Ben Shaw has spent many years working on farms, operating machinery and driving trucks in many parts of the world.

Ben grew up on his grandad's small farm which is close to the Lancashire / Yorkshire border in Northern England.
His driving career started at the age of about 10 or 11 when he learnt to drive his grandad's old Grey Fergie tractor, which sadly, has long since gone.
He spent his early teenage years working for various local farmers, driving bigger and better machines and when he passed his car driving test at 17 he enjoyed the thrill of the road and was soon driving 3.5 tonne vans.
At 18 he was then able to drive 7.5 tonne trucks and eagerly stepped in to make his uncle's deliveries whilst he had a week or two off.
During the summer of 1995 Ben travelled to Suffolk and got a tractor driving job, baling straw for a contractor, he must have baled about 70,000 small bales that summer.
Later that year, travelling further a field, he found work in Western Australia driving the really big artic-steer tractors and also the rubber tracked Cat Challengers on a massive wheat farm 3 hours North of Perth.
At 23 he decided to do his rigid category C LGV driving test and a month later his artic C+E test. He got a job with a Blackburn based transport company driving many different vehicles, mainly an old Volvo wagon and drag doing multi-drop all over the UK and then moving on to a nicer artic and doing more continental runs than anything else. He delivered loads to Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain.

Ben Shaw has spent many years trying to tell people how to do things better, and has always been a bit of a know-it-all. So it made sense that he'd eventually become an instructor.

In May 2004, Ben passed his RTITB Forklift instuctor course and was soon working for a training school in Burnley. Before long he was trained as an LGV instructor and was put to work getting people through their truck driving test. Most of the people he trained were lads coming out of the military and were doing this as part of their resettlement.

In July 2005, having noticed there was a demand of people needing the new B+E Car & Trailer entitlement on their licence, Ben set up Ben Shaw Training using his M reg Mitsubishi Shogun and an old Ifor Williams horse trailer. Although the business got off to a slow start, he still kept busy instucting for a couple of local LGV training schools and did his own work as and when it came in.

In April 2006, realising that the B+E Car & Trailer training wasn't keeping him busy enough, Ben Shaw Training moved into LGV training and bought it's first truck, an N reg Scania rigid. As it didn't warrant having an artic he just hired one in when he needed it.

Ben Shaw knows there's a credit crunch, and he knows we're in a bad reccession, but he's hitting this reccession head on, and he's determind to come out of it on top... eventually.

2007 was a good year for Ben Shaw Training, but the old Shogun was getting very tired and unreliable and we replaced it with 2004 Kia Sorento in June 2007. The Kia turned out to be so much more economical compared to the Shogun that Ben is sure it paid for it's self in what it saved in fuel. 2008 was an even better year. Ben worked hard, mostly six day weeks, not even taking much time off when his second daughter Emily was born in May 2008. And through working hard he paid off a lot of debt in, debt that had quietly accumilated through the general running the business over the last two or three years. This left Ben Shaw Training in a lot better financial situation.

The start of 2009 was a little daunting for Ben Shaw Training, what with all the talk of a credit crunch, but Ben had planned to by a new trailer for the B+E Car & Trailer section and wasn't going to be put off. Deciding that second hand trailers on ebay weren't much cheaper than brand new ones, he placed an order for a brand new Ifor Williams box trailer in January 2009, but we had to wait about six weeks for it to come.

While he was waiting for the new trailer to arrive, Ben received a phone call from someone wanting to buy his truck. He had planned to replace the Scania next year, but as this guy was offering to pay a very good price he sold it there and then. It's replacement was an ex Argos wagon and drag, Y reg, which is absolutely perfect for driver training. With it being a wagon and drag it can simply be used as a rigid category C training vehicle without the trailer on, and a C+E training vehicle with the trailer on. Which meant no more struggling to find an artic to hire and not needing to own three expensive vehicles only two.

Ben runs Ben Shaw Training with the help of his partner Leah Kibble. Leah does the book keeping and accounts, but Ben does everything else. Ben always answers the phone, he does all the organising of tests and training schedules and he does all the instructing himself. Ben is the person you'll be dealing with in every aspect, limiting any problems or confusion.