TRUCK DRIVING BEHIND THE WHEEL
ARTIC EXPLORER
The UK is crying out for people to qualify as truck drivers, but what’s the realit y of steering a 15m-long articulated wagon? HGV novice Simon Huck nall gives it a try
PHOTOGR APHY JOHN BR ADSHAW
You’ll need a CPC (Certificate of Professional Competence) to go with your truck licence, and that means a 35-hour course, which has to be taken every five years.
Ali Colquhoun looks nervous. The affable Scot’s normal day job is teaching HGV drivers and their transport managers to extract the best from heavily tech-laden machinery at Mercedes-Benz Trucks’ Customer Experience Centre near Barnsley. But today, he’s got me, and – all credit to him –I detect only the merest flinch when I admit that reversing a horse trailer into a paddock is the nearest I’ve come to driving an articulated vehicle.
But you can imagine that scenario being played out many times (at least, the government would hope so) over the coming months, as the barriers to obtaining an HGV 1 licence (code C+E), which allows you to drive a full-sized, 44-tonne articulated lorry, are relaxed. In short, as of 15 November this year, budding truckers will no longer have to first pass the HGV 2 (code C) test, which currently permits them to drive only a rigid-bodied truck, since it will be merged with the HGV 1 test.