So I thought id post a few thoughts, having since jumped through all required hoops to achieve my class 2 and have secured my first driving job, on the process and how I’m finding the work so far. Why? well I’m probably just wasting some time really, but I think if I could rewind a few months to the day I booked my theory then I’d find a post like this moderately interesting.
My training and test
After some thought, I decided to gain my license with one of these third party companies. “We will organise the entire thing for you for x amount, don’t worry about anything”. My god we’re they incompetent - to the point where after turning up to my driving test one very early morning I found they actually hadn’t bothered to book a test in for me, despite telling me a date and time to get to the test centre for. No real reason, they seemed to just forget. Massive downer when you really just want the relief of knowing if you passed or failed, not to mention the time wasted. The point i’m making to anyone currently deciding where to start with their training is that you may’s well just organise the entire thing yourself, from the medical to the cpc stuff. These companies are simply a middle-man that cant really do anything you cant do yourself, despite what they tell you. If I could go back I’d happily pay more and not use the company.
As for the test’s themselves, well I feel the driving is easy enough to pick up, its just a case of doing everything slowly and getting into the habit of looking at the mirrors after ANYTHING you do. Take your time, think about everything before you act and you pass. Simples. Some subjects in the theory test I actually found to be quite interesting to learn about, and having a firm grasp on the drivers hours section basically means you’ll fly through the CPC2 without too much more to learn. As for the CPC 4, personally I feel its a complete waste of time. I wasn’t even asked to demonstrate how to restrain a load, but practising how to restrain a load properly is one of the more important things to know for a complete novice to know! Surely!
My first job
Yup, someone actually entrusted a rigid HGV vehicle into the hands of a 23 year old who has a total of 0 hours experience. I feel I’ve been fairly lucky really, what with finding a job quickly without an agency. I haven’t read a vast amount about the world of agency work, but the little I have read seems to reveal that for every one guy who hates them and says agencies are absolutely full of sh*t in everything they say, there’s another guy saying how its not bad, they always get paid what their owed and gives them a degree of freedom. Anyway, my first day was quite interesting. Two drops around south London, and straight back, easy. As it turned out however, that on this day a combination of a bus crash and crawling tailbacks along the M25 cost me several hours of time, allowing me to arrive back at the yard with 4 whole minuets of driving time left. As nasty as the day was (and after a couple of months into the job and various more trips to London I can safely say this day was especially nasty) it caused me to think like a trucker straight away - planning, communicating, calculating for more “what if” situations that looked more likely as the day went on. A sort of trial by fire, I suppose.
A few smaller things - having to refuel using ‘key fuels’ is proving to irritate me, as a few places iv stopped at tell me “sorry, we don’t do key fuels” - not a lottery I want to play when its my fuel we’re taking about. Also, I get the impression the amount of handball I have to do by myself could be classed as ‘lots’, as the other day a Class 1 driver strolled past, stopped and stuck his head in the back as I unloaded and exclaimed “bloody hell, you gotta’ unload all that by yourself?” (referring to the 400 odd boxes in the back), which caused me to give it some thought, but since its my first job I really have nothing to compare it too. It does sometimes take hours, but as far as jobs go its certainly no worse than the effort expected of me in my previous non-driving job. Point here is, the amount of handball your happy with may be worth considering heavily to anyone coming to the industry. You’re certainly not just there to drive the truck you know! Hours wise, I actually elect to start at 4am in order to miss rush hour (and that works sometimes!), I will regularly max my hours and sometimes un-planned nights out occur, so again if you are coming into this industry, and if you don’t deal with early starts, spending the night away from home at short notice and longer hours so good, then I think you could struggle.
Finally id like to add something about those considering doing a class 2 and class 1 in one go - I’d personally suggest getting some work on a rigid first. I was considering the same thing but my instructor suggested seat time in a rigid for a year or so first, and I’m glad I listened. Some of the drops I do are tight enough as it is, with customers asking you to drop the load off in some ridiculous location as they have no idea as to the real size of a HGV. Last thing you need as a novice is giving yourself more to worry about with an articulated vehicle. I’ve seen 2 artic’s stuck in a car park’s they drove into and found they couldn’t get out without major problems so far - more experience would surely cause them to re-think before they committed to driving in.
So to sum up then…
Things I like - I’m on more money then before, I’m left to get on with the job at hand, seeing parts of the country I’ve never heard of, some of the people you meet at drops are a crack, oh and I’m on more money than before.
Things I don’t like - Traffic jams, car drivers who give you no help when driving through tight areas, customers who wont offer to help you unload, filthy trucks/trucks that stink, oh and sodding key fuels!!!
So far though, glad I bothered.
but can an LGV just drive into any garage to re-fuel? What is different about the keyfuels? Or do different companies have different arrangments with garages so you can only refuel in certain places?