Today our Deputy Team Leader Chris Greenhalgh, carried out some driver training for two of our newer members, to enable them to become familiar with our Land Rovers, and to gain team ‘General Purpose’ driver status.
Chris is well qualified to provide such, having been our Equipment Officer – Vehicles for many years prior to his Deputy Team Leader election, Chris is also a Fire Appliance driver with GMFRS.
Chris has made the following account of the awareness training he provided;
“Team members Rasti Schweizer and Matthew Morris had both recently enquired about driver training, I explained about our vehicle policy to which they both conformed and after checking their licences I met them both today to give them an introduction which somehow lasted 3 1/2 hours in the end.
I ran through the driver vehicle checks on BM3 including fluid levels, tyre pressures, all vehicle lights, siren and horn followed by filling in the vehicle log book, checking for damage, fuelling up (they both had a chuckle when I came to fuelling up for some reason, I couldn’t understand why – webmaster, we had a recent vehicle fuelling mishap, not Chris we meant add!) and security of load.
I then ran through how the winch works, the bonnet mounted search light, checking the batteries, jump starting and use of high/low range and diff lock.
They then both took turns at driving on a combination of main roads and narrower country roads then they had a go at changing between high and low range and engaging/disengaging diff lock.”
Chris gave further advice as the pair had turns at driving and becoming a little more familiar with the handling of the Land Rover.
Both Rasti and Matthew will undertake further driver awareness / handling training, in both our newer (three) Land Rovers and our older Land Rover, ‘Bolton Mobile 4.’
As a footnote Chris mentioned the following – For some reason today I was asked today where the body bags are kept in the Land Rovers, I’m not sure if this was an indication how the drive was going to go but I’m pleased to report we all survived.
