The government’s pledge to solve the UK’s current shortage of Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) drivers by making the HGV licence easier to obtain, has been welcomed by thousands of drivers previously ineligible for the role. Among these is van driver Kevin Glix, who has had three endorsements and a year’s ban on his current regular driving licence in the last six years, but now hopes to forge a new career behind the wheel of an articulated lorry. “You see, the problem when I was only driving a van was that those idiots in cars just wouldn’t get of my way – all those collisions I had were entirely their fault,” he told the Daily Norks by way of explanation for his driving record, before reassuring the tabloid’s readers that obtaining one of the new HGV licences would actually improve his driving. “If only they’d been better drivers, they’d have been able to avoid me, but instead I kept getting the blame! In an HGV, I won’t have that trouble – my vehicle will be so big they’ll have no bloody choice but to get out of my way!” Many other drivers, previously ruled ineligible to drive long distance HGVs on medical grounds have likewise welcomed the government’s decision.
“Just because I have a slightly dicky ticker, they’ve previously told me that I couldn’t drive HGVs because of the risk of me having a fatal heart attack and dropping dead behind the wheel,” sixty three year old Herman Hamster, who has suffered three strokes, one of which left him paralysed down his left side for six months, explained to the newspaper. “It’s health and bloody safety gone mad! I mean, even if I did keel over on the road, it would likely be on a motorway, where the casualties wouldn’t be too bad. It isn’t as if I’d be driving a rig like through built up areas, near schools, where I could mow down hundreds of kiddies as they walk to school, is it?” Another individual now considering obtaining an HGV licence is Mustafa Wanquiri, who believes that it could help him achieve his dream of becoming a crazy fundamentalist terrorist. “I’ve always had a hankering to drive one of those big trucks into a crowd of infidels, but as my eyesight is a bit dodgy and I’ve got Type 1 diabetes, I’ve always been barred from holding an HGV licence,” he ponders in the latest issue of Crazy Fundamentalist Bastards Monthly. “It had got to the stage where I had resigned myself to the fact that I’d just have to settle for being a suicide bomber – but that’s just such a limiting role. After all, you can only do it once, but you can drive rucks into crowds and buildings multiple times. So, this new less rigourous HGV licence qualification regime could really open up possibilities for me.”
The interest expressed by these sorts of candidates would seem to validate the fears of road safety experts, that by diluting the requirements needed to qualify for an HGV licence will result in carnage on Britain’s roads. “It isn’t as if the people they currently give HGV licences to are particularly safe behind the wheel,” opines Arnie Eckhouse, top road safety campaigner. “Only last month my wife’s aunt’s first cousin was killed by some maniac who lost control of his truck while whacking off to a porn video behind the wheel. Quite frankly, rather than making it easier to get an HGV licence, they should surely be making it tougher to weed out all the lunatics, sex offenders and serial killers currently traversing Britain’s roads in articulated lorries.” Others, however, disagree vehemently, arguing that the qualifications for driving HGVs should be loosened even further. “It’s bloody ridiculous, this obsession with having to have certificates and so-called qualifications before you are allowed to do anything,” declares Xavier Rangles, a leading conspiracy theorist, Covid sceptic and anti-vaxxer. “It’s no different from this nonsense that you have to be able to prove that you’ve been vaccinated in order to do certain health care jobs, or visit certain venues. It’s just another means of oppression. Really, it is ridiculous to say that you need a special licence to drive HGVs – it is no different to driving a car. And let’s face it, you don’t really need a licence to do that proficiently – the whole idea of vehicle licencing was invented as a means to justify the existence of the whole bureaucracy of driving tests, driving inspectors and the driving instruction industry, All traffic laws are simply another means of thought control – forcing us to believe that we must conform to some arbitrary rules for our own supposed safety! People can decide which side of the road is best to drive on without government intervention!”
For its part, the government has denied that its plans will undermine road safety, arguing that while it intends streamlining the process of licencing HGV drivers in order to speed up qualification, standards will remain rigourous. “It isn’t our intention to endanger any road users, but it is vital to the British economy that we increase the number of HGV drivers if we are to avoid empty shelves in our shops,” a spokesperson for the Department For Transport told a press conference, t the same time denying that the shortage of HGV drivers was a direct result of Brexit, despite it having been caused by the loss of EU drivers to the UK workforce. “So, even if standards were to dip a bit, surely a few additional deaths in horrible, entirely avoidable, road accidents would be deemed acceptable by the public if they meant that their local supermarket can secure its supply of avocados?”
There are rumours that, if the dilution of HGV licensing goes well, the government might consider similar measures in other areas where fully qualified workers are in short supply. “The medical profession is the obvious candidate,” muses Guy Foam, of the conservative think tank Right Bastards. “Doctors are forever complaining that they are overstretched and overworked, so why not introduce fast-track medical degrees to qualify new doctors in under two years? Not only would we have more of them, but they’d be cheaper as they are less qualified.” Foam argues that care standards wouldn’t necessarily be compromised by such a move, pointing out that many doctors in general practice spend their time treating mundane medical conditions. “Most of them are wasting their time dealing with the work-shy lower classes complaining about vague aches, pains and verrucas,” he says. “I mean, does it really need a fully trained and qualified doctor to treat some overweight benefits cheat’s athlete’s foot? The only treatment most people visiting their GP really need is to take an aspirin and be told to pull themselves together! ‘Real’ doctors should be reserved for treating the proper ailments of deserving patients from higher social groups – the ones who are essential to the economy rather than those idle bastards from sink estates.”
