On Sun, 24 Nov 2019 11:55:09 -0000 (UTC)
Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:
wrote:
The test for a commercial vehicle is a LOT harder than a car. You don't get
away with many mistakes and the test enviroment is a lot more varied. Kev and

Trace might scrape through driving their corsa a bit erratically on a car
test
but they'd be failed in minutes on an HGV or bus test.



And yet with the same breath you dismiss train driving as 'pulling levers'.
Surely you realise that the train driving assessment is just as strict, if
not more so?

I can imagine being a steam locomotive driver was a bugger of a job. Physically
hard and you had to get the feel of the engine under different loads. I suspect
driving a modern freight loco is still tricky (although not physically) as you
could be just driving the loco itself or have 2000 tons behing you.

Driving a computer controlled EMU though that won't allow you to play silly
buggers with the throttle and brake, doesn't change much in behaviour from
empty to full load, doesn't have to be steered and when it goes wrong needs
a technician with a laptop to turn up anyway? Don't tell me thats particularly
hard.

Seems to me the only hard part of being a modern EMU driver is the shift work
aspect of the job, other than that - piece of ****.

On 24 Nov 2019 13:51:40 GMT
Marland wrote:
Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:
wrote:
On Sat, 23 Nov 2019 23:22:23 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
NY wrote:
"Charles Ellson" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 23 Nov 2019 12:34:10 +0000 (UTC), wrote:
It took me 4 days to learn to drive a bus - test on the 5th. And that
involves
having to actually steer the vehicle through narrow streets and around
parked
vehicles, not something train drivers have to worry about. So I reckon
2
or 3
days to learn to push a lever backwards and forwards and get a feel for
braking under different loads (no different to an HGV) and a few more
weeks for
for learning signals, basic trouble shooting and some routes. A month
tops.

What sort of vehicles had you driven before then? Were you already used
to
driving anything larger than a standard Ford Cortina size of car?


But that is nowhere near as extreme as driving a bus which is wider still

and a lot longer. If you only had prior experience of driving a car, then

I'm impressed that you passed a bus test on day 5.

Neil also has an HGV licence — maybe he got that before driving the bus?


I did.



So you already had (a) experience of driving road vehicles (b) experience
of driving large road vehicles. 5 days to learn that the front wheels are
further back and that you have to look out for passengers?



Boltar may be a natural at vehicle handling which not all people are so the
physical driving was ticked off on the first day, the rest were spent
learning what the ringing sound was as the bus approached a stop.

You have to do bloody role play on the test - examiner pretends hes a
passenger - ding ding etc - pull up gently to at the correct stopping point
open/close doors, check Mrs Pensioner hasn't falled over in the aisle etc.
And miss the stopping point and that IIRC is a serious fault which = fail.

With a lorry test , as long as you can keep it on the road, don't clip the
scenery and don't hit anyone you'll probably pass though with the Class 1
test you have to reverse with a trailer which isn't easy. God knows how the
aussie drivers reverse a double or triple.

On Sun, 24 Nov 2019 19:38:33 +0000
Charles Ellson wrote:
On Sun, 24 Nov 2019 11:55:10 -0000 (UTC), Anna Noyd-Dryver
wrote:

wrote:
On Sat, 23 Nov 2019 23:13:31 -0000
"NY" wrote:
"Charles Ellson" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 23 Nov 2019 12:34:10 +0000 (UTC), wrote:
It took me 4 days to learn to drive a bus - test on the 5th. And that
involves
having to actually steer the vehicle through narrow streets and around
parked
vehicles, not something train drivers have to worry about. So I reckon 2

or 3
days to learn to push a lever backwards and forwards and get a feel for
braking under different loads (no different to an HGV) and a few more
weeks for
for learning signals, basic trouble shooting and some routes. A month
tops.

What sort of vehicles had you driven before then? Were you already used to

driving anything larger than a standard Ford Cortina size of car?

Articulated HGV so I had a bit of a prior advantage.

Driving an ordinary car felt very weird afterwards - the steering wheel
felt
so high up, when I'd got used to the elbows-resting-on-my-knees position
for
steering the van.

Driving a lorry is like driving a large car for me. Driving a bus is wierd
however because you're about a meter in front of the steering wheels so you
have to leave turning movements later than feels normal.


Unless you're driving a half-cab or an Optare Solo

Bin lorries and some other specialist vehicles share the 'cab well forward'
position of a bus.

Often built by the same company - Dennis. Another of their design
oddities is cabs very close to the ground, usually on airport vehicles
but also see on some refuse vehicles.

In London they're becoming more common because of a rule Mr Mayor brought in
about visibility of cyclists in the cab. Which is fair enough I suppose.

On Sun, 24 Nov 2019 23:33:10 +0000
Charles Ellson wrote:
On Sun, 24 Nov 2019 21:00:07 -0000 (UTC), Anna Noyd-Dryver
wrote:
Other than airport vehicles which have to fit under things, it's all for
the same reason - quick and easy access of people (be they staff or
passengers) into the vehicle.

Many airport vehicles tend to have equipment/structures which overhang
the cab. The great majority of refuse vehicles have conventional
height cabs including ones built by Dennis. AFAIR entry/egress is not
necessarily easier as the design causes the wheel arch to intrude into
the rear of the cab doorway and thus reduces the available width at
the bottom in what in photographs seems to be the shorter of two cab
lengths. Photographs also show that the rear door pillar is often
forward of the rear of the driver's seat thus preventing exiting by
simply turning through 90deg and stepping out.

Unlike in the railway industry - when road rules are made the driver is the
last person considered. In the USA truck drivers get nice large cabs and a long
bonnet thats a useful crumple zone in a crash. In the EU with its dumb
overall length rules the tractor unit and hence cab is made as short as
possible so the trailer can be as long as possible in the rules. So all there
is between you and whatever you hit is the windscreen and dashboard. Doesn't
matter if its a car, it does if its another lorry or a tree.

On 25/11/2019 11:36, wrote:
On Sun, 24 Nov 2019 10:58:07 +0000
wrote:
On 24/11/2019 10:50, wrote:
The test for a commercial vehicle is a LOT harder than a car. You don't get
away with many mistakes and the test enviroment is a lot more varied. Kev and

Trace might scrape through driving their corsa a bit erratically on a car
test
but they'd be failed in minutes on an HGV or bus test.

My cousin did his HGV test using all that was available... A tank
transported loaded with a tank.

Apparently he mounted the kerb several times and bent a few bollards but
still passed.

I'm guessing that was a while back, he wouldn't get away with that today.

Only about 10 years ago.

It depends exactly where and why that happened!

wrote:
On 25/11/2019 11:36, wrote:
On Sun, 24 Nov 2019 10:58:07 +0000
wrote:
On 24/11/2019 10:50, wrote:
The test for a commercial vehicle is a LOT harder than a car. You don't get
away with many mistakes and the test enviroment is a lot more varied. Kev and

Trace might scrape through driving their corsa a bit erratically on a car
test
but they'd be failed in minutes on an HGV or bus test.

My cousin did his HGV test using all that was available... A tank
transported loaded with a tank.

Apparently he mounted the kerb several times and bent a few bollards but
still passed.

I'm guessing that was a while back, he wouldn't get away with that today.

Only about 10 years ago.

It depends exactly where and why that happened!


The military have different rules don’t they? ICBW but aren’t the age
limits lower to obtain a licence for large vehicles for personnel serving
in the forces. And at various times since motorised vehicles replaced
horses
when the need demanded it a military test was basically not much more than
can you make it move ,can you steer it ,can you stop it. Pass any two
,well done lad you are now a driver. Though during WW2 driving tests were
suspended for civilians as well and many people took advantage that a
driving permit or provisional licence issued could for a short time
afterwards be converted to a full licence without any further test.
Explains a lot of the dire driving standards encountered from that
generation over the following decades especially when they became elderly
know it alls ,at least those reaching those years now will normally have
passed a test at some time.

GH

"Marland" wrote in message
...
Though during WW2 driving tests were
suspended for civilians as well and many people took advantage that a
driving permit or provisional licence issued could for a short time
afterwards be converted to a full licence without any further test.
Explains a lot of the dire driving standards encountered from that
generation over the following decades especially when they became elderly
know it alls ,at least those reaching those years now will normally have
passed a test at some time.

I didn't know that the civilian driving test was suspended during WWII -
presumably to free up examiners to do war work, and to remove all the
bureaucracy of administering the tests. However very few civilians would
have been able to get petrol unless they were in a reserved occupation.

Apart from the WWII window of opportunity, the youngest person who has not
passed a test would have been 17 in 1935, so they'd be born in 1918 and
therefore 101 now. And the youngest person who would have slipped through
the WWII window would have been 17 in 1945 and therefore 91. Assuming that
the age of starting to drive was 17 in those days as well.

I think a lot of the problem with driving standards is not due to lack of
test, but to bravado and overconfidence (mainly in the young), or being
completely oblivious of surroundings and car controls (mainly in the
elderly) - in both cases, I'm making very broad-brush generalisations.
Intoxication and falling asleep at the wheel probably applies to most ages.

As I understand it, a lot of the cases of drivers (usually elderly) who
accidentally drive/reverse into shop fronts is because they confuse the
accelerator and brake in an automatic car, and then press the accelerator
instead of the brake when they realise they are out of control.


My grandpa was still driving right up until he died (*) when he was in his
mid 90s. He was very choosy about when/where he drove - out of rush hour, on
rural roads rather than busy urban roads. The last time I rode with him, I
was impressed with his standard of driving: he didn't cut corners when
pulling out from side roads, he got up to nearly the speed limit without too
much dawdling, he was cautious but not hesitant at junctions. The only
"funny" was that he had a habit of slipping the car into neutral and
coasting as he was approaching a junction or when going downhill, which I
think was a carry-over from wartime petrol rationing days as a fuel-saving
measure. Nowadays with fuel injection it would actually work against you: if
you stay in gear, the ECU detects that the car is in over-run and cuts the
fuel completely, whereas in neutral a bit of fuel is needed to keep the
engine idling. The instantaneous fuel consumption display on my car's trip
computer shows this: when coasting in neutral, the consumption is about 200
mpg, whereas in gear with no throttle it is 999 ("infinite") mpg.


(*) And that was complications from a fall when he was shopping, not in a
car crash ;-)

On 25/11/2019 11:43, wrote:
On Sun, 24 Nov 2019 11:55:09 -0000 (UTC)
Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:
wrote:
The test for a commercial vehicle is a LOT harder than a car. You don't get
away with many mistakes and the test enviroment is a lot more varied. Kev and

Trace might scrape through driving their corsa a bit erratically on a car
test
but they'd be failed in minutes on an HGV or bus test.



And yet with the same breath you dismiss train driving as 'pulling levers'.
Surely you realise that the train driving assessment is just as strict, if
not more so?

I can imagine being a steam locomotive driver was a bugger of a job. Physically
hard and you had to get the feel of the engine under different loads. I suspect
driving a modern freight loco is still tricky (although not physically) as you
could be just driving the loco itself or have 2000 tons behing you.

Driving a computer controlled EMU though that won't allow you to play silly
buggers with the throttle and brake, doesn't change much in behaviour from
empty to full load, doesn't have to be steered and when it goes wrong needs
a technician with a laptop to turn up anyway? Don't tell me thats particularly
hard.

Seems to me the only hard part of being a modern EMU driver is the shift work
aspect of the job, other than that - piece of ****.


Nonsense. I have never driven a real train, but I was once allowed to
drive a dmu simulator. The most difficult part was knowing when / where
to apply the brakes for checks or station stops. And that involved just
one check and one (simulated) station.

Dependent on the extent of their route knowledge, drivers may need to
know the locations of dozens of stations, numerous signals and speed
restrictions - at daylight - in good or bad visibility, or at night -
and then need to be able to judge the best places to apply brakes -
often on several types of unit - and in all sorts of weather conditions.
In addition, they need to be prepared for short term temporary speed limits.

So it is not as easy as you might think.

On 24/11/2019 19:35, Charles Ellson wrote:
On 24 Nov 2019 13:51:40 GMT, Marland
wrote:

Boltar may be a natural at vehicle handling which not all people are so the
physical driving was ticked off on the first day, the rest were spent
learning what the ringing sound was as the bus approached a stop.

Not in London then where you get ****s ringing the bell 0.1sec after
the bus has left the previous stop.

I had that in Birmingham as well, it's not just a London thing. Also
people standing just behind the cab waiting to get off and NOT ringing
the bell, then complaining when the bus doesn't stop.


--
Ria in Aberdeen

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On 24/11/2019 22:29, Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:
John Ray wrote:
On 24/11/2019 21:00, Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:

Is there some approved timescale for omnibus campanology of which I'm
somehow unaware?

I always wait for the next stop to be announced on the PA system, which
means that, very often, I don't get the chance to ring the bell.


Could spend all day riding backwards and forwards on some routes waiting
for a PA announcement!

Assuming the bus has it fitted, ours never did, we were lucky to get
bells that worked (most of the time anyway, unless the scrotes had
ripped out the buttons and the wiring).

--
Ria in Aberdeen

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