Trailer freedom day.

[Justme]

are you ex-job?

No, Thats one reason why I cant get into ambo certified blue light work.
You have to work for the company that does the certification to get on a course to get trainer certified.
Or work direct for the NHS trusts ect that send you on the course.

However as long as you dont use any exemptions you dont have to be BL trainer certified.
For a C1 ambo they dont often actually go that fast, especially on the roads round here. Its more about making effective progress.

There is a lot of ground work that you can do without needing an exemption.
Most of it driving to the "system" which is how I taught BE C1 D1 C1E & D1E, heck its even how I teach B when you get a capable client. However on those courses I explained it in a different way as they wont be moving forwards using it on BL so dont need to know all the terms & TLA's.
The official course is about 3 weeks where you dont use any exemptions & then 1 or 2 weeks when you do.
Feed back from clients has been that it has really helped them as on the 3 week course they dont get to actually drive that much as its shared time & lots of theory stuff. They could do more practical in 1 day 1 on 1 with me than a full week on the course.

 

[Justme]

And when you’ve got around a million miles under your arse, including pulling trailers loaded with livestock, which can start a trailer swaying just by moving about, or bowsers with no baffles in the tank, or any number of unbalanced indivisible items, I might listen to yours.

How do you know I dont?

 

[V8Druid]

No, Thats one reason why I cant get into ambo certified blue light work.

'S why I asked ....
one of my old man's 'proteges' was invited to join an ex-traffic 'consortium' of three other guys in mid Wales, when he retired, doing 'specialist' driver training and 'advanced' I.A.M. stuff ... and I knew it's damned near impossible to get into without their level of training AND more importantly, experience.
'Traffic' are some of the most highly trained drivers in the country, as I am sure @Routy56 will confirm, being one of them.

Have you ever found your ceiling?

 

[JD450A]

The thing is so many trainers just teach what is in the test & how to pass & not what is in the full DVSA syllabus for driving.

My opinion of DVSA Modus operandi has been very low in regards to consistency for a while. Having seen the Wizened old Twat that failed my sister for "only doing 35 instead of 45 on a narrow road and thus not making progress" and discovering this time around he made her do 5 manoeuvres. Yeah, it's not just the trainers that are a issue.

The simple fact is that the B+E was poorly thought out and was always going to be..... similarly with the C1 License, both are pointless..... A 3.5t LWB Van can be a bigger handful than a 7.5t Lorry. And many 18t Lorries are shorter than 7.5t Box vans.

And when you’ve got around a million miles under your arse, including pulling trailers loaded with livestock, which can start a trailer swaying just by moving about, or bowsers with no baffles in the tank, or any number of unbalanced indivisible items, I might listen to yours.

The above is particular. I always had to chuckle regarding the "specification" to do the B+E test..... Tow a Box..... As always resulting in the trainer providing the standard horse box or box van with a box narrower than the towing vehicle so you can see with the mirrors......

HGV is the same..... standard training lorry is a 15t MWB Box with a 1/2 weighted load. Most are now Automatic because just like Cocopops gives out a free digger ticket DVSA give you a free Manual lorry license provided you hold a manual car license.....

Doing Class 1..... 15t Wagon and Drag is appropriate apparently to test you on..... Despite the fact the dynamics of a Artic are completely different to a Wagon and Drag.

Regarding Traffic Plod.... I've a mate who was one..... he can't drive a lorry aswell as me thought

 

[doobin]

looks like you had a couple of road plates under the poles? I'd have put both plates right up front, plus any shorter poles, to keep the nose down .. it's the imbalance in weight, not length that'll make it snake

I know, but if it was 16’ the weight distribution would have been better. As a beaver tail designed primarily for cars the axle spacing is probably set a few inches forward, as a car going on forward will end up with the engine end at the front.

Three plates, two up front hence the wood bearer at the back. No short poles

 

[DaveDCB]

You’re shitting me? Only this afternoon I was heading back with a a trailer full of scaffold that just wouldn’t sit right. Only around 1.8t load but too equal a distribution. It’s an Ifor beaver tail, 14’, and it always needs the load right against the headboard which wasn’t possible. A 16’, which is much more common, would probably ride better. Had the airbags right up and the hitch on the highest notch but I still kept it under fifty down the A27. Anyway, I was thinking to myself- keep it steady, I really don’t want to loose my newly acquired trailer license spaffing this lot across both lanes Then I though, possibly the most important bit for a towing test would be to explain how weight distribution, hitch height etc all work together for a smooth ride, or a death trap if you do it wrong.
And now you tell me the test never covered that? Good riddance!

It does.. we’ll my instructor and examiner certainly covered this area! Maybe not in such detail but it was not overlooked!

 

[Bri963]

How do you know I dont?

Do you?

 

[Justme]

Doing Class 1..... 15t Wagon and Drag is appropriate apparently to test you on..... Despite the fact the dynamics of a Artic are completely different to a Wagon and Drag.

My opinion of the DVSA is un printable.
Re going to slow 35 in what must have been a 50 or 60 seeing as we dont have any 45 limits is a bang to right fail if there were no reasons for going so slow.
Yes some examiners are crap.
Yes the minimum vehicle requirements are crap but then you dont want a fully loaded vehicle trundling a round all day for no good reason creating pollution. They used to be unloaded. You cant test / drive every possible combination of vehicle out there. They all have quirks. Like straw transporters or car transporters with front over hanging the cab.
A test at best is only going to cover a small part of any syllabus. In education you dont know which bit you will get tested on so have to study it all. In driving everyone knows exactly what yiu will & wont be tested on. Take the car manoeuvres. The turn in the road is still part of the syllabus but its now not tested so guess what? s**t trainers dont cover it any more. The test has reverse or drive forward into a parking bay. For reason only known to the DVSA they only do reverse in if the test center has its own car park. So as my local TC does not have a car park again guess what? Local instructors dont teach it.
Your CE numbers are slightly out.
Category CE vehicles must be at least 2.4 metres wide. There are 2 types of C+E test vehicle:

• a drawbar combination of a category C vehicle and trailer with a MAM of at least 20 tonnes and a length of at least 7.5 metres from coupling eye to extreme rear and a combined length of at least 14 metres
• an articulated lorry with a MAM of at least 20 tonnes, a minimum length of 14 metres and maximum length of 16.5 metres

 

[Justme]

Do you?

Million miles + tick.
livestock trailers, cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, poultry, tick but no horses.
unbaffled water bowsers on & off road tick
unbalanced indivisible items, well seeing as most large or single item loads are this I would give it a tick but with a rider of nothing crazy

 

[JD450A]

My opinion of the DVSA is un printable.
Re going to slow 35 in what must have been a 50 or 60 seeing as we dont have any 45 limits is a bang to right fail if there were no reasons for going so slow.

Mud on road, road twisting and single track..... I'd probably be doing 35 too.

Unfortunately these pricks can't be held to account.

 

[Justme]

Mud on road, road twisting and single track..... I'd probably be doing 35 too.

Unfortunately these pricks can't be held to account.

In which case thats a duff call.
The single track to my place I am doing 20 in a 60.
There is a single track on test round here & in some places you are doing sub 20 in a 60 & at no point doing over 40.

The only way to call them to account is to go to court.
They never change a decision & the most you will get is a free test.
So not worth the trouble.

 

[Smiffy]

The problem is that we are told that passing qualifications in this country make you safe whether it's a vocational driving licence or a ticket for machinery.
We are instilled that the following day we can go out and be safe and good at it. And this simply isn't true. And really it's a case of miss by an inch miss by a mile. Either do it properly or don't do it atall.
I can say for sure that the instructors for my hgv did not teach me to drive a lorry, my colleagues did. And there are plenty of people where I work that have done trailer licenses which are no different, far more is learnt after test. And if people haven't got colleagues to learn from then they are driving around convinced they are safe when actually they know the bare minimum.
As I said if you don't do it thoroughly you may aswell not do it atall.
And as jd has pointed out, the most dangerous people are likely to either be driving without the license in the first place or buying a combination that avoids the rules

 

[Storrsy]

You’re shitting me? Only this afternoon I was heading back with a a trailer full of scaffold that just wouldn’t sit right. Only around 1.8t load but too equal a distribution. It’s an Ifor beaver tail, 14’, and it always needs the load right against the headboard which wasn’t possible. A 16’, which is much more common, would probably ride better. Had the airbags right up and the hitch on the highest notch but I still kept it under fifty down the A27. Anyway, I was thinking to myself- keep it steady, I really don’t want to loose my newly acquired trailer license spaffing this lot across both lanes Then I though, possibly the most important bit for a towing test would be to explain how weight distribution, hitch height etc all work together for a smooth ride, or a death trap if you do it wrong.
And now you tell me the test never covered that? Good riddance!

When I did my trailer training it was a 3 day course with supposedly 4 blokes. 3 of them didn't show up and the ensuing 3 days more or less involved me and the instructor eating Kipling french fancies and drinking coffee whilst watching the heritage steam railway at Taunton. Passed with 4 minors so good use of time as far as I was concerned.

 

[Bucket on wheels]

My grandfather told me me about his Drive test, the local Sheriff come to the farm in a t-ford and the test consists of, Starting The Model T and take a round around the barn and to stop on the same spot he started. This was around 1930
And he tok his last drive alone at the age of 92 He passed away 6 months later

 

[Bucket on wheels]

To take CEDE in norway today it costs about £ 12570
When I took CEDE in 1993 it cost me £ 1491 in today's exchange rate

 

[doobin]

When I did my trailer training it was a 3 day course with supposedly 4 blokes. 3 of them didn't show up and the ensuing 3 days more or less involved me and the instructor eating Kipling french fancies and drinking coffee whilst watching the heritage steam railway at Taunton. Passed with 4 minors so good use of time as far as I was concerned.

THREE DAY course??? What a pisstake.

The problem is that we are told that passing qualifications in this country make you safe whether it's a vocational driving licence or a ticket for machinery.
We are instilled that the following day we can go out and be safe and good at it. And this simply isn't true. And really it's a case of miss by an inch miss by a mile. Either do it properly or don't do it atall.
I can say for sure that the instructors for my hgv did not teach me to drive a lorry, my colleagues did. And there are plenty of people where I work that have done trailer licenses which are no different, far more is learnt after test. And if people haven't got colleagues to learn from then they are driving around convinced they are safe when actually they know the bare minimum.
As I said if you don't do it thoroughly you may aswell not do it atall.
And as jd has pointed out, the most dangerous people are likely to either be driving without the license in the first place or buying a combination that avoids the rules

So, so true. Only today I asked a qualified tree surgeon to put a strop up in the tree for me so as I could fell it with the digger. A multistem tree. He attached it to one, then looped it all around the others, without putting it back over into a lasso. Had no concept of how dangerous that was, just thought he'd been safe by putting it around the others.

Had someone gone ahead and tried to drop it like that, that would almost certainly have resulted in a snapped hinge and uncontrolled fell.

Some people have common sense. Many don't. The problem is, everything gets dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, and they still don't get it!

 

[Canal Navvy]

THREE DAY course??? What a pisstake.

So, so true. Only today I asked a qualified tree surgeon to put a strop up in the tree for me so as I could fell it with the digger. A multistem tree. He attached it to one, then looped it all around the others, without putting it back over into a lasso. Had no concept of how dangerous that was, just thought he'd been safe by putting it around the others.

Had someone gone ahead and tried to drop it like that, that would almost certainly have resulted in a snapped hinge and uncontrolled fell.

Some people have common sense. Many don't. The problem is, everything gets dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, and they still don't get it!

What do you expect if you ask a tree surgeon to do a forestry job, sounds a basic management error

 

[doobin]

What do you expect if you ask a tree surgeon to do a forestry job, sounds a basic management error

Fair point but I’d expect someone qualified to fell a tree to know that.

 

[Canal Navvy]

Fair point but I’d expect someone qualified to fell a tree to know that.

It was interesting and educational getting to talk to the Scottish lads who wrote the assisted felling course when it was presented at the Arb show , I learnt a lot about the difficulties of making a course that fitted the disparate expectations of the interested parties..... and that was the polite version
.

 

[GazCro]

Fair point but I’d expect someone qualified to fell a tree to know that.

Comes back to the same old thing though. There's a difference between training and experience and in this modern world you can't get experience without a ticket so you get training first then ticket. Couple that with the modern attitude, have you ever tried telling someone with a ticket how to do something properly......