Fleet Training

FLEET DRIVER TRAINING

We provide corporate driver training, aimed at reducing road risk for company car and van drivers, as well as saving employing company’s money.

Risk Assessments

We are often asked about the importance of carrying out risk assessments on employees that are involved in driving activities for work; in particular any legal implications.

Traditionally Health and Safety Legislation was focused on an employers duty to providing a safe work place, and safe practices. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, contains two sections, which recognise the human contribution to accidents:

section 3.—(1) Every employer shall make a suitable and sufficient assessment of—

(a) the risks to the health and safety of his employees to which they are exposed whilst they are at work

and

section 13.—(1) states “ Every employer shall, in entrusting tasks to his employees, take into account their capabilities as regards health and safety.

Driving at work just like any other work related activity, is covered by the regulations.Therefore as an employer it is vital to make sure that the business is compliant. It need not be burdensome or expensive and the measures required to protect the business are those which are “reasonably practicable”.

In particular a driving risk assessment would be expected to be carried out, under employer due diligence, should an employee be involved in an own fault collision, or Driving Offence. In this way the employer would be held as having taken Health and Safety measures that were “reasonably practicable”, which is the standard duty of care expected under most of the legislation.

Eco Driving Training

driver’s that receive Eco Driving Training have been proven to use up to 15% less fuel.

Defensive Driving

Your employees are probably the most important resource that you have and holding on to the good ones is not always easy.

Many good employers in addition to offering great pay and conditions provide some form of employee benefit in order to attract and retain their people.

Incentives of course come at a cost to the employing company, so many are looking at providing a little something that provides them with an additional return on their investment. Becoming ever more popular are employee Defensive Driving courses, as these can have a number of benefits for both Company and Employee:

build loyally in your people through investment in them
employee benefits can set your company apart from the competition
demonstrate your joint commitment to safer communities
reduce employee stress
save your employees up to 15% on their fuel bills
defensive drivers are 20% less likely to be involved in a collision

Defensive Driver Training is aimed at encouraging drivers to accept that it is their responsibility to control the risk from hazards regardless of priority, and to think beyond fault or blame.

Fault or blame is for insurance companies or the police, but is always after the collision has occurred. Being right, but injured or worse is not helpful.

Defensive drivers actively look for and accept some responsibility for the actions of other road users, enabling them to see and manage the risk from hazards earlier, allowing time to take action safely.

Trained Drivers are more communicative and collaborative with other motorists, and as such reduce tensions on the road.

These courses are suitable for non occupation drivers, but even more so for those that drive for work, in particular those working in liveried vehicles.

Employers are finding that once their occupational drivers have attended a Defensive Driving course, using a GPS based “black box” telematics monitoring system keeps drivers on the right track. What gets monitored tends to get done, and such systems can then form part of a firms risk assessments in terms of MHSR 1999.

Driver Distraction

There is much in the popular press, driving, and other publications with regards to driver distractions. This is mainly due to the use of mobile phones in vehicles, and new in vehicle text reading devices. However, increasingly scientific research is revealing the dangers of other forms driver multi-tasking that are associated with increased in-vehicle technology.

This article covers:

What is Distraction?
Types of Distraction
The Effects of Distraction
The Law
Managing Distraction

What Is Distraction

A driver is said to be distracted, if he or she attempts to concentrate on a second activity whilst driving. People can, and do multi-task, after all, driving involves this to some degree. However there will always become a point, when this will becomes dangerous, whilst at the wheel of a motor vehicle. The point where distraction becomes dangerous depends on of the capabilities of the individual, and the type, types, or combination of distractions, combined with the prevailing road and traffic conditions.

Distraction can be either driver initiated, where the driver starts carrying out a secondary activity or non-driver initiated, such as a loud noise from a low flying helicopter outside of the vehicle

Types of Driver Distraction

There are four basic types of driver distraction:

Auditory
Biomechanical
Visual
Cognitive

Visual distraction occurs when a driver sees objects or events; keys that light up on a cell phone, texts coming through, and these prevent the driver from processing information related to driving. At least one motor manufacturer is advertising a heads up in-car text reading display, as a sales feature, an idea that one senior Traffic Police Officer that we spoke to in Kent thought was “a ridiculously irresponsible device”.

Biomechanical distraction can occur, when a driver is involved in a physical task, such as holding a tuning a radio, or holding cell phone.

An auditory distraction is a sound which prevents a driver from focusing on the driving task. Loud bang, outside of the vehicle, loud music inside, trying to hear someone talking on a mobile phone are all examples.

A Cognitive distraction occurs when a driver is thinking about something, unrelated to driving the vehicle. This form of distraction is particularly dangerous, as it has been proven that those found in a state of cognitive impairment, tend to fixate (stare), and start to develop a form of tunnel vision…highly dangerous.

The Effect of Distraction

Some activities, can create a distraction, which incorporates some or all of the above; potentially a critical storm. Using a hand-held mobile phone, is one such example.

The biomechanical is the act of holding the device, visual, perhaps dialling the number, auditory, trying to hear, in a poor reception area, and the cognitive, which could be thinking about the next big sale, involving maths etc. Mobile phones on hand free are still very distracting, as cognitive, and auditory, will still combine, in varying degrees.

The effect of a distraction is to prevent the driver from giving full attention to risk managing the driving task.

Drivers that are cognitively distracted, tend to lose situational awareness, concentrating straight ahead, thus losing vital information from the back, and sides of the vehicle. As such, hazards are detected much later, than they otherwise would have been, if the driver had not been distracted.

The Law

Section 149 of the Highway Code states:

You must exercise proper control of your vehicle at all times.

This is a bit of a catch all really. Distracted drivers could be reported for a range of different offences, anything from Inconsiderate, to Dangerous driving.

In the case of an employers, when a driver is driving for work, whether in a company or own vehicle, the H.S.E. expects the employers to “ensure the health and safety of an employee, as far as reasonably practicable”, under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

So, having a policy allowing use of mobile telecommunications equipment in a vehicle, on a hand free basis, could land an employer in hot water, should an employee be injured, or injure anyone else, whilst being distracted, using hands free mobile communication equipment.

Using information provided by mobile phone companies’ cells, it is also quite easy for the authorities, to prove the use of the mobile communications equipment, and potentially lie that use to a particular situation, involving an accident, as a result of driver distraction.

Managing Distraction

Distraction is always going to be a difficult risk to manage. As always, it is a risk management exercise.

Think: Risk (probability and consequences)

Some distracting activities, are carried out without a second thought, and 9 times out of ten, have no consequences. Then, one day, the highway has its revenge.

An example would be a swig of water, on the move, which could avert your eyes and concentration from the road, at a critical point. Ask yourself; is it really worth hitting a child, for a swig of water, when you could so easily pull over?