Diary Wednesday 17th February 2016 – part one - failing to drive.

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The long awaited and dreaded PPT truck training course day arrived. This is a stepping stone to full on fork-lift truck driving. I failed it spectacularly which came as no surprise to me. I knew I might struggle to master learning how to drive a vehicle. My one and only driving lesson, given by my grandfather, who started the driving experiences of most of our family, ended within minutes with him telling me that I would never be a driver. A few years later my first and only go on a go-kart circuit was curtailed when the operator pulled me out after a few laps as too dangerous to continue. Getting to the course centre went easily, despite the ominous rain. It was nice to reunite with two of the students from the previous warehousing course again – only three of us at a time a trained on PPT. Our tutor insisted on going through the tour of the premises, induction paperwork and requests for ID processes that we had already done on the preceding seven day course. We then watched several videos on the horrors of bad safety control with electric trucks and statistics about warehousing accidents. Though a useful warning to be safer, it was actually off-putting too, as it made us feel as if we were about to become minions in the Temple Of Doom. We were to be given training with the PPT and later tested on our knowledge of the rules with a written multiple choice test and a driving test. After the morning break we went from the classroom to the warehouse itself and did our first driving lesson. This involved simply starting the truck and pushing it in a straight line and using its emergency stop handle pull own system. Our tutor demonstrated it, and the other two students went first. One breezed through the exercise. The other struggled a little but got through alright. Then it was my turn. I found the truck heavy to move and my instinct was to compensate for the very sensitive thumb controlled speed control button by physically pulling back on the truck, as if handling a jet-ski so it was like holding back a landslide. I was told to relax and ease up on the thumb pressure but I found that I had two speeds on it – dead slow or fast with no in-between gradient. I did at least get the emergency stop part right. Exercise two involved riding the truck – it was the same exercise but now we stood on a fold-down platform on the vehicle rather than pushing it. I had the same thumb control pressure and brain to hand co-ordination issues and tendency to go from holding back to giving too much. This became very apparent when we were taught manoeuvring rather than straight lines, having to move the truck round barrels in a figure of eight pattern, with a recommended three inches of proximity to each barrel. I was clearing them with ten feet of clearance and cranking round the tiller arm and controlling the thumb pad speed-buttons simultaneously almost threw me off the machine twice. After lunch I was told to just watch the others go through the training, and during the afternoon break I was advised (told) not to come back. The condemned man had one final request. I asked if I could at least see the written test I might have had to take the next day. The tutor showed me the paper and invited me to fill it in. I did in five minutes and only got two of the 25 questions wrong. The pass rate on that is 20 out of 25. My driving career was over. I headed out dejected and worried what the welfare people might say about my failure though the course organizers assure me that there will be no repercussions over my failure there. Maybe I should take up Grand Prix Formula One? Here is a PPT truck in use on Youtube. It looks so simple to use but I couldn't do it at all. Arthur Chappell