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Standards: Mr Y replies to Mr X
Page 24
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I would like to reply to Mr X and particularly to his last paragraph in Hard Shoulder (CM 11 November ).
I have been in the motor trade for over 50 years and in the early 1960s a friend of mine who had a proper City & Guilds first class pass (Mechanics) and a second class pass (Technicians) Certificate was unable to obtain ajob with the then Ministry of Transport (now VOSA).
In the past 10 to 15 years I have had two of my drop-out exapprentices, who were at the time less than competent. obtain jobs with the MoT/VOSA and since then they have done very well for themselves.
So yes, I have to agree their standards of knowledge are dropping, but also they are being pushed by the government to fill in countless statistical forms so that the government can tell the public how they are protecting it from these dangerous vehicles.
No matter that in a huge percentage of cases the only fault might be that their headlamps were incorrectly set on the in-cab leveller, which the driver can adjust from his seat.
These are marked down on the operator's record as a black mark even though the leveller is there to compensate for the load (and of course all trucks run with a beamsetter on their front bumpers!).
Mr The South-East