1st Class Trucking

emma47_2

Has anyone had any dealings with a company called 1st Class Trucking, in Enfield? I booked 12 hours worth of lessons and a B+E Trailer Towing Test with them and received terrible service. The lessons are held in Macro's car park with vehicles that are not fit for the road and they have terrible customer services. I have had 4 lessons and I would say only 3 of these lessons I have received the service I have paid for. Does anybody have an advice or had a similar problem with another company? And know where I stand legally with either getting a refund or more lessons so I will actually pass my test?

vikingaero

I imagine you could complain the the Driving Standards Agency regarding the poor standard of training - http://www.dsa.gov.uk/

With regard to the dangerous vehicles, even though they are on private land, they are on land to which the public has access and you could complain to VOSA - http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Dl1/Directories/UsefulContactsByCategory/MotoringContacts/DG_10012449

misterspivvy

Unfortunately LGV driving schools are not subject to the same levels of regulation as car driving schools. basically all you need to set up an LGV driving school is a truck and an LGV license, meaning that there have been a lot of fly by night operations springing up and then vanishing once they've collected a nice lot of advance fees.
A bit pointless now I know, but the best advice for anyone is to go with a long established school, not necessarily the cheapest. I did mine with Newport Transport, the company who runs the city buses in Newport, s.wales. They had their own workshops so the vehicle was maintained perfectly, their instructors were ministry acredited examiners and they had a 95% pass rate. the odd 5% were, according to the instructor, "no hopers who shouldn't be behind the bloody wheel in the first place"

Strider590

Did they by any chance expect you to already know a lot of what they were teaching?

Hammyman

Strider590 wrote: »

Did they by any chance expect you to already know a lot of what they were teaching?

B+E suggests a car with a trailer so seeing as they've passed a car test, so yes. And yes, most HGV driving schools expect you to at least know what the main controls are, how to steer a vehicle, what mirrors are for etc as you have to have already passed a car test.

Strider590

^^ Exactly what im getting at, can't expect then to teach things that you should already know. It's like taking a degree in engineering and getting angry when they expect you to know how to solve basic equations.

But anyway, this is why I asked the question

misterspivvy

I think its a given that you are expected to already know how to drive, you can't get an LGV license without passing a car test.
They are concentrating on teaching you how to drive a truck, on the areas where it IS different. ie, the sheer size, giving it extra room for the trailer, reversing, the difference between air brakes and hydraulic, the sheer number of gears and how to use a crash box if it has one, driving on your mirrors, coupling up, tachographs,etc.
The only thing that concerned me is that there is no differentiation between the stopping distances for a car and a truck in the highway code, and also they always taught you with an empty truck. a loaded one is a TOTALLY different animal. wether this has changed now I don't know.

Hammyman

misterspivvy wrote: »

The only thing that concerned me is that there is no differentiation between the stopping distances for a car and a truck in the highway code, and also they always taught you with an empty truck. a loaded one is a TOTALLY different animal. wether this has changed now I don't know.

THATS BECAUSE THERE ARE NO STOPPING DISTANCES IN THE HIGHWAY CODE FOR HGVS.

There is no set standard stopping distance as even the same weighted lorry has different SAFE stopping distances depending on the load being carried.

Also in the HGV test, there is no emergency stop. There is a "controlled stop" which you can actually fail on for stopping too quickly even if you don't lock the tyres - primarily because in real life it could end up with you or others being crushed by your load.

At the end of the day, the OP is taking lessons for a car with trailer. Most of the problems will be with reversing as most car drivers can't even reverse without a trailer, let alone with one where they've got to turn the steering wheel the wrong way. So the reversing practice is all done off road and the actual reversing test is as well - no different to any Cat C+E HGV lessons. Once the OP has got confident at going backwards, then they'll be taken out on the road as that's the easy bit - they only have to learn to account for the additional length, other than that its a normal car test.

misterspivvy

Hammyman wrote: »

THATS BECAUSE THERE ARE NO STOPPING DISTANCES IN THE HIGHWAY CODE FOR HGVS.

There is no set standard stopping distance as even the same weighted lorry has different SAFE stopping distances depending on the load being carried.

Also in the HGV test, there is no emergency stop. There is a "controlled stop" which you can actually fail on for stopping too quickly even if you don't lock the tyres - primarily because in real life it could end up with you or others being crushed by your load.

At the end of the day, the OP is taking lessons for a car with trailer. Most of the problems will be with reversing as most car drivers can't even reverse without a trailer, let alone with one where they've got to turn the steering wheel the wrong way. So the reversing practice is all done off road and the actual reversing test is as well - no different to any Cat C+E HGV lessons. Once the OP has got confident at going backwards, then they'll be taken out on the road as that's the easy bit - they only have to learn to account for the additional length, other than that its a normal car test.

Ok, that'll teach me to read the OP properly..I just saw the 1st class trucking bit and assumed, didn't see the B+E bit. feel free to disregard everything I said

Hammyman

misterspivvy wrote: »

Ok, that'll teach me to read the OP properly..I just saw the 1st class trucking bit and assumed, didn't see the B+E bit. feel free to disregard everything I said

LOL. I do the same on a regular basis.:D:D