Really appreciate the input guys! Thanks. It’s gunna take me a while to save £1400 odd quid needed to cover everything to acquire the Cat C licence. My current job, Forestry work for Network rail, involves a lot of traveling all over Southern UK and a lot of motorway driving, all in a long wheel based van. So I think that’s how I’m gunna play it, kinda how I’m gunna have to, but yeh driving ■■■■■■’s in the mean time until I save some wonga.
Thanks again chaps.
Never…be an accountant for your health and families sake
mercury:
Never…be an accountant for your health and families sake
+1
P.S. That’s what I worked 2010-2013, never again 
You’ve lost me lol
Rincewind_:
You’ve lost me lol
Check maoster’s post/explanation in this thread, that should help clear it up!
The maoster says in response to mercury:
I think that you may benefit from the services of the NHS. I’m no doctor but you appear to be suffering from the recently discovered illness peculiar to internet users recently named as “Maximus gobshitis”, it’s a peculiar malady that causes the sufferer to post gibberish on every topic. It is recognisably English but strangely makes no sense and looks to the casual observer that the poor sufferer has in fact just thrown a bowl of alphabetti spaghetti at the computer screen!
Help is there for you you poor fellow.
Having been sent involved with four fatals I’m disgusted at the industries attitude to safety …and every time I mention the TRUTH I get shut down .carry on with the corporate manslaughter
mercury:
Having been sent involved with four fatals I’m disgusted at the industries attitude to safety …and every time I mention the TRUTH I get shut down .carry on with the corporate manslaughter
Truth? - the above doesn’t even make an intelligible statement…
It’s my phone its made in Britain keeps saying pension pension pension…wing it
I meant safety is number one …a vital change
Nothing to stop you having medical, getting provisional license, and getting your theory and hazard perception out of the way on a casual basis over the next few months. Then later in the year start practical. I also had to get rid of bad habits, and as long as you do a fair bit of car driving first I reckon you will be fine mate. Main thing is to treat everyone else on the road as a total wally and never assume they will do anything rational or safe!
I landed a delivery job before I even completed my practicals. They took me on as a 3.5t van driver with an aim to jump me to 7.5t trucks come my upgraded licence.
So no, experience isn’t such a major deal. Try to look for companies that are typically moving around in C1 trucks as it would seem they’re a little more forgiving in their requirements.
th2013:
Nothing to stop you having medical, getting provisional license, and getting your theory and hazard perception out of the way on a casual basis over the next few months. Then later in the year start practical. I also had to get rid of bad habits, and as long as you do a fair bit of car driving first I reckon you will be fine mate. Main thing is to treat everyone else on the road as a total wally and never assume they will do anything rational or safe!
+1
Thanks th2013. Sensible.
Hmmm, tough one.
I only passed my car test in 2012, and I wanted to jump straight into HGV driving. I decided to leave it though, for 2 years, because of the “6 points and you’re out” rule.
Driving trucks for a living, your chances of getting points on your licence increase. 6 points in 2 years isn’t a ban, it’s your licence revoked. If you had to sit not only your car test again after 6 points, but both classes of HGV, it would be costly aswell as disheartening.
Good luck with whatever you go with, though!
Wheels Are Round:
Try to look for companies that are typically moving around in C1 trucks as it would seem they’re a little more forgiving in their requirements.
I think the insurance the company has has a lot to do with it as well. I’ve got some work with a company that has a range of trucks and I can go up to 7.5 with them but I can’t use their C trucks because of their insurance, not so much cos they don’t trust me.
Good point Endgame. Something to consider for sure.
I’d personally say the experience gained from driving a car will help with driving an LGV. But you could just go for it (and you want to go for it so…).
Get a car. Drive it, and practise. Practise looking really far ahead, think what the car, horse, biker (motor and push), lorry, bus, drunken man is going to do next. Swerve while texting? Fall off? Stop to pick up passengers? Run in front of you (happened to me)?
Really concentrate on what you’re doing, and how to approach junctions as if you were in a big articulated truck (don’t actually straddle the lines coming up to a junction because people will be really ■■■■■■ off (unless you’re in a truck, you know what I mean)). That’ll probably help when it comes to your test.
A lot of people will tell you it’s “an easy job” and probably say something racist like “any old pole can do it”. It can be quite hard when you’re not rolling up and down the motorway scratching your todger. Especially in tight towns and while doing multi-drop.
But anyway, best of luck!