What it takes to be a great HGV driver

Driving a car doesn’t take much learning. It’s fairly easy once you get started, as evidenced by the vast number of people who can drive cars and the fact that you can start learning – and technically driving on real roads with other drivers – at the age of 17. 

However, just because you can drive a car that doesn’t mean you will necessarily be a good HGV driver. HGV drivers are special. There is a lot more training involved and certain personality traits that are required if you’re going to be good at this specific job. 

An Independent Worker

One of the major factors to being a great HGV driver is that you will be working alone a lot of the time. You’ll be driving for potentially many hours, with only yourself for company. It means you need to be a motivated and independent worker. You’ll have your routes and your deliveries set out, but you’ll need to do a lot of thinking for yourself, especially if roads are closed or there are delays. Your set of instructions won’t get you very far by itself, which is why you need to be happy making your own decisions too whatever load you're delivering. 

Cool-Headed

Are you a cool-headed driver? Do you stay calm even if people do what you might consider to be crazy things on the road or make mistakes that you would never make but that cause you to react? To be a great HGV driver you need to be able to stay calm, rational, and cool-headed at all times on the road. 

Stamina

Driving is tiring, and there is no way of getting around that. HGV driving is even more tiring, especially when you need to consider that you will also be loading and unloading your lorry at each destination. This can be exhausting work, and you need to be capable and strong to be able to do it. 

Read the full article in HGV UK