Whether you drive a bus or HGV for a living, you must have a Driver CPC (Certificate of Professional Competence) as well as a vocational driving licence. However, you’re a bus driver, you may be wondering whether your PCV licence (Passenger Carrying Vehicle) covers you to drive other large vehicles like HGVs.
Driving a bus is, and has always been, a popular career choice. But with so many career benefits for commercial drivers, often many people within the sector consider other routes in the transport and logistics industry at some point in their life. Perhaps you’re looking for a slight career change. Or you may simply want to try something new. Regardless, with so many different licence categorisations, it can be a bit of a minefield working out what other vehicles you’re entitled to operate.
In this article, we’ll provide you with everything you need to know about whether or not you can drive an HGV on a PCV licence and answer some commonly asked questions around the topic.
If you drive a bus, you’ll have a PCV licence. There are two main categories:
In short – the answer is no. Above all, ensuring that drivers have the right licence and skills required to drive different types of vehicles is key to maintaining road safety. Whilst buses are similar in size to heavy goods vehicles, the difference in weight and manoeuvrability does make it necessary for separate driving categories, as well as different training requirements. Plus, buses are used to transport people, whereas HGVs are primarily used to carry goods, meaning there’s also varying duties of care.
If your provisional bus licence was issued from 15th November 2021, you can now learn to drive in a bus or coach towing a trailer heavier than 750kg (category D+E). However, if you had a provisional licence before this date, you’ll need to take additional steps to upgrade your provisional licence.
When you pass your test in a bus or coach towing a trailer, you’re allowed to drive the following vehicles:
Note – the “+E” suffix in licence categories means that you may tow a trailer weighing more than 750kg behind your vehicle.
The most common type of HGV licence is a category C1 licence. This allows you to drive lorries that weigh up to 7.5 tonnes. If you want to be able to operate vehicles that weigh more than 7.5 tonnes, you’ll need a category C licence or for articulated vehicles, category C+E.
Getting to grips with all the different parts of a driving licence can feel confusing, so we’ve created a guide to help you understand your driving licence in more depth.
No. If the vehicle has a MAM (maximised authorised mass) between 3.5 tonnes and 7.5 tonnes, a category C1 licence is needed.
Minibuses with 9 to 16 passenger seats (D1), and buses and coaches with more than 16 passenger seats (D).
Yes. Periodic CPC training is not specific to a category, but you should check the topics for the course you book as some modules are tailored specifically to bus/coach or lorry drivers only.
For example, the following modules are for HGV drivers only, due to the contents of the courses
Periodic training can only be uploaded to categories for which you have either passed the initial qualification or hold acquired rights. If you recently acquired a bus or lorry category, you many need to pass the initial qualification before you can have periodic training uploaded to that category.
No. You need a PCV licence to be able to drive a bus.
Here’s a brief overview of the relevant licences:
The multiple-choice test and hazard perception test for the HGV and PCV licence are two separate tests.
