Whittlesey brickworks in the background?

Yes, the red one is the High Ercall machine, photographed in 1990: it was part exchanged at Junction Ten Commercials at Walsall, for an F10, and which would have been about 1988. It was later acquired for preservation by a gentleman who posts on TN under the name of “Saviem”.

The RTITB had a new Viewline at Failsworth in 1969, and another at Preston in 1970, both with the 150 Gardner. The Failsworth one went to Preston later in life, and both worked until the mid-80s.

CJJ 408H (ex-Failsworth) was cannibalised for spares for its sister vehicle, BVB 457H, and its windscreen actually ended up in the High Ercall machine. BVB 457H went into preservation (with me!), but was recently acquired by Malcolm Harrison. I ran mine with 18T of concrete blocks too! That’s BVB 457H in the photo, by the way, showing the under-pinnings of the cab.

I believe that Bass did have a few, and have a photo of one in Tennants’ colours. No idea what became of them, though.

Sadly, I needed to sell mine in 2003, but in 19 years, I found it a great driving experience, and could drive it all day with no aches and pains! I can recall one or two hot days, and were they hot!

Sorry, I don’t know the location of that pic

18

Hello Bassman, Chris, do you know I still have a set of door keys for WAN183G, in my key box, how sad is that!! Lovely lorry to drive, as per Chris`s photo, we put a ballast body, exactly to the Pickfords specification on her, and spent a fortune getting her “just right”. Even with 9tons in it the screen still shook!! Gave me the collywobbles!! Never ever any problems with the gear change though.

If you pm me, with your address, I will send you a photo of her, when I owned, (and loved ) her!!

I presume that your name, and writing were in her RTITB log book. I sold her because we were buying our first farm,to Roberts, at Ross on Wye. Took a beautiful Mercedes 190 diesel in part exchange. They had an ex ICI 6x4 Viewline as well. Then I think hat they had a big sale, and I do not know where she went! Always regretted selling her, but needs must…etc. Cheerio for now

19

Excellent, you never know where a discussion will lead, small world indeed.

20

Saviem:
Hello Bassman, Chris, do you know I still have a set of door keys for WAN183G, in my key box, how sad is that!! Lovely lorry to drive, as per Chris`s photo, we put a ballast body, exactly to the Pickfords specification on her, and spent a fortune getting her “just right”. Even with 9tons in it the screen still shook!! Gave me the collywobbles!! Never ever any problems with the gear change though.

If you pm me, with your address, I will send you a photo of her, when I owned, (and loved ) her!!

I presume that your name, and writing were in her RTITB log book. I sold her because we were buying our first farm,to Roberts, at Ross on Wye. Took a beautiful Mercedes 190 diesel in part exchange. They had an ex ICI 6x4 Viewline as well. Then I think hat they had a big sale, and I do not know where she went! Always regretted selling her, but needs must…etc. Cheerio for now

It seems a little impolite, John, to mention that the screen in mine stayed where it was put! But what was with that bracing affair on the roof of yours? To be fair, though, mine was built up with, effectively, a brand new cab.

The ex-ICI Viewline you mention has been bought for restoration relatively recently, by the same chap who has the ex-Graham Adams Rear Steer Viewline (albeit missing its second steer), but I’m afraid I don’t know where yours is now.