I spoke to a number of trainees and instructors today at the gloucester test centre and the general concencus was between 4 and 4.5 hours max per day of ‘behind the wheel driving’ so this confirms what the majority have said on here.
Thanks again folks.
better late than never!!
I know for a fact that when I was training recently, most of the days were 4hrs - 1 to 1, driving most of the time- 20min break in the middle, which was perfect, I found it just right concentration wise & could go home (albeit a bit tired from all the concentration!) feeling I’d taken in all I was taught.
But there were a few days when we had to do 6hrs… what a difference!
I can honestly say the last 2hrs were wasted as I was too tired to take any more in & was starting to make stupid mistakes which annoyed me & were in a way detremental to my confidence.
I did 4 hours training per day for 4 days, with 2 hours driving before test on the 5th day on a 1 to 1 tuiton on my C+E.
We started at 6am, had a break at 8ish for about 20 mins then carried on until 10am.
When i passed my class2 6 years ago, it was on a 2 to 1 tuiton basis, we started at 8am and had a break at 12ish
and then carried on until 4pm. The days did drag a bit as i remember the other guy being trained with me took a while
to get used to the gears, and it kind of got a bit frustrating for me after a couple a days of that. I prefered the
1 on 1 tuiton on the C+E more.
I agree that some trainees get tired later on in the day with 1:1 tuition. If I sense this there is a few more training things I do
1 I take the wheel for a while and show them what standard the examiners are looking for. Believe me this is agood exercise to do especially on there first day when they have so much to take in!!!
2 Go through the show me tell me questions.
3 Show the traineee how the tachoworks and how to fill a chart in(ok they dont need to know for test but will be a great help on there first working day )
4 Go back into the yard early to do some more reversing practice
A good instructor should be able to assess if the trainee is getting tired and have back up plans just in case.
Personally I would never let a tired trainee drive, consequently eliminating the risk of them being dangerous on the road.
Elmet training you must have been taught well!
Also you can now do the Initial CPC module 4 questions after every hour of driving, you see we intergrate it on he training course so it costs the customer only £50 more for the test compared to before it came in.
elmet training:
I agree that some trainees get tired later on in the day with 1:1 tuition. If I sense this there is a few more training things I do
1 I take the wheel for a while and show them what standard the examiners are looking for. Believe me this is agood exercise to do especially on there first day when they have so much to take in!!!
2 Go through the show me tell me questions.
3 Show the traineee how the tachoworks and how to fill a chart in(ok they dont need to know for test but will be a great help on there first working day )
4 Go back into the yard early to do some more reversing practice
A good instructor should be able to assess if the trainee is getting tired and have back up plans just in case.
Personally I would never let a tired trainee drive, consequently eliminating the risk of them being dangerous on the road.
Does this mean that the trainee gets less ‘behind the wheel’ hours?
The company I last worked for wanted this -
either 5 days of 2 to 1 or 3 days of 1 to 1 with the 3 day 1 to 1 trainee being given the same ‘behind the wheel hours’ that the 2 combined would have had on the 2 to 1 course !!
I did my C 2 to 1 and found it that when i drove the truck it went quick but when in the passenger seat it was slow and felt like the other driver was getting longer in the truck
on my C+E it was 2 to 1 for 3 days and then 2 days on my own on my own did go a lot quicker than with some one else in the cab
when i did my cat C for the 1st 3 days i had 1:1 training this was mainly spent getting use to the vehicle & gears
the nxt were spent on a 2:1 which did have it advantages but also came with its disadvantages as the pairing of trainee has to be right as well as the instructor
for my C+E it was all done on a 2:1 again there was advantages & disadvantages to this i feel i would have been better havin some 1:1 time with a different instructor
there are some in this area that do both & have looked into doin the 1:1 for my C+E as i feel a different instructor would be better for me a poss of 2 days then test as have failed it once before
animal:
have looked into doin the 1:1 for my C+E as i feel a different instructor would be better for me a poss of 2 days then test as have failed it once before
1 to 1 all day in that situation would be different as it would be more of a refresher than starting from scratch
Tockwith Training FROM HERE:
Our firm has been going since 1971, when my grandad set the company up on a disused airfield. The training day started at 8am and finished at 5pm, imagine that, poor little johnny would be a shaddow of his former self after that day! Back then tho it was done properly, you either did a shared two to one course over 10 days or a one to one over 5 days.
I still believe that a good one to one course will beat any two to one course, of which I have plenty of experience. We now train from 8.30am until 4pm with just one pupil and they don’t over tired.
My day goes like this.
8.30 classroom to cover key points,theory, highway code, whatever s most relevant to the pupil.
10.00 daily walkaround check with show me questions
10.30 reversing practice
11.00 driving practice with short 5 minute breaks to discuss driving every 30 mins or so.
1.30 lunch
2.00 driving practice
3.30 controlled stop and debrief at end in the truck
4pm home time.
I my mind the government should design a set course we all have to follow, it should last two weeks and cover as must as possible, more than the minimum we teach now to get drivers through a short test.
And as for the 1:1 or 2:1 bebate, I think that neither are best, I believe driving is best taught 1:1 but things like reversing, theory, vehicle familiarsation and controlled stops are best done in groups of up to 3 trainees per instuctor. But changing the instructor:trainee ratio all the time is impractical. If you don’t believe me then look at how the police train, they vary the ratio and do one to one where it works best.
I love a good rant, feel free to think different to me!
Would I be correct in saying that most companies could not afford to do 1 to 1 the way you do unless they put up their prices and charge the single trainee the same price as two trainees ?
3 hours on-road practice would be the norm for 1 to 1 half days
I’m not saying your methods are wrong - just that they would be finacially impractical, without a major cost increase, for most - IMO
Tockwith Training FROM HERE:
Our firm has been going since 1971, when my grandad set the company up on a disused airfield. The training day started at 8am and finished at 5pm, imagine that, poor little johnny would be a shaddow of his former self after that day! Back then tho it was done properly, you either did a shared two to one course over 10 days or a one to one over 5 days.
I still believe that a good one to one course will beat any two to one course, of which I have plenty of experience. We now train from 8.30am until 4pm with just one pupil and they don’t over tired.
My day goes like this.
8.30 classroom to cover key points,theory, highway code, whatever s most relevant to the pupil.
10.00 daily walkaround check with show me questions
10.30 reversing practice
11.00 driving practice with short 5 minute breaks to discuss driving every 30 mins or so.
1.30 lunch
2.00 driving practice
3.30 controlled stop and debrief at end in the truck
4pm home time.
I my mind the government should design a set course we all have to follow, it should last two weeks and cover as must as possible, more than the minimum we teach now to get drivers through a short test.
And as for the 1:1 or 2:1 bebate, I think that neither are best, I believe driving is best taught 1:1 but things like reversing, theory, vehicle familiarsation and controlled stops are best done in groups of up to 3 trainees per instuctor. But changing the instructor:trainee ratio all the time is impractical. If you don’t believe me then look at how the police train, they vary the ratio and do one to one where it works best.
I love a good rant, feel free to think different to me!
Would I be correct in saying that most companies could not afford to do 1 to 1 the way you do unless they put up their prices and charge the single trainee the same price as two trainees ?
3 hours on-road practice would be the norm for 1 to 1 half days
I’m not saying your methods are wrong - just that they would be finacially impractical, without a major cost increase, for most - IMO
I think you will find that the on the road practice is not much over 3 hours in the above timings, when you take into account the 5min stops every half hour.
How anyone can spend so much time in a classroom is beyond my comprehension, and if it takes half an hour a day to reverse a rigid! Half an hour a day for walk round checks (maybe that includes servicing the vehicle!)
My day consists of driving practice, with discussion on the move, I find there is time between junctions to instruct and correct. Trainees are paying to learn to drive and in particular be comfortable with the truck and its on the move operation. But then everyone is entitled to there own methods and opinion. However driving time is quite similar with my teaching to that of Tockwith.
This debate could roll on and on. The total truth is that there is no 1 better method.
I would say from experience that most schools try to sell what suits their circumstances best, ie number of seats in the vehicle, distance from test centre etc.
I have about equal experience with training using both systems and I would say that initially a customer thinks 1 to 1 will be better but most will only attend for half days despite the fact they have probably taken 5 days off work for the course. I honestly believe that there is quite a bit of benefit from a period of driving (about an hour to get used to the test timings) then a period of observing when the instructor can point out the types of mistakes being made. This is not always possible when driving in the pressure of heavy traffic early on in the course.
I would prefer to be under instruction and learning for 8 hours for my money than for 4 each day.
If there is an unusually big difference between the 2 candidates abilities and 1 feels a bit embarrased or there is a conflict of personalities between the 2 students then the course can easily be switched to 1 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon for the remainder of the course.
The other benefit of 2 to 1 is that the instructor does not have to cover tthe entire syllabus twice in the same week. A good explanation of a specific point, ie moving off or junctions can be taught to 2 at the same time meaning there is more time to recap and practice each point better.
Anyway Happy new Year everyone and lets hope this recession finishes quickly.
When i did mine in 91,i started on the sunday and did 1/2 a day evey day,1 to 1 training,then friday i had an hour then my test,I was the last of the week,red hot day and the traffic was building up."i had been told,they could only pass a certain ammount per week,and me being last i thought i might of been a fail however well i drove.But he say YES.
Total bill was £671 including test.A retest would have been £132 with the hire of the truck aswell,so i wanted to pass first time,semming as though i funded it myself.
mine in 1988 - 7 days of 2 to 1
I had years of 7.5 tonne driving and 1 year of night shunting under my belt - the other chap has only driven small vans so we were worlds apart.
The instructor got us both to test pass standard by working out the drives to compliment each of us.
The other chap had 90% of the reversing time as I could do it first time, every time due to my shunting experience - I had more time on the road.
I could not believe it when my training mate failed on the reverse !!
It’s so true that this debate can go on forever. I think it’s good that the customer has a choice, if I could manage two systems I would offer both 2:1 and 1:1 to everyone, not just business customers. We do have trucks with only two seats but these are both artics, the rigids have 3 apart from an old Scania.
I think a good instructor can keep the pupil not driving interested for some of the time, but it’s certainly hard with some trainees. One of our instructors on d1 with 3 trainees had one decide to go for a sleep in the back! Strangly tho, they all passed even on 3:1, but was what the customer requested, they were all inteligent school teachers so obviously they should have all passed easily. I’ve seen b+e training done 3:1 too, it’s fairly common.
I don’t know if it’s just me that thinks the current set up for training drivers falls far short of what it should do. All we do is present them for test, knowing what they are expected to do and focus the entire course on the test. You might say that you prepare drivers for the real world but I know you don’t have the time. Its quite wrong, not our faults but the lack of direction wihin the DSA, they had a chance to change it all with the driver cpc business but they chose option b to add more tests rather than set up a 200 hour sylabus for all new drivers to follow. Right now we spend 30 hours training new drivers hands on, but we could have spent time on vehcle mechanics, safety systems, drivers hours and a million oher things in classroom, yard and in a truck. But instead we chose the easy way out. It’s a shame, however it would have sent he cost of training sky high, but if were all in the same boat it would have worked. Other countries do it, why can’t we have a comprehensive course not just driving about until we can scrape through a test?
Tockwith Training:
We do have trucks with only two seats but these are both artics, the rigids have 3 apart from an old Scania.
Not a bad set up as going from C to CE is far less of a jump then from B to C.
I have had plenty of 1st time sucess on all-day 1 to 1 training for CE but bery rarely if the same 1 to 1 was done all-day for C.
If the training company is very close to the reverse area and the test area then 1 to 1 half day or 2 to 1 all day can be viable options but if a lot of main road travelling is need to reach either then often 2 to 1 is the only option.
where i am there are aprox 4 providers with in a few miles of me at least 3 of these have there own reverse area although aprox 30 min drive from the test station most on busy roads
i did go to 1 provider ( cat C & C+E ) was ok then did go to another provider for an assessment drive due to fail of C+E the 2nd i found a lot better & will poss go with him in due course as i felt that i had lernt more with him in 1 hrs than i had with 1st provider in 5 days
this is only my personal experience
not long ago a friend ask me about trainin my reply was to go round all of them ( did send him the link for all & here ) & see which 1 he liked best & what would work for him
