Practical classes focusing on specialised skills required to drive heavy trailers and tankers will become mandatory in Dubai from the end of this year, Gulf News can confirm.

The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has already introduced an additional theory class for the heavy vehicle trainee drivers from January this year. The move comes following a drastic rise in fatal accidents involving heavy vehicles, with the first half of 2016 registering 27 such accidents compared to 15 in the whole of 2015.

Though the data suggest that nearly 60 per cent of the heavy vehicle licence holders go on to drive articulated heavy trucks and tankers there is no provision in the UAE traffic law for the specialised training to drive such type of vehicles.

According to Arif Al Malek, Director of Drivers Training and Qualification at RTA’s Licensing Agency, the UAE traffic law doesn’t differentiate between the rigid heavy vehicles and the articulated ones, which is the reason why anyone who obtains a heavy vehicle licence goes on to drive the articulated trucks without the necessary skills.

“Heavy vehicles usually come in three categories, the rigid, the articulated and the heavy tankers that carry water, gas and other chemicals as well as hazardous liquids, and one requires different set of skills to drive each of these vehicle categories, without which there are bound to be accidents,” said Al Malek

He added the RTA carried out a comprehensive study that looked at various of road safety involving heavy vehicles, delving particularly into the causes of the accidents.

“We did a study about the heavy motor vehicles and we noticed that there was an increase in the number of fatal accidents involving trucks. The study was comprehensive and took into consideration a lot of other factors,” said Al Malek.

The study also found out that the commercial logistic firms do provide training to drivers before handing them heavy trailers, but their training programmes may not be adequate and safe.

“We noticed that a lot of commercial logistic companies do train their new drivers who graduate from the driving institutes with senior drivers training the new drivers who may or many not be qualified enough to train the young drivers,” added Al Malek.

He said that the study showed a gap in training and a need to introducing additional classes that are provided by qualified trainers and under a safe environment.

“We realised that the characteristics and dynamics of a rigid and an articulated vehicle are different and requires a different set of skills from the drivers. The manoeuvres are different and the technique required to driver the heavy trailers are different and that is why we came up with this programme,” explained Al Malek.

Special skills

The upgrade will see an increase the number of theory and practical lessons in the heavy vehicle training programme and these additional classes will exclusively focus on the driving skills required for articulated heavy vehicles

“We have already added one theory class to the existing eight classes, and will soon introduce five hours of additional practical training that will exclusively involve trailer and tanker driving. After the practical training the institutes will conduct an assessment of the candidate to make sure he is qualified enough to drive the trailers before the final road test,” said Al Malek.

Theory classes will cover topics like harsh braking, manoeuvres for half-filled tanker and handling emergency and accident situations.

“Practising controlled braking is important because if a trailer tries to brake suddenly there are chances of a jack-knife situation taking place where the force of physics pushes the trailer to move sideways and may cause grave danger to other road users,” he said.

He added that the braking of half-filled tanker also requires special skills.

“If the driver brakes suddenly brakes, the force of braking will move the water to the front making it difficult for the driver to control the vehicle,” he explained.

The practical training will also involve parking of the articulated vehicle, the coupling and the decoupling of the trailer from the main body as well as reversing on a 40-feet trailer.

Water tanker training will also involve left and right turns with the tanker half-filled.

The upgrade will require the driving schools to procure the 40-feet trailers as well as water tankers to provide the additional lessons.

Schools will have time till the end of this year to gradually implement the programme when the course will become mandatory.

“From the end of this year any new heavy vehicle trainee driver will have to go through the new theory as well as practical training programme. We are giving schools one year’s time to prepare the training requirement. The schools will have to prepare large areas to train the manoeuvres other than procuring the vehicles,”

Benchmark

According to Al Malek, the new training programme has been benchmarked with the highest standards available in the developed countries.

“We have basically adopted the system that is already in practice in the UK, adapting it to the requirements in the UAE. So apart from providing training on the rigid and the articulated vehicles, we will also provide training on the tankers. This is already a common practice in many developed countries and will help raise the standards of safety on the roads,” he added.

He admitted that with the increase in the number of training hours, the cost of the course will obviously increase, bringing greater safety.

“Safety is a need and the highest priority for use, especially if it involves the high risk categories of heavy vehicles, which has higher impact on roads if they are involved in an accident.

Fact file

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics, 1.24 million people die each year in road accidents and between 20 and 50 million people are injured and suffer permanent disability.

In the GCC, Oman has the highest road death ratio per 100,000 population at 29.5, while in Saudi Arabia an average 17 people die every day in road accidents, with a road death ratio 24.

In UAE, despite drastic improvements in road safety in the last 10 years, bringing down the annual fatalities from 21 per 100,000 in 2006 to 11, road accidents are still the number two killer after heart diseases

source : gulfnews