Placid casual wrote:
You never see those big orange HGV plates
HGV was the old licence system, political correctness caused it to be called LGV and no need for L plates except a car type plate.
You cant drive a heavy vehicle now cos its a large vehicle 
Passed my test bout 15 yrs ago on a V8 day cabbed cargo +40ft 2 axle,drop-side trailer on a monday .On tuesday morning found meself heading outa Somerset with concrete barriers bound for Dalwhinnie and two pick ups of seed potatoes from Montrose & Dundee for Devon, piloting a B-reg R-cabbed Scania 113,360. Its a very strange feeling,sitting in that cab, driving on your own that first day,suffice to say I dont think I went faster than 45-50 until id gotten to Sandbach services,what with stopping at every servces to make sure nothing had fallen off ! Happy days,strange, but happy !!
Sorry fellow truckers…but after 40 years on the road…and 25 years international i was wondering what a test is…us old timers only passed a test in a car…and the government said we were too experienced to take a test and gave us a h.g.v. licence (black book) anyway…but its an interesting point…they did say that once we paid for the new licence it would last for life…LIES…again (do politicians ever stop lying)…so the cost just kept spirallin…then they decided to make us pay for a medical (what is the national health service for ) my first medical was such a new thing that the doctor didnt know how much to charge so charged me 50p…the last one was £65…now theres a point worth raising..ill do it now…watch these boards…
have a nice day
Nice one truckyboy.
Keep the posts coming - it’s nice to hear about the old days.
Regards - Niall.
As a long time member of the RCT, I took my combined Class3/ Ord on an old Bedford RL. Down at St Martins Plain in Folkestone if memory serves me correctly. Biggest claim to fame for the RL was as it was a petrol engine if you switched off the ignition at speed let it freewheel for perhaps 5 or so seconds it used to dump loads of unburnt fuel into the exhaust. On turning the ignition back on the fuel would ignite with a loud bang and usually blow the baffle box to bits.
My class 2 was taken at my unit on an AEC with crash gearbox and steering so heavy you used to have to stand up to get it round tight corners. You also used to get the loose skin between your thumb and index finger caught in the spring on the ratchet handbrake. In winter time they were renowned for the batteries going flat and sometimes exploding when starting them up. One chap I knew totaled the transmission by allowing it to freewheel down that big hill on the M11 southbound to the M25. It reached about 62 Mph before the prop shaft shot up through the load space. We were in convoy and thought it highly amusing as he passed us all in the centre lane. Incidentally around this time late 70’s early 80’s my unit also held Leyland Hippo’s as ex WW2 war stock bench seats and only 4 forward gears and 1 or 2 Thorneycroft’s which again were petrol driven. We used to love taking them down to the local petrol station to refuel them as they had 500 litre tanks on them. In them days when they were giving the glasses away we used to walk out with boxfuls of them. Was also handy as we used to get some attendants to bump up the amount of fuel drawn on the agency voucher in return for smokes and sweeties and things.
My Class One was taken at Grantham again in the early 80’s and was a result of me being in the right place at the right time a vehicle and QTO being available. I spent a couple of days practicing reversing the 20 foot trailer behind the miniature Leyland tractor (again this was the kit that had no landing gear for the trailer and you were able to uncouple from the drivers seat). It was taking me ages to crack the reversing and on the afternoon of my test the QTO just happened to arrive to see me complete a successful reverse maneuver and counted that as the test one. After the road test he wanted to go to Grantham station to check the times of the trains back to London. As I turned in to the station approach I noticed a cul de sac sign and my heart went to my boots. Anyway while he was inside suddenly the taxi rank emptied and I saw an opportunity to spin it round. I took it and had it pointed in the correct direction as he came back out. Later that day I also took and passed my group D motorcycle licence the chance of a test came up at about 5 minutes notice, luckily I had been riding them about MOD property for a few Months prior to that so had no problem.
Anyway for maybe 5 years after passing that test I never had the need to drive class one again. When I did have to do it commercially it was a very steep learning curve.
My biggest disappointment was turning down the opportunity to take a PSV test. It was offered to me but as I was going on leave later that day I never actually bothered. A few of my mates did take the opportunity and I know of them is involved in the long holiday coach tours round Europe.
i took mine in a d reg leyland roadtrain with knackard syncro gear box ie by the time i got it it was a crash box with a 45ft triaxle flat
class 3 = bedford tk
class 2 = bedford tm
psv = a coach (they all look the same to me full of [zb] stinking old grannies)
simon