Just Another Driver – Part 2

at

BAWA Southmead Road Filton

Tuesday 26 July 2021

Meet 7.15pm for 7:30pm.

You are invited to the July meeting of Bristol Advanced Motorists when Alex Payne, Secretary of the Cotswold Alfa Romeo Owners' Club, supported by Andy Bowden, a member of IAM Bristol (and currently owning his 9th Alfa), will give a presentation on Alfa Romeo cars and the history of the marque.

Additionally Alex, a highly skilled model car maker, will exhibit a small selection of his models.

All members of the group owning Alfa Romeo, or friends with Alfas, are encouraged to bring them to the meeting.

Sounds like another very interesting evening so please make a date in your diary and come along to this ‘all cars’ meeting. As always, entrance is free, raffle tickets will be on sale and there will be coffee available at £1 a cup. We look forward to seeing you all there.

On August 23rd we return to the Wishing Well at Codrington for one of our informal meets that proved so popular last summer. Come and have a chat, bring an interesting car, perhaps have a drive, some refreshment etc. all in a very convivial atmosphere. As always a 7:30 p.m. start.

Just another driver – Part 2 Words & Pictures by Des Costello In 2009 the Driver CPC was introduced. Driver CPC is an on-going requirement to complete 35 hours of training within a five-year period. Wells Drivers who need to do their CPC training have to commute to either Bristol or Bath. New drivers undertake their CPC as part of their initial driver training program. A day of CPC could be classroom based or on the road and sometimes a mix of both. For a couple of reasons First West of England drivers tend to do one day each year for five years. Buddy drivers have to attend regular workshops.

All type training used to be carried out by driver trainers based at Lawrence Hill. Because Wells is 25 miles from Bristol it was decided that for efficiency I would undertake this function at Wells. I accompanied a driver trainer on a training bus for a week to bring me up to speed. As a Buddy I would facilitate a depot / site induction which included everything from Health and Safety (H&S had not been invented in 1984) the “First user Check” which is undertaken on every bus before going out each morning, and at least once in any 24 hour period, how to read timetables, running cards (what the drivers run by), the drivers rota and blocks of work (duties).

They then undertake Type training on the different types of buses that operate out of Wells. These included Leyland Lynx, Volvo’s B10B and B10M, Dennis Dart, Dennis Lance, Volvo B7 and later Wrightbus Streetdeck, Streetlight, and Scania Enviro. We had several buses of one type, but all these buses had their own idiosyncrasies, e.g the steering being a bit stiffer, the brakes a bit sharper or a bit slower on a hill. There is a difference how a double deck handles compared to a single deck especially on bends and open sections of road.

Streetdeck in Wells depot Page 10 the LINK – newsletter of Bristol Advanced Motorists

July/August 2022 Read this on our website www.iam-bristol.org.uk Until 2015 all buses at Wells were single decks; DDs had not been in regular use in our area for almost 30 years. With the introduction of Streetdecks® all existing drivers undertook type training. The main issues here were the extra height and handling of these new double decks.

One of the most high-risk manoeuvres is pulling into bus stops. With these new Streetdecks having mirrors that protruded to the front of the bus and with passengers standing on the edge of the kerb, the risk of head and mirror contact was a possibility, and indeed striking a bus shelter is not unknown; then there is also the problem of low branches to think about. The difference between SD & DD might only be four feet but those few extra feet can make all the difference.

Volvo B7 at Wincanton terminus

Then ticket training (Ticketer®), something that most new drivers would find daunting. It’s fair to say some drivers were quicker than others at mastering the machine, some picked it up in three hours, and others needed many more hours. After Induction, type and ticket training had taken place (usually this was completed in two days) out into the big wide world.

Old and new - Setright and Almex ticket machines