I failed. Three Serious faults, four Minors, though somewhat controversially with the strong suggestion from G and his manager that had I had an examiner other than the one I got the result could have been quite different.
I met my instructor in the Training Office at 6:55am and we walked over to the vehicle one more time. At least today the yard wasn't covered in ice and a skating ring as the day before. Still dark with the dawn just showing and the promise of some clear skies today.
Straight up into the cab, stow my gear and I do one more reverse. This is fine, but just not quite straight in the garage so take a small shunt to straighten up then back onto the barrier with a coupe of inches to spare.
With that we are off and now through our familiar route out of Winsford, through Middlewich to the M6 then all the way down past Keele Services to J15 and onto the A519 towards Eccleshall and the Test Centre. This is a very pretty run with the "A" road dipping and winding up and down steep hills through the woods and fields. G is giving me some advanced driving here and I am changing between Low and High 7 and Low 8 as we climb up then run down the hills and valleys and much use of the exhaust brake (when I can find it)!
One more time (good practise) through the hopelessly-tight left hand hairpin junction at Sturbridge and then into the Test Centre gates and I park in the access road to the pad with 15 minutes to spare. Time for a quick trip to the loo and then a walk-around the rig and I talk G through the uncouple-and-re-couple procedures one final time.
By now there are three trucks behind me, also here for their tests and now a little group of instructors has gathered around G (as they all know each other) and are swapping gossip and news. I climb in the cab and get my license ready. Then I see "brass" approaching in the mandatory Motorway hi-viz jackets, white shirt and blue tie. The examiner that took me for my C (Rigid) test is first and to my surprise he walks past us as does the other two whom I vaguely recognise. And then finally mine as he nears my passenger side cab door, G gives me a shrug of the shoulders and eyebrows as if to say "Don't know who he is"!
In he gets and we curtly greet each other and I sign the DL25 Test Report, all pre-headed up with my license details. He explains that he wants me to position in the braking lane but it is awkwardly offset to the right with very little length to get the trailer in straight so that means I have to take a wide sweep to the right with the unit. One of the VOSA* staff cars is parked just where I need to be so I know its going to be tight.
"Mind that car"! the examiner bawls at me. (Thinks) "What? (1) I know it's there and (2) you could get your Gran in a wheelchair through the gap between my trailer and it". So that's a great start!
Braking exercise no problem and then he gets me to stop just at the entrance to the reversing pad and shows me (yet again) a diagram of the pad and what he wants me to do. As if I didn't know. Out he gets and walks up to the start so I swing onto the pad, drive up as close as can get to the "B" cone and stop with the left "A" cone under my nearside mirror bracket.
The sun angle at 9:00am was so low that the wet tarmac on the pad was just a blaze of light and I couldn’t see the cones properly at all. I got too close to the right garage cone, took a shunt forward but didn’t make enough use of it and got the trailer blind-sided. I got that awful lead-stomach feeling knowing I had screwed it but just stopped, took a deep breath, and thought about what I had to do next. I did manage to corrected it but with loads of left and right tractor movement then got it in the garage with one more shunt (two in total so in theory OK). I switched off and got out to check the barrier – about three inches – perfect.
In the way of making conversation I commented that the low sun was making things difficult. "Oh, so you are going to be just a fair-weather truck driver then"? Oh miaow! Sarky sod. That's the last time I talk to you mate.
He then asks me to pull forward to the start of the pad to commence the uncouple-and-re-couple exercise. No problems here. I finally ask him to check the trailer brake lights for me and he asks me to stay in the cab when this is completed. I take my gloves off, climb in the cab, ignition on and dab the brake pedal. I get the thumbs-up from the rear. Then he points to the left and I indicate left and to the right and get a thumbs-up. With that he gets in and I start it up.
"When we go out of here we are turning right. Unless I say otherwise, always follow the road ahead". Me thinks "Good, that's Eccleshall out as a route". I don't like that mini roundabout at the end of the High Street.
I got a very similar route to my Rigid test. Down toward the Walton roundabout and got a "Pull in and park in safe place" on the downhill run into the village. This is to demonstrate "Moving Off on a Downhill Slope". The issue here is driving efficiently and not going through low gears unnecessarily. So it's a rolling start in 5 with a block change to 7.
Then on down the A34 towards
Him: "Turn left at the next roundabout please"
Me: "Understood".
This is into Beaconside past the Hospital. I approach nicely in 6, signal left and drive straight on. But he catches me in time and says "Cancel your left indicator, signal right and go around again". This I did and got the correct exit this time. "Sorry" I said. This is not a fail or indeed a Minor unless you were doing it all the time.
Then right onto the Sandon road (an awkward turn where I need all the road to get around) and on to the Dog and Doublet, left onto the A51 heading north back to the A34 north, then left at the Walton roundabout. I know I am 5 minutes from the Test Centre now and am feeling pretty confident. I knew the reverse was dodgy but I hadn't hit any cones or crossed the yellow boundary lines.
I pulled in on the hill out of the village at Walton (Moving Off on a Hill) and this is so much easier in the DAF with its mighty 12-litre 330BHP diesel. Give it a bit of gas, get the clutch to bite and the cab sits up to attention, throw the park brake off and increase the revs, ease off the clutch and way we go. 3, 4, range-change to 5, 6, 7 and we are away. Up to High 7 on the top of the hill, (pre-select the splitter collar to High, off the gas and dip the clutch and with a satisfying hiss of air the 'box changes up).
Into the tight right-hander over the railway at
"I'm afraid you have failed" I was staggered! "Do you want your instructor present as I de-brief you"? I didn't know what to do here. "What do you recommend"? I said. "It's up to you" so I thought to Hell with it, do it now and I will recount to G later.
"You weren't in control on the reverse and got badly out of position. Though you didn't touch the cones or lines at one point you curtains were (gesturing with his hands) this far from the pole on the right garage cone" Yes I know they were you pillock, that's why I took a shunt. One Serious.
"On the Asda roundabout you were in too-high a gear and as a result laboured getting around it such that traffic subsequently approaching was held up. Had you changed down a gear we could have been away quicker" What?! That was the text-book way I have been trained to do it. Another Serious.
"And you missed some Follow-Throughs*, particularly with passing trucks on the
I thanked him for his time (just to be as patronising as I could and match his sarcasm) and he says cheerily "Come back and see us again!". Yes, I'm sure mate – keeps you in a bloody job.
Our instructors know whether it's a Pass or Fail from the length of time it takes the examiner to get out of the cab on our return. If it's a Fail, he has already completed the DL25 so all he has to do is de-brief the trainee. If it's a Pass there are more forms to fill in.
G appears up the steps of the cab on my side I and recount the debrief. He is as staggered as I am.
G had found out that my examiner - an unknown to him and most of the instructors – had been brought in from the
To give you an idea, the LGV pass rate at Swynnerton is 45% compared to a national average of 48%. Where my man comes from is 36%!! So that tells you something. And bear in mind the Isle of Wight has something like an 83% pass rate and many places in
Though the DSA do strive to get consistent marking and standards, there is inevitably personal judgement (from the examiners) and unavoidably varying standards.
I explained to G that on the reverse although I didn’t hit a cone or cross a yellow line he did me for “not showing proper control”. Of course I didn’t know this until the end of the test. Both G and later his manager said: “Never had that before”. Meaning that though I hadn’t broken any rules that we are taught, overall I didn’t convince him that I could control this thing. And that is probably a fair comment reversing. The rest of his comments are in my (and my instructor and his manager’s opinion - crap).
Regarding the Serious on the Asda roundabout for being “in too high a gear and labouring” on a clear and large roundabout (driving totally as I had been trained) G's jaw hit the floor. Apart from training new drivers and assessing experienced drivers coming for a job with them, G's role is also to monitor and re-educate employed drivers who are not seen as "fuel-efficient". All their tacho discs/cards are analysed along with their fuel usage and those that are using too much are brought in for some eco-driving education. And this is what G had taught me.
The DAF 85 with a 12-litre engine kicks out so much torque that you can readily spin the tractor wheels, even on a dry road. So as he showed me, it will pull up the side of a house in almost any gear. My guidelines were: pull off in 4 on anything other than a moderate gradient, 3 only on a hill-start. If the wheels are rolling at all (say approaching a roundabout) go in 5 and if we are into an "open" roundabout and moving, go in 6. Which is exactly what I did at Asda and the bastard gave me a Serious for it. Not amused!!
Indeed as G told me, there is a new assessment criteria coming into the test in September 09 for eco-driving. As G said "Maybe he's not up with this yet".
And as for a Serious for not doing “Follow-Throughs” for passing trucks on my mirrors (more than three Minors for the same thing = Serious). What??!! My bloody neck will never be the same again! I followed through on EVERYTHING!
So they are not going to beat me. I have a re-test next Friday at 10:30am and a morning in the yard on Thursday on “How to get out of the shit on a reverse (how to take an effective shunt)” That was my request, not my trainers. I know how to reverse this thing but not how to get out of the shit when it goes wrong.
* VOSA – Vehicle & Operator Services Agency. The people you see pulling in trucks at Checkpoints (but not our Continental friends because the consequences are too hard for them to handle so they go for "soft" law-abiding Brits who they can prosecute easily). The Test Centre also has a big MOT and inspection test bay there for trucks. With lots of cars parked where they shouldn't be!
* Follow-Through – This means that apart from all the other mirror checks we have to do, we have to check almost everything that we pass (to ensure that we have cleared them without problems). This is everything on our nearside such as (especially) pedestrians, cyclists, parked-cars, bin lorries, road works, trucks in lay-bys – well everything! And especially oncoming trucks or buses on single-carriageway roads.
