1-schools join over bookings
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• At least 50 of Britain's truck driver training schools are jointly fighting last week's announcement that they will not be allowed to reserve blocks of tests from October (CM 28 April-4 May.
The schools, which fear some businesses will fold if the plans go ahead, are forming action groups in at least three traffic areas—the Western, SouthEastern and North-Western. Purfleet-based trainer Nick Smith at Roadtrain hopes to persuade them to take militant action: "If words don't get anywhere they should look at blockading every test centre," he says. Smith is also trying to take legal action against the coordinator of the tests, the Driving Standards Agency.
Eventually the action groups will decide together how to thwart the plans, which would only allow schools to pre-book tests if they can supply names of candidates to be examined.
Kevin Donachie of WITS in Weston-super-Mare, who is heading the Western group, says it is imperative the schools team up, because the DSA will not listen to them individually.
The DSA says that it will be considering comments from the training schools over the next six months.