LGV Courses

Tanya86

Hi guys

realy need bit of your help. My husband wants to get C1(as far as I know its LGV licence)
so found out everithing (mean all he needs to do before the test) apart where he can get the driving instructor.
1st class trucking ltd training center is way to expencive, May be some one will know good instructors in London. Will appreciate your help.

Hammyman

Forget it. Might as well go for Category C. Costs the same and may even be done in a similar vehicle but you can drive rigid lorries up to 32 tonnes as well as 7.5 tonne ones. When I took my HGV course in 1992 it was £1500 for a week and I'm up in East Yorks.

In addition to getting the Cat C or C1, he'll also now have to do a Drivers CPC which is a 35hr course teaching fundamentals such as EU Drivers Hours law, load restraint etc.

Has he got a job in mind? A typical job in haulage involves 55hr average working week, a maximum working day of 15hrs, usually starting or finishing in the wee hours and foregoing any kind of worthwhile social and family life.

Paradigm

Hammyman wrote: »

In addition to getting the Cat C or C1, he'll also now have to do a Drivers CPC which is a 35hr course teaching fundamentals such as EU Drivers Hours law, load restraint etc.

Has he got a job in mind? A typical job in haulage involves 55hr average working week, a maximum working day of 15hrs, usually starting or finishing in the wee hours and foregoing any kind of worthwhile social and family life.

Agree with all Hammyman says but I'll go further.... tell him to forget the idea altogether!

Along with the silly early starts, long hours & late finishes for not much money... you also get the added bonuses of being hated by the majority of the motoring public, treated like doo-doo by customers (& your employer sometimes), spending nights away from home in a tin box parked in a poxy layby, sitting in traffic watching your childs birthday tick away in front of your eyes because you agreed to do that one last favour (we're really stuck). I could go on

I've also noticed that once you start driving for living there's some automatic bar to you ever getting any job outside of driving ever again... regardless of your experience & work history in other fields!

Your husband could earn nearly as much driving a fork lift truck with regular hours & a lot less grief.

Hammyman wrote: »

but you can drive rigid lorries up to 32 tonnes

The weight limit is the same as C+E, just that very few rigids have the required number of axles & would be a !!!!!! to drive if they did!

forgotmyname

HGV tests are expensive, Not likely to get any cheaper.

Do what i did started off as a van driver, Work was quiet so they sent me out in a 7.5ton lorry which
i could drive on my car licence. No problems. After 12 months one of the HGV drivers left and they were
left short for a while having to send 2 smaller vehicles out.
They put me and another guy through the HGV class 2. Only day work though and no nights.

Money was not brilliant but having the class 2 meant i could do extra work on the weekends, That stopped 4
years ago when they changed the way they worked out the driving hours.
We had to sign agreements to say we did not do any driving work on the weekends.

Money was rubbish after that.

optimus_primera

I am doing my Cat C driving course in 2 weeks time, luckily my company are footing the bill,i am only doing it because they are paying for it,we are replacing our 7.5t trucks with 12t and 18t trucks, so they asked for volunteers,and i am not going to refuse that offer.

As for the CPC,those of us with 'grandfather rights' have until 2014 to do it.

bigjl

C1, D1 used to come free on your licence, I assume your husband passed his test after they stopped putting this on for free.

All the new recruits that join the LAS via University have to do the C1, D1 test to be able to driver over 3 ton I think, this is from memory as it came with my licence.

I believe £750-£1200 was the usual amount they paid, and I think they had to pay for each retest if they failed.


From what I have heard there is no money in these driving jobs unless you have lots of experience, are tacho trained and can drive ADR, though a lot of the ex forces leave with ADR which I think would take care of any well paid jobs.

Much better than being on the dole though, so he may aswell give it a try, even if the money and hours aren't the best, he may actually enjoy it, which can be a small compensation.

Hammyman

bigjl wrote: »

From what I have heard there is no money in these driving jobs unless you have lots of experience, are tacho trained and can drive ADR,

There's still not any money in it even with all of that. I've met ADR drivers on £7/hr. There's plenty of drivers with decades of experience working for under £7/hr. You have to be tacho trained to drive anything from 3.5t upwards.

And ex-forces drivers with no commercial experience are regarded as complete noobies and basically incompetent, ADR or not, 22 years driving in the forces or not. I can spot a lorry driver who has just left the forces due to the fact he can't reverse onto a loading bay if his life depended on it.

Rossy.

optimus_primera wrote: »

I am doing my Cat C driving course in 2 weeks time, luckily my company are footing the bill,i am only doing it because they are paying for it,we are replacing our 7.5t trucks with 12t and 18t trucks, so they asked for volunteers,and i am not going to refuse that offer.

As for the CPC,those of us with 'grandfather rights' have until 2014 to do it.

You have no different right regarding the CPC i'm afraid.

Anyone who holds a PSV/HGV license has until 2014 to complete it.

My firm are doing 8 hour day courses and they give 1 per year to conform with the legislation

trucktruck

Rossy. wrote: »

You have no different right regarding the CPC i'm afraid.

Anyone who holds a PSV/HGV license has until 2014 to complete it.

My firm are doing 8 hour day courses and they give 1 per year to conform with the legislation

Yea your right there for reward you now need CPC as of last september i think. But the CPC he will have to take will be module 2 + 4, you do module 2 with the hazard perception then module 3 is the practical driving test when you pass that you can do the final module 4 CPC this part generaly costs about £300. Consists of 3 hours training then you have to take lorry to VOSA and do show me, tell me's, exit drills, suspicious package checks, rubbish, rubbish and possibly a stealth tax me thinks... The CPC you mentioned is say for me now (just passed) I need 1 day per year of classroom attendance, 5days per 5years at about £80 a day every 5 years another cost! They are thinking about making this a test too more money ill guess...


As for doing the test i have not long pased mine at 31, coming from a bricklaying background i had to change trades as that would not pay the bills regularly and i had some savings. Would i recomend it? If i had known how much it actually costs and the length of time to pass and actual wage compared to outlay i would seriously have considered something else, plumbing, electrics truth is though alot of trades are suffering and i needed to get out of being self employed so in that respect it hasnt been too bad. I'm even considering taking the c+e must be mad

When i originally called for a quote on cat c training it was about £1450 that was what i believed to be the cost. I found and others have that you get drawn in and once you start the spending process you are commited you cant say i cant afford it or il give up and try something different as you are financially commited. Here are the actuall costs ish.

Doctors medical : £70
New paper licence : £20
Hazard perception+first part CPC : £110
3days (2.5days!) training + test : £1450 (I failed first time just)
Retest : £300
Final CPC training + test : £200
(after passing my test the test bloke said i will take your card to be destroyed and you will have the new one sent to you its quickest. my training center booked CPC and card wasnt returned in time to take to VOSA for final CPC so missed test and needed re-book)

Retest for CPC : £55
Tachograph card : £40
Fuel : £80

So as you can see not cheap, took about 7 weeks as alot of corresponding with DVLA so that slows things down alot. Whilst doing the test i found out some people are coming back for there 5-6th try! OUCH! All parts of the test are harder than normal driving test longer, higher pass rate needed, etc. Example: practcal is at least 1hour on road and 30 mins at VOSA center doing various bits of test. During this hour you are allowed 12 minors i think but no serious marks, not 1. If you approach a roundabout slightly wrong £300, if someone is driving like a lunatic and have to slow down because of you £300. I failed because for some reason i didnt re-engage the indicator coming off a roundabout and there was someone behind me that didnt know where i was going. So make sure he has money to get all the way through. Its not exactly impossible to drive a lorry BUT to get to the test standard required in 2.5 days is.

If he does go down this route shop around for training dont always go for the cheapest, talk to the people look at there yard, are they very helpful and committed to getting you through quick. Get reccomendations, might be worth travelling too. Once my training company got the $'s they wernt much help.

Hope this helps

Tanya86

Thanks everyone who replied.
Goodness, so expensive and not very profitable
And pretty much always away from home

mrbadexample

Hammyman wrote: »

In addition to getting the Cat C or C1, he'll also now have to do a Drivers CPC which is a 35hr course teaching fundamentals such as EU Drivers Hours law, load restraint etc.

Although he won't have to do that immediately. He'll have one year to complete the course.