OT: "Terrible Shortages of Everything" on the way

[Bob Eager]

Didn't notice Galloway being gracious.

[Cursitor Doom]

I wasn't citing THAT non-entity.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Anyone else see the similarity between Galloway and Farage?

[Cursitor Doom]

Hats. There the similarity ends.

[JNugent]

Unlike the Remainers, Galloway hasn't insisted that he won. Neither has he argued that even if he didn't win, he should have been treated as winning because everyone who didn't vote for him was a thick racist.

[JNugent]

Nevertheless, he fits into it.

[Bob Eager]

True. Some of the, are just thick.

[Cursitor Doom]

Yes, it's just bizarre that the wise counsel of brilliant people such as yourself was ignored by the thickos who didn't know any better and shouldn't have been allowed to vote at all isn't it.

[#Paul]

Much as I might like to agree with you, since there is about a factor of a thousand difference in electorate sizes, the relative error bars on the Brexit referendum are much small than on Batley.

#Paul

[Algernon Goss-Custard]

Luckily there are lots of people in the UK who can drive.

[nightjar]

Not with HGV 1 licences

[Algernon Goss-Custard]

You don't need an HGV Class 1 licence to drive an LGV. And if we are ever short of HGV drivers, we can train them up in two weeks.

[The Natural Philosopher]

But they cannot drive without a medical examination and passing a test.

Neither of which are on offer.

[Chris Green]

I think there may be some confusion here with the meanings of LGV and HGV.

The term LGV, I *think*, now means Large Goods Vehicle and includes what we (here in the UK) call HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle).

Interestingly, I just looked on gov.uk, they used LGV for both 'Light Goods Vehicle' *and* 'Large Goods Vehicle', wonderful! :-)

However, I'm sure the original "...enough LGV drivers..." was meaning Large Goods Vehicle (i.e. HGV Class 1/Class 2).

[nightjar]

Exactly. The term LGV = Large Goods Vehicle, which means categories C C+E, C1 and C1+E. HGV only refers to C and C+E. Hence, it does cover a wider range of vehicles, but it is mostly C1+E (artic) drivers who left and are now going to work in places like Germany, where they still have freedom of movement.

Obviously, not all of the problem is due to EU citizen lorry drivers going home during the pandemic and not returning, but around 15,000 of them did and that accounts for about a quarter of the current shortfall.

[williamwright]

He said LGV.

Bill

[williamwright]

There isn't an LGV test. At least, I have LGV and I haven't had a test for it.

Bill

[Chris Green]

To retain the right to drive vehicles in the 3500kg to 7500kg range (if it was on your licence before) when you are 70 years old or more you have to pass a medical and eyesight test, every three years.

If you *don't* already have 3500kg to 7500kg then you'd have to pass a driving test to add it to your licence, similarly for towing trailers. The classes of vehicles you can drive having passed your test in an 'ordinary' car have slowly reduced over the years.

[Chris Green]

Which, as has been pointed out, is the same thing - LGV = Large Goods Vehicle.

[NY]

I'm always amazed at the size of vehicles that can be driven on a car licence. I passed my test in 1981 (long before the 1997 tightening of the rules) and I'm theoretically entitled to drive a vehicle of up to 7.5 T with a 750 kg trailer (C1E category). Even after 1997 most people have C1, which is 7.5T without trailer. As I understand it, all car licences include trailers/caravans up to a certain mass or proportion of the car mass.

I'm surprised that an extra test (or at least extra mandatory training) isn't required for towing any form of trailer, because the skills for reversing something articulated (even a little trailer) are an order of magnitude greater than for driving a rigid vehicle - even one that is longer and wider than a typical car. When my parents bought a caravan in the early

70s there was no training for how to reverse a caravan into a narrow gateway that was only just wider than the caravan: Dad just had to find a bit of waste ground and practice over and over again until he felt confident with it, and then hoped that he was good enough to do it for real, pulling up on the opposite side of the road to the drive and getting one of us to stand on the blind side of the gateway (ie the LHS if he'd pulled up on the left and was reversing into a gateway on his right) because that was the side that could not be seen in the passenger wing mirror as soon as he started to turn.

Even in a large van (Sprinter size - a bit bigger than a Transit) reversing was very difficult because you can't see where the opposite side of the van is until it's almost lined up and comes into the field of view of the passenger mirror. That was in the days of van with no reversing camera; a camera makes it a lot easier to work out when you are lined up centrally between gateposts. I found I had to judge my position based only on the driver's side and hope that I was clear on the opposite side - and only find out for certain once I'd swung round far enough to be able to see that side.