Omg…
A pass. Is a pass.
It’s in the name for gods sake…
If you pass, you have met the standards, achieved the aims, demonstrated competency, are safe to carry on…
If you fail. You fail.
What is with people on here…
Night follows day people… always…
But I bet someone will disagree…
On reflection, I probably won’t do a D1 as it’s a pass for being volunteered/voluntold to do stuff
half decent companies wont touch new passes with a barge pole in either the PCV/HGV (excluding service busses) world unless you are incredibly lucky for anything from 2-5 years. This is down to insurance companies refusing to cover new passes, or companies having humungous excesses on the insurance cover. Most wont touch drivers under 25 either. The risk appetite of insurance companies is pretty much zero now.
That means you have to cut your teeth in the dregs for 2 years until you gain experience. You then have to pass a driving assessment to get a job and have continual training whilst you hold it.
Leconfield throw out people with a scraping pass and we simply throw them a set of keys expecting them to be safe & competent which simply isnt the case.
I dont disagree with you at all that a pass is a pass. But we really need to be looking at our drivers and ensuring they are competent beyond simply passing a test. Driving assessments and continual development with an SME at wing level would be a good start.
Our test of competence is that test at Lec.
Or if an individual holds a D1.
If we start doing more.
No one will drive for the Corps…
Doing anything for this org is hard enough… dont add driving to the list the sycophants at hqac can beat us with. Please!
Yep - I’m assessed in the simulator every 6 months, have an annual “standards check” & have to have 2 medicals / yr. Lots of online stuff to pass as well, including tests for “special airports” such as St Moritz.
When I got my ATPL, I did comment back to the CAA about one of the many examinations - “Performance” - where you had to calculate various take-off, obstacle, cruise & landing parameters. I think that the then pass mark was 75% - the way the marks were allocated, you could have passed several of the sections, but completely flunked one of them (say landing) - not very clever when looking at an overall pass mark! 
I can see why you can fail the landing part of the exam. at the end of the day at some point the plane is going to land. Its all about making sure A. no one is screaming & B. the aircraft stays in one piece after it does touch down. Anything else is a bonus
The CAA moved on to more modern exam options eventually, but still failed to validate the content at times.
“Electrics & Auto-flight” - one of my top subjects. Opened the paper - gulp - it was more about astro-nuclear-thermal physics. 
Everyone in the CAA exam room was looking around, with faces of despair.
Think it was 95% failure rate across the board - including me - which also roped in all the students from British Airways trg schools - BA were furious. New exam setter - hadn’t checked with his colleagues. 
Re-sit 6 weeks later (not allowed to action this sooner, CAA protocol, so this really mucked up the BA sausage machine) - question 1 - you have a lightbulb, a 12v battery & 2 wires; can you make the light come on? Possible multi-guess answers, yes, yes, yes, or yes!
The RAF has a 100% record, they’ve never left one up there.
That is without doubt one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard. Are you going to make them do the same to take Cadets in their car too? After all they might’ve got a. Few minors when they were 17.
No other volunteer organisation feels the need to do this sort of thing, If you join the Scouts to drive you pass the relevant driving test, you have a quick check drive with someone locally (who also runs through breakdown procedures etc which will vary locally) and that’s it,.
We already have to jump through ridiculous hoops to get an FMT600 which is why huge numbers of staff don’t bother using MT vehicles, adding to that burden by having some CFAV on Wing Staff running driving assessments is not a positive step.
i would counter this with ALARP.
what risk are you controlling with this action?
avoiding the potential out there, what is the organisations history on vehicle accidents? Of those how many in a D1 vehicle, and of those how many had “low hours on type”?
and of those - how many of those incidents would could have been prevented by driving assessments and continual development?
I would suggest that number is slow low it already is ALARP simply as it is not “P” (ie practical) to add further elements for the CFAV to complete a driving task.
i let my FMT600 slide, i used MT vehicles once a year for a Squadron visit to the local airshow or museum visit depending on interest level and even then although my events wasn’t necessary me driving.
i moved unit with an SOV and thus don’t use my FMT600 anymore. but if i did, i already have to visit my parent unit for a pointless signing of orders (why is this not an Wing led online system?) to drive the bus once.
if i then have to take at least one more day out (on the assumption it is at least annual) to prove I can drive a bus (which i did at Leconsfield) so I can then drive the bus later in the year…
personally if i was that “at risk” I would hope my own conscious would stop me, and if not (as there are questionable people out there) then the CoC would be able to step in and say “no”
that’s a Wing / Regional / Parent station issue - ours are electronic
Same. And reminded me to re do it
Last fatal RTC I was involved in was RAF Wittering and that was an MT driver in a Coach.
ok so unique to my geography but further assessments still require a day of commitment so i can spend a day committed to what i volunteer for…
also driving “assessment” implies a test - potentially a pass/fail - who would do that and have the authority to say “no longer able to drive”???
realistically no CFAV or RAF MT section has the power to revoke D1 status, they may choose to “ban” the individual but how bad would someone really need to be to do that? Why turn up to an assessment if the individual doesn’t expect to pass?
going back to your earlier analogy of AT: if we don’t do enough days in a year and submit the logbook to the WATTO we’re not allowed to use our quals in the Corps (but they’re not revoked)… 
[/devil’s advocate]
This has nothing to do with passing tests, it comes down to the requirement for running a vehicle under a section 19 permit. Cars dont come under this so its a non starter.
Under section 19, you are required to prove that the driver is competent to drive with passengers. Also that they are familiar with the vehicle and that they have proper written instructions provided to them for both the operation of the vehicle and there responsibilities whilst driving.
How many squadrons do this correctly? Hand on heart, I doubt there are many out there who are covered in the event something goes really wrong. In my wing, I have yet to find a squadron with an SOV who is properly compliant.
A locally based SME who actually knows what they are talking about would make SOVs much easier to manage and keep squadrons compliant. I agree that the organisation would make an absolute hash of the post and make it inefficient and useless. But the premise of it isnt that bad of an idea.
agreed but that is a standard practise to share what you have done - and it doesn’t take the WATTO to count up if there are X number of occasions the qual has been used.
the result is known by the individual before the check…and it may be accepted that the qual cannot be used, or doesn’t want to be used anymore yet it is still recorded.
with the driving example it is subjective, the opinion of the “assessor” and decided on the day.
i would also suggest that if someone passed their D1 test they must have reached a minimum level and unlike AT quals there is less likely to be skill fade (given most people drive - and for those who don’t drive, or only do so infrequently they wouldn’t be the types to go for a D1) so at what point would the re-assessment come in?
after 3 years of the D1 test?
after three years of no example of D1 driving?
the safety element of driving a D1 vehicle is no different to a car - if someone is “safe” in a car i can’t see how they would suddenly become a instant hazard simply being in a D1 vehicle.
the only real difference is the size of the vehicle but i can hire a van three times the size of my car on a B cat licence without any more than a check of my DL without any additional tuition despite only driving a “micra round Oxford” every other week to complete my Mum’s grocery shopping.
again
i refer back to my comment on ALARP - if there is a genuine risk i would be happy to apply the control measure but i cannot believe the current system is not ALARP
People also need to be aware of driving hours as well. Just because we arnt using a Tacho doesn’t mean you don’t have to watch your hours.
Always make me laugh. When you finish driving at 22:00 on camp or a course and the Camp com or course commander tell you that you have to be ready to go at 7am. Then they get when you tell them that you can’t til 8am because of hours.
To be told “it doesn’t apply to us just do it”
I had a member of Permanent Staff question why I needed so many staff for a trip to the Mountains, it took serious Spot the Dog level conversations to get them to understand that the ML who had been out Supervising a Group all day couldn’t drive the safety vehicle at the same time or after they got off the hills.
I know it was just an example. But In reality with a 22:00 hours finish you could be required for duty at 06:00 or 06:30 in the morning depending if working to EU or Domestic rules. Providing you haven’t taken reduced rests more than 3 times in a specified period it’s perfectly “safe” and legal.
The MT controller at St Mawgan told us that we couldn’t be on duty for 7 days in a row, and drive their white fleet buses.
The CC was less than impressed when the drivers told her that we would be taking a Wednesday off… 