Ask any experienced truck driver what their licence test actually taught them, and you’ll get some version of the same answer: not much. That’s the premise of a recent Trucksales feature, which put the question to a handful of veteran interstate and tipper drivers, and the stories that came back are worth your time.
There’s the container driver who turned up to his test in a 15-speed with a deep reduction button the examiner had never seen. The tipper drivers who were never taught wind direction, tailgate chains, or how a shifting load behaves mid-tip. The B-double driver who reckons new drivers coming off automatics don’t know what a labouring engine sounds like, because nobody ever made them learn a synchro box.
What comes through clearest is that the informal apprenticeship, learning from an old hand in the yard on weekends, has largely disappeared, and nothing has replaced it. As one driver puts it, there are now far more drivers on the road than there are truck operators.
Read the full article on Trucksales: What the driver test doesn’t teach you
