LGV Instruction Help?........ ask away

tkblueyonder

Hello

I see lots of people on here are using there professions to help others which is a pretty cool idea so i just thought as a professional LGV trainer i would offer my services for advice for all you budding lorry drivers out there!

Feel free to ask my advice! :j

paulhgc

tkblueyonder wrote:

Hello

I see lots of people on here are using there professions to help others which is a pretty cool idea so i just thought as a professional LGV trainer i would offer my services for advice for all you budding lorry drivers out there!

Fell free to ask my advice! :j

you pay £1500 to get your license and then they all want 2 years experience so you go with a agency and you get all the crap work like nights out and dustcart work ......... my advice is save ya £1500 pounds

tkblueyonder

sounds like u have had bad experience paul sorry to hear that

paulhgc

tkblueyonder wrote:

sounds like u have had bad experience paul sorry to hear that

no its just how it is

pompeyrich

paulhgc wrote:

you pay £1500 to get your license and then they all want 2 years experience so you go with a agency and you get all the crap work like nights out and dustcart work .........

That's the way things work isn't it? start at the bottom so to speak, invest time or money learning something, then gain experience in your field doing "crap" stuff, then you can pick and choose the best options. Well it worked for me.

tkby, I am being made redundant soon, I'm a sparky but fancy a change after 30 years of that, my company are giving us £1,500 training money, is it worth doing the hgv2 or is it lgv 2 these days? A lot of jobs about for 7.5 ton delivery driving, I thought you could do this with a standard car licence.

bluemonster

I took voluntary redundancy from my distribution centre supervisors job 11 months ago, i knew it was coming and did my LGV 2 training whilst in my notice period, it was the best thing i ever did, I do Monday to Friday 5 until 2ish, and have increased my income by around 8k. If you think you will enjoy it, DO IT!! Oh, but don't pay £1,500, I paid £875 with Sterling training and did it in 4 days.

As for the 7.5 ton driving, you need to check your entitlement, it depends when you passed your test, they changed it sometime in the 90's.

Good luck with whatever you do.

Mark

xlt_hunter

For 7.5t lorry I think its C1 on the license you need so thats a no go for car licence.

Cat C is a lorry confined to a fixed chassis and weight is over 7.5t
Cat C+E over 7.5t with the tractor unit pulling the trailer (note you can drive the tractor unit on a cat c but not with the trailer)

Cat C+E was HGV1
Cat C was HGV2

For training, I had Cat C funded by the skills council and I funded C+E myself (£800) - might be a good idea to have a word with the job centre as they may be able to help you out with funding for Cat C and you funding C+E with the £1500 you would be given or you could go to the driving school and give them all of the £1500 for both courses? worth thinking of the options.

But - jobs will be hard to come by in the 1st 2 years like Im finding now..., I got 2 interviews next week for agency work and hopefully 2 employers outside of the agents domain who are looking to take me on to get me started.

tkblueyonder

pompeyrich wrote:

That's the way things work isn't it? start at the bottom so to speak, invest time or money learning something, then gain experience in your field doing "crap" stuff, then you can pick and choose the best options. Well it worked for me.

tkby, I am being made redundant soon, I'm a sparky but fancy a change after 30 years of that, my company are giving us £1,500 training money, is it worth doing the hgv2 or is it lgv 2 these days? A lot of jobs about for 7.5 ton delivery driving, I thought you could do this with a standard car licence.

One thing is sure, there is such a shortage of LGV drivers ( Used to be termed HGV) if you were an employer and were to ring an agency for a driver they would either send down some little old boy who only wants to work a couple of days a week or someone who will smash your lorry up so my advice would be if you get yourself a licence you will never struggle for a days work. As bluemonster says for LGV 2 you wont need to spend anywhere near £1500 for LGV 2, our company charges £844 for a five day course inclusive of test and VAT.

If you passed your test in a car before January 1st 1997 you can drive goods vehicles up to a Maximum Authorised Mass (MAM) of 7.5tonnes. The entitlement you are looking for on you licence is C1 (7.5 Tonnes):beer:

paulhgc

but most class 2 jobs pay a average of only £8 per hour where as 7.5 th work can pay £7.50 per hr. I think it realy depends on your location but from my experience most class 2 jobs are around £8 per hr and not a lot of them carry pension ect ect and all the work seems to be with agencies.

tkblueyonder

paulhgc wrote:

but most class 2 jobs pay a average of only £8 per hour where as 7.5 th work can pay £7.50 per hr. I think it realy depends on your location but from my experience most class 2 jobs are around £8 per hr and not a lot of them carry pension ect ect and all the work seems to be with agencies.

Our company is based in SE London Paul, i know of 2 local companies as a good example that i have done training for who typically pay 22-24k a year for not a hard days work driving a class 2:D

paulhgc

tkblueyonder wrote:

Our company is based in SE London Paul, i know of 2 local companies as a good example that i have done training for who typically pay 22-24k a year for not a hard days work driving a class 2:D

i must be looking in the wrong place then as i am also in the south london area and if you look on http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/JCP/ and search hgv jobs most are £8 per hr