Experiences of Cycle Training

HGV drivers

I had the good fortune to be co-instructor on a couple of CPC courses last week - these are courses that HGV drivers can take as part of their 'continuous professional development'.
The aim is not, as with normal Cycle Training, to produce great, confident and safe cyclists. It's about letting the drivers see the road from our point of view and discussing cyclist behavior, both good and bad, hearing about their experiences and trying to find ways to share the road safely. Their is a second aim, or hope, to promote cycling as a healthy activity and perhaps remind some of them, if they have not ridden in a while, or even in decades, how enjoyable it can be.
We had one group on Thursday and two groups on Saturday. Very few of them cycled regularly but they all proved the truth of the adage that you never forget how to ride a bike. Many of them were more adept at signaling and looking behind than some of the trainees we see who are commuting every day.
The groups on Thursday and Saturday morning were really enjoyable, the drivers open and good humoured. They would all have had no problem passing a CPC course in Constant Bantering.
I had tried not to go in expecting the worst, not wanting to pre-judge them as being stereotypically anti-cyclist. By and large they weren't, though it would be naive not to think that they are, to some degree, on their best behaviour. It was striking that they were able to transfer their driving skills to road cycling in a way that many, non-professional-driver trainees are not able to do without a lot of encouragement. They were generally quick to see the tell-tale signs of a novice or unconfident cyclist and the need to give these cylclists more space and time. These two sessions were encouraging and fun.
The Saturday afternoon group were a little different. It didn't help that it was 30 degrees and they had already had a sweaty morning doing the classroom bit. It only takes one or two people in a group to make teaching difficult and this group had them. Both young men (there was one woman in the group and all the groups were mainly middle-aged men).
I made a fatal mistake in rising to the provocations of one of them when he started to say that cyclists were the least important people on the road, that they don't pay road tax (argghhh!) and that they should get out of everyone's way. After the positive atmosphere in the first two groups it was just disappointing to hear this crap and I should have let it slide. Lesson learned.
In the end my lead instructor managed to win the group back pretty well and they said a lot of the kind of stuff you want to hear. The aim of the course is to make these drivers think about cyclists in a different, more understanding and co-operative, way. It's not as if we are expecting them to have a Damascene conversion and you just have to trust that the course will have an effect however truculent or unresponsive some of them might seem.
After the course I shook hands with the burly troublemaker and he was fine about it. The woman on the course also took me aside to apologise for some of her colleague's behaviour. It had been a hot and tiring afternoon.
Things that all three groups identified as bad cycling; not looking behind, not signaling, changing lanes without warning, not having lights on after dark. And, very strongly, jumping red lights. I think we kid ourselves if we do not acknowledge how bad red light jumping makes cyclists look. The resentment may be irrational and even hypocritical, but it is there. We discussed it and they were willing to see that there might be reasons for it that they had not considered but it's still an obstacle.
Happily no one mentioned not wearing a helmet as an example of dangerous cycling.
I loved doing these courses (even, just about, eventually, the Saturday afternoon one). One of the things that came across was how afraid of hitting a cyclist the HGV drivers are. The bolshy ones might not admit it but it is there. They understand our vulnerability (though they probably wouldn't phrase it like that).
It's trite to say that the more we understand each other the better off we will all be. It's trite, but it's true.