Taxi Driver Online

EU Driver CPC consultation
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CPT’s Director of Policy, Steven Salmon, has been in Brussels again this week at the EU Social Dialogue Committee at the Road Transport Sector. He tells us that the Commission will be running a consultation over the summer with a view to amending – or even repealing – the Driver CPC Directive. As well as going over details such as the scope for more use of simulators and the role of e learning, respondents will be able to assess whether the Directive has achieved its aims or, indeed, added any value at all to the job of being a road transport driver or to the industries that make a living on the highway.

Steven suggested the consultation should include a question on whether the Directive had affected competition between the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. A representative from Unite made a strong and simple case that the driver CPC added cost to drivers and employers and benefited only the training industry. He was particularly angry over the position coming up in the UK next year where agency truck drivers (who pay for their own training) will have their licences suspended if they have not completed five days' training, while Belgian drivers who compete with them on British roads can carry on working for another two years. He was told to complain to his Member State (ie the UK) about its implementation policy.

courtesy of CPT Newsline

I heard over a year ago from a Local bus operator that the CPC was going come to an end around 2014/2015....

Looks as if the man might have been right.

It's a complete waste of time, you could sleep through it and get the Certificate, your just going over the ground as we did when we were preparing to sit the D1 test, I'm sure the same could be said of the HGV drivers. It's £500+ and 36 hours of needless nonsense which needs repeating every 5 years.

It's 35 hours and my wife paid £280 for the courses.

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Grandad,

Ive not found one Locally anywhere near as cheap as that, nor does that take into account the 35 hours of lost income through our inablity to be able earn as we learn, Maybe, seeing as itis presently a Mandatory Certificate for HGV and PCV drivers then it should be at a price set by the Government just like the Driving Test is.

You get the feeling that this was brought in just create work for the Training companies, these training companies are all doing quite well out of a Myriad of other EU or Homegrown Directives, It beats me just how easily these small private training companies seem to collect Qualifications to train you from everything from Driving to Kitchen hygiene, yet often they are little more than one man bands.

Make me think the whole thing is just a scammy money raiser dreamt up by those who stand to make most out of it, no one person can know so much about so many different fields of employment skills that they can train us all to a such a level that gains us a certificate to allow us to work in certain environments.

Why send someone on 35 hours of training unless at the very least you intend testing them to see that have indeed gleaned enough from it to pass a written test as proof having learned something.

I think it has a lot to do with the obsession of "qualifications". The world governments seem to think that if everyone is qualified to do something it has to be good for the country. It is just a box ticking exercise that is being used by a lot of people to make money.

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Grandad,