H&C

23
Aug
2010

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HGV test - failure!

It wasn't to be for Alice and her HGV test this time

"I had a very hectic week last week, but for a different reason than normal! I was attempting to learn to drive a lorry at Bypass driver training, which is based not far from me. I started on Sunday 8th and drove for three hours every morning until my test last Saturday - more about that later.

Hedging bets

I was driving a 17 ton lorry, so it was quite large, but it was unladen so it only weighed seven tonnes, but that’s still quite heavy when you’re used to driving a VW golf around!

Every morning I was up and driving, normally by 7:30, for three hours. The first couple of days were very scary, not just for me but for my poor instuctor, as I had a tendency to put them in the hedge, but apparently this is very common as people tend to switch to ‘car mode’. Once I had got the hang of it I actually really started to enjoy my truck driving but the easiest part of truck driving is definitely the motorway driving... no curbs or sharp corners!

Changing gear

The truck also had a split range gearbox, it had eight gears but a high/low range, so there were the first four gears before you have to press a button to go up to the top four gears, and that took some getting used to. The number of times I tried to change from third to seventh rather than third to fifth because I couldn’t get the hang of changing down to change up, but I got the hang of that eventually as well.

The hardest part of the week was trying to get all of my riding done around my driving as it usually takes me all day every day to finish it all, but I did manage, albeit feeling very tired in the evenings!

Pressure's on

My test was on Saturday, and I was very nervous, give me ten million dressage tests any day! I thought it wouldn’t be as bad as the car test, but I think it was worse. It may have been the pressure though, as I really needed to pass: We have a very busy time coming up so there is no time for me to take another test in the near future.

One stupid mistake

However, that didn’t happen as I has one really stupid mistake that as soon as I had done it I knew I had failed, but the examiner said that I could drive the lorry, apart from that stupid mistake, I was so cross with myself. Then again, the National first time pass rate for the lorry test is only about 44%, so I’m definitely not the only one!

Media dharling

I also had another very nerve wracking experience this week, my radio debut. I had an interview on two of our local stations, Kestrel and BBC Surrey, but I survived and didn’t stutter or do anything to make myself sound like an idiot - my Mum even said I came across very well and did a good job!"