TRAINING STANDARDS • With reference to '1 Landsborough's letter on
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Cowboy Training in Commercial Motor 11 May. For many years our company has been campaigning for the introduction of compulsory registration of HGV driving instructors. The Department of Transport requires car driving instructors to be registered before they can give instruction. All that is required to give HGV instruction is the appropriate HGV driving licence. This could result in a person passing their HGV test on Friday and commence as an instructor on Monday.
Many reputable training centres send their instructors to the RTITB on approved training courses. This can cost over 2,000 per instructor, when you take into consideration course fees, wages, and loss of use of the vehicle. None of this money can be recoverd by the Commercial Training Centre where Group Training Associations receive a large proportion of their instructors' training fees back from the Board.
Commercial Training Centres are in a "Catch 22" situation in that if they do not train their instructors to the Board's criteria, they will not receive approval.
I am all in favour of free enterprise but while a person can buy an HGV vehicle and offer training courses without any formal qualifications, you will never improve the standard of training provided. What normally happens is that they start up in business with an old vehicle offering cheap courses and within a year they cease trading — the damage already done to the industry.
The haulage industry has the CPC as a minimum qualification. Why not the same for training centres covering not only training standards but also their financial standing and good repute. I feel that the sooner the RTITB and Department of Transport set a basis criteria for HGV instructors the sooner the standards of instruction will improve.
Eddie Pargeter, EP Training Services, Esher, Surrey.