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The Large Goods Vehicle Driver Certificate of Competence, DCPC, becomes a legal requirement in the UK on 10 September 2014 despite eight other EU countries choosing to delay it until September 2016. Truck drivers who do not have the certificate face losing their jobs even although they hold a full large goods vehicle licence (LGV).
The BAA has written to Patrick McLoughlin, Secretary of State for Transport, asking for an immediate postponement and a full review of the scheme, and the Department of Transport has undertaken to respond by 10 September.
The BAA has over 70 member companies who collectively operate some 300 sites, and who are also engaged in ready-mixed concrete, asphalt and recycling operations.
“In addition to making the current acute shortage of HGV [heavy goods vehicles] drivers even worse, the exodus of experienced personnel will have an inevitable impact on road safety. Operators will either have to use less experienced drivers, if they can find them, or have their trucks stand idle,” says Robert Durward, BAA director.
HGV drivers are already in very short supply, and the number of registered licensed drivers has been falling for the past three years by over 10,000 each year. There are currently about 900,000 licensed drivers for half a million HGVs but only half of them have a certificate of professional competence (CPC). It requires a ratio of at least two drivers per truck to keep the wheels turning to cope with the EU Working Time Directive, holidays and illness.
The BAA says that by 10 September 2014 all drivers must have completed five, seven-hour classroom-based modules to qualify for a DCPC. However, only half have done so and a large number of older drivers are to leave the industry instead. One-fifth of all HGV drivers are over the age of 56 years.
The CPC training modules are not regulated and many of the instructors are not even qualified. Rather than doing five separate modules it is sufficient to do the same module five times over. A classic box ticking exercise and the accident statistics suggest that it is already having a negative effect. The HGV accident rate had been in steady decline but this fall ended in 2009 when the scheme first appeared and accidents are now on the increase.
“This episode is a classic case of economic damage, and possibly even loss of life, being caused by superfluous and badly designed legislation. We all support, and indeed provide, appropriate training but this is a joke. Drivers, some with over 40 years’ experience, will not tolerate being treated like errant school children and will find work elsewhere or retire,” says Robert Durward.
