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Or “This Is Easier Than I Thought”
Even before I’d started in my full-time job at the bus company, I had embarked on the process to become a Driver-Trainer. Certainly it was an opportunity to work some more hours, but it was also an intense and satisfying job.
In Ontario, the testing of commercial vehicle drivers has been devolved, mostly, to the commercial companies themselves. Given the correct qualifications, people like me employed by the bus company, were able to supervise training and execute written and road tests on behalf of the Ministry of Transportation. While you might think that there’s too much self-interest involved, that is we could just pass anyone and not bother with proper training, it was all very well run by the Ministry and we as testers and trainers were constantly monitored and assessed. Vehicle collision data involving new drivers was always scrutinized by the Ministry and were we to be cheating and not doing our jobs for drivers who crashed, we would surely have lost our place on the devolved licensing scheme.
There are lots of hoops that you have to jump through to become a tester, not least a week on a residential course, learning to teach others. Fail that and you’re simply not considered by the Ministry. But I passed, and was soon teaching others in the classroom, on the Skills Station (photo above), and out on the road (photo below).
Drivers were assessed daily and booted if they were not up to the required standard, although I only failed a handful, and always at the early stages of training, before they were allowed out on the road. Telling someone that they weren’t going to make it, we wouldn’t enter anyone for their tests if we didn’t think they’d pass, was tough and often involved tears – not mine I should add. One trainee I worked with wasn’t getting it, but I felt that she would, given time. I sent her home for a couple of days break from training, and we picked it up again in a much better place for her, and she passed her test comfortably in the end. Perseverance from both trainee and instructor can work sometimes. The last one I failed simply wasn’t getting some the basics, not even after I’d allowed double the amount of time allowed, and it’s interesting to note that it’s generally those that tell you up front what a great driver they are who don’t make the grade. I didn’t keep track of the number of new drivers I trained to a successful conclusion, but I did do twenty-two in six months one year.
There didn’t seem to be a specific type of person who did well, either. Two of the standout trainees were young women with minimal driving experience, who both caught on really quickly, and yet some of the “old and bold” people, mostly men, with decades of driving experience, were the ones most likely to fail. Indeed, a couple of the oldies who had previously held bus driver licenses were the hardest to train and to get through the test. There’s a rule in Ontario that if you are a school bus driver over sixty-five and you catch two or more Demerit points, in your or car or in a bus, then you have to be tested again by Ministry contractors. Despite spending countless hours training with a number of these fellows, I never got any of them a pass, so they all lost their bus licenses. I think it was a case of trying to teach old dogs new tricks, and none of them wanted to learn.
Mostly, though, it was hard work but good fun. I’ve trained with babies in car seats alongside their mothers, people into their seventies and driving bus for the first time, and lots of folk struggling to get work. All of them, though, once they’d mastered the tricks of the trade, were all really happy to be behind the wheel of the “Big Yellow”.
I’d like to have continued training without having to drive daily bus runs as well, but my employer was having none of it, and that is why I’m now fully retired.