I just wanted to say hi and thank everyone for the great posts and advice on this forum. It has helped a lot and hopefully I won’t be needing to ask too many stupid questions as most of them have been answered 
I am just about to start my training for HGV. I have my assessment on Friday and then next monday start a week long CPC course. I did my C1 back in 2007 so I could drive my 4500Kg motorhome so I luckily don’t have to go through the medical, theory tests again.
I will be booking in for my C training as soon as the assessment is done. I hope/aim to have my C+E by the end of June providing I done mess anything up in the process.
In the midst of all this I will be doing a full ADR course which as I understand it will add 21 hours to my CPC, I then only need another 14 hours on something else which will bump me up to 10 years on my card. Here is my first stupid question 
What if any courses other than ADR make me more employable and also add to my CPC hours?
Thanks.
Why do a week long dcpc course when you could find a trainer who has dcpc approved for practical LGV training and kill 2 birds with one stone ?
You could still do that to get the other 14 hours
ROG:
Why do a week long dcpc course when you could find a trainer who has dcpc approved for practical LGV training and kill 2 birds with one stone ?
Thanks Rog.
I discovered I could do this after I had booked and paid for the CPC course. My intention was to do C1 driving while I trained for C.
But thinking about it. I will have my dcpc card before I start my C training. Could I book the C training on my CPC card?
Gromett:
ROG:
Why do a week long dcpc course when you could find a trainer who has dcpc approved for practical LGV training and kill 2 birds with one stone ?
Thanks Rog.
I discovered I could do this after I had booked and paid for the CPC course. My intention was to do C1 driving while I trained for C.
But thinking about it. I will have my dcpc card before I start my C training. Could I book the C training on my CPC card?
Your training provider needs to have practical LGV training dcpc approved so check with them
If they do have it approved then you can do 70 hours of dcpc and get a DQC expiry dated for almost 10 years
the first 35 hours gets the DQC expiry dated for 5 years then doing another 35 gets a new DQC expiry dated for almost 10 years
Thanks again Rog,
I will check with them. The driving school are the ones doing my CPC course in the classroom so I would presume they could book the driving training onto the CPC as well. But I will check.
Thanks.
Gromett:
Thanks again Rog,
I will check with them. The driving school are the ones doing my CPC course in the classroom so I would presume they could book the driving training onto the CPC as well. But I will check.
Thanks.
A training provider has to pay for each course and not many have the practical training approved
Those that do usually have a 7 hour course which they can used many times so if its 5 x half days 1 to 1 training then 14 hours (2x7s) can be gained
7 dcpc hours can be split over 2 consecutive days into 2 x 3.5s
That sounds great Rog. Keep my fingers crossed they can do this. If so then between the C training and the C+E training I should get get close to my next 35 CPC hours.
DRIVER SHORTAGE OOOOOHHHHhhh f Fske.Bring on the auld dudes. 
kiss ■■
There is no such thing as a stupid question, as learning never stops.
Ask away on here, there are lots of experts that don’t mind helping out.
ROG:
Why do a week long dcpc course when you could find a trainer who has dcpc approved for practical LGV training and kill 2 birds with one stone ?
You could still do that to get the other 14 hours
Cuz he is training with me Rog
Just did my Assessment everything went well except for a cockup with gears on a roundabout which got me flustered a bit. I also managed to find reverse gear a couple of times instead of 2nd at junctions. After I got back and relaxed a bit I was thinking about the drive and wondered how panicked the car drivers behind me must have been when they saw the reverse lights come on at the junctions 
I am looking forward to starting my training now
Gromett:
mozzy666:
DRIVER SHORTAGE OOOOOHHHHhhh f Fske.Bring on the auld dudes. kiss ■■
What are you trying to say 
There isn’t one 
We now have you
Well had my C test yesterday and failed. 5 minors and 2 majors. I lost almost a full days training last week due to illness and disturbed sleep etc. I could have done with another days practice to be honest but that’s just excuses. I got the runs on the first days lesson and lost an hour and a half while I waited for the immodium to kick in. My gut was still grumbling enough to distract me and very little progress was made that day. That night there was a delivery next door just as I was dropping off. They were making so much noise I initially thought they were trying to break in. Just as they left I got a police helicopter hovering directly overhead for 45 minutes. By the time things settled down I managed to get 4 hours sleep. The second day was a double lesson 8 hours total. By hour 5 I was absolutely ■■■■■■ and starting to make the same mistakes I was making at the start. By hour 6 I felt I was on a losing battle and on the verge of being dangerous. I called off the lesson, handed the keys to the instructor and asked him to drive us back. So day one was a total loss, day two effectively felt like 1 lesson.
However the 4th lesson went really really well. I was almost 100% with the gearbox. I was hitting the right gears for roundabouts etc. No missed gears, judging speeds correctly. I still felt I could have done with another lesson though as I was missing some mirror work when concentrating on planning at roundabouts etc. I gave myself a 50/50 chance of passing.
On the day of the test my gut was grumbling again. I had half an hour drive up to the reversing area and at the start was making the odd cockup with the gearbox again. However this cleared up after 10 minutes. Possibly a cold box? Anyway onto the test.
One of the serious fails was gearbox. In all the lessons I had never had an issue getting it into second. 5 minutes into the test I couldn’t find second at all even though I had handbrake on and was pretty relaxed. It just refused to go in no matter what. The examiner told me to use another gear. I used third which was fine. Except until then the only time I had used third was for down hill starts and for that we block shifted from 3rd to 5th. I did a start from behind parked traffic in third dipped the clutch and automatically went to 5th without thinking. I was on a hill and it started juddering so I dipped clutch again lost too much speed. I calmly and without any panic stopped put on handbrake and started again with the intention of going 3rd to 4th. Just as I started moving a boy racer got fed up and came past. I saw that there was enough space for him to get past so kept going at extremely low speed to save another handbrake start. Got failed on this for continuing to move while a car was passing. I got a gearbox fail for this one I think because that was the root cause?
The second fail was a brain ■■■■. Diagonal start. There was an oncoming car and approaching traffic from behind. I decided to pull my front up to the white lines to stop me being blocked in by the long stream of traffic behind. I left plenty of space for the oncoming car but he thought I was going to pull out so stopped. Got a serious for causing another vehicle to brake. My instructor tells me I should have waited until he was alongside. Makes sense and totally my fault.
I am ok with the result considering I missed a whole bunch of lesson time. I thought my instructor Steve was fantastic. I have paid for another days tuition with him and another test. Just waiting to find out the dates.
I am really starting to enjoy it now that my initial problems with the 4 over 4 box is sorted. Just need to work out why I started having problems getting second when stopped. That really threw a spanner in the works…