A Practical Guide for HGV Drivers If you drive an HGV professionally, understanding your drivers' hours is only half the story. You also need to understand the Road Transport Working Time Directive (WTD). The two sets of rules work alongside each other, but they measure different things. Drivers' hours rules primarily control how long you can drive and the breaks and rest periods you must take. Working Time rules control how long you actually work – and driving is only one pa

What Every New Driver Needs to Know; Getting your HGV licence and Driver CPC gets you qualified to drive professionally. Understanding drivers’ hours, breaks and rest is what helps you do that job legally and safely. For a new driver, this can be one of the most confusing parts of starting work. You will hear about 4½-hour driving limits, 45-minute breaks, 9 and 10-hour driving days, 11-hour rests, 9-hour reduced rests, 15-hour spreads, weekly rests and the Working Time Direc

Becoming an HGV Driver in Ireland. For many people, getting an HGV licence is the first step towards a completely new career. But there is a significant difference between learning to drive a truck well enough to pass the test and learning how to work as a professional HGV driver. The qualification process gives you the licence and essential foundations. The knowledge and confidence needed to work independently develop through training, experience, good workplace support and

Supporting the people behind the wheel, not just the job they do. One of the reasons I created HGV Smart Ireland was to make useful, practical information more accessible to professional drivers, particularly those who are newly qualified or still finding their feet in the industry. There is an enormous amount to learn when you first start driving an HGV. Even after years of experience, there will always be something you haven't encountered before, a question you need answere

From the driver's seat to the transport office, workshop, training room and boardroom. A career in haulage might take you further than you think. When people think about working in the haulage industry, they generally think about lorry drivers. Which is fair enough. We're the most visible part of the operation, and without us, nothing would go very far. But behind every lorry on the road is an entire industry of people doing completely different jobs. Some are practical, some

The Great Lorry Contest – Scania, Volvo, DAF and the Rest of the Suspects Seven manufacturers, several million opinions, and absolutely no chance of everybody agreeing. There are few things guaranteed to start a debate amongst lorry drivers quite as quickly as asking which manufacturer makes the best truck. Some drivers are fiercely loyal to one manufacturer. Others will drive absolutely anything as long as it starts, stops and has a working heater. Then there are the drivers

Agency Driving, Permanent Employment and Retained Drivers Understanding your employment options, the advantages, disadvantages and what you need to know before accepting a job There are several ways to earn a living as an HGV driver in Ireland, and they don't all involve taking a permanent, Monday-to-Friday job with the same haulage company. Some drivers prefer the security of regular employment. Others enjoy agency work, moving between companies and trying different types of

Equality and belonging in the HGV industry There is no single type of person who belongs behind the wheel of a truck. Drivers can be women or men, gay, straight, bisexual, transgender or non-binary. They come from different countries, cultures and religions. Some have disabilities or health conditions that are not immediately visible. Some are starting their working lives; others are starting again. None of that tells you whether someone can safely handle a vehicle, secure a

A practical guide to life as a female HGV driver. This article is intended to support women in the HGV industry and encourage an honest, respectful conversation about their experiences. It is not intended to belittle men, stereotype women or suggest that every driver has the same experience. Any humour is shared in that spirit, never at the expense of someone’s gender or background. Driving ability and professionalism are not defined by gender, and everyone deserves the oppor

Great views, questionable showers and “just another ten minutes” HGV driving can give you freedom, adventure, pride in your work and a front-row seat to some spectacular scenery. It can also give you forty minutes to study a warehouse wall while your lunch slowly becomes a memory. Some days, you would not swap this job for anything. Other days, you are being told to reverse into a space apparently designed for a wheelbarrow. Both experiences count. Long days and suspiciously

What to know before you leave Ireland. International driving means planning for more than the delivery address. Your paperwork, border route, toll arrangements and legal driving times all need to match the journey. This guide covers the basics for Irish-based HGV drivers travelling to Great Britain and mainland Europe. Your transport office should provide the arrangements for your specific vehicle, load and route. 1. Documentation Organise your documents before departure and

A practical introduction for new HGV drivers. Dangerous goods are not only carried in tankers. You can also encounter them in drums, cylinders, boxes, IBCs and mixed pallet loads. This guide explains what to recognise, what to check and when to ask for help. It is an awareness guide, not a substitute for ADR training, certification or instructions for a particular load. What is ADR? ADR is the agreement governing the international carriage of dangerous goods by road. Ireland

The Handheld Box & Dash Buttons. Important note: Air suspension controls differ from vehicle to vehicle. If you aren't sure-ASK! Air suspension controls are one of those things that become completely automatic once you've been driving for a while. You press a button, the lorry goes up. Press another, it comes down. Job done. But if you're sitting in an unfamiliar lorry for the first time looking at a box covered in pictures of axles, arrows and mysterious M1/M2 buttons, it's

A comprehensive guide. Passing your HGV test qualifies you to drive a lorry. It does not magically teach you how to do every job that happens to involve one. The difference between fridge work, containers, livestock, timber, multidrop, tippers and heavy haulage can be enormous. The vehicle might still have a steering wheel and a tachograph, but the equipment, skills, working environment, physical demands, hazards and daily routine can be completely different. If you're a new-

What It Actually Does, When to Press It & How Not to Ruin a Perfectly Good Rest. Ferry mode. Possibly one of the most frequently misunderstood bits of tachograph use. It gets explained as: “Just put it on the boat symbol.” Excellent. When? Before you move? After you move? While you're sitting in the boarding lane? When you're actually on the boat? Do you leave it on for the whole crossing? What happens when the tachograph changes itself to Drive? Can you interrupt nine hours?

Unfamiliar Sites, Loading Bays, Paperwork, Wrong Turns & When to Stop and Ask You have found the customer. Excellent. Unfortunately, this does not necessarily mean the difficult bit is over. You may now need to work out: which entrance takes HGVs; where goods-in is; where to book in; which bay you're supposed to use; whether you can actually get the vehicle into that bay; what the site's rules are; what is being loaded; whether it is the load you were expecting; whether the p

Drivers, Planners, Traffic Offices & Transport Managers. Professional driving can be a strange job. You may spend most of your working day alone in a cab, but your day is being coordinated by people somewhere else. A planner may be looking at a screen thinking: “Why isn't that lorry there yet?” Meanwhile, the driver is looking through a windscreen thinking: “Because there is a tractor doing 35 km/h in front of me, it's lashing rain, I need a break in 20 minutes and your deliv

There is a particular kind of misery involved in discovering that something you need is missing after you've left the yard. No hi-vis. No phone charger. No gloves. No tacho paper. It's lashing rain and your waterproof jacket is hanging beautifully on the back of your kitchen chair. Or you've arrived at a site requiring safety boots, hi-vis and a hard hat — and the hard hat is 150 km away. Some things are required. Some are good practice. Some depend entirely on the work you'r

MODULES, TRAINING, YOUR CPC CARD & STAYING QUALIFIED. If you intend to drive an HGV professionally in Ireland, Driver CPC — Certificate of Professional Competence — is part of professional life. Getting qualified is only the beginning. Once you have your Driver CPC, you have to maintain it through periodic training. For a professional truck driver, that normally means: 5 modules × 7 hours = 35 hours over a five-year CPC cycle. In practical terms: ONE CPC TRAINING DAY EVERY YE

EXHAUST BRAKES, ENGINE BRAKES, RETARDERS & ECO-BRAKING If you're studying for your Irish HGV theory test, you will almost certainly encounter the word: RETARDER And you could be forgiven for thinking: What the hell is a retarder? It appears repeatedly in HGV training and theory material, often with very little explanation of what the driver is actually being asked about. So let's start there. FIRST: WHAT IS A RETARDER? In the broadest sense, a retardation device or endurance