Lack of Common Sense Costing Fleet Industry Dear

In the UK a ‘farcical health and safety culture’ is emerging which, if allowed to continue, will have an increasingly detrimental effect on businesses operating fleets of vehicles.

 

E-Training World is an online driver risk assessment and e-driver training specialist, and I believe it is high time more business leaders spoke out in favour of common sense when it comes to health and safety related issues, as we head towards an increasingly litigious and mollycoddled society which will cost fleet operators dear.

 

Every week I hear the concerns of many company directors worried by the ever-rising threat of potential prosecution.

 

In nearly all cases, these are reputable businesses that would never knowingly put any of their employees or other road users at risk. They feel, like I do, that the law is weighing too heavily in favour of employees with very little protection for employers.

 

When you consider a non-company car driver, you are looking at someone with their own car, using it for their own private journeys. It is their responsibility to insure their vehicle adequately, it is their responsibility to make sure the vehicle is roadworthy, that it is taxed correctly, that they have had eyesight tests, that their driving licence is valid, and to ensure they do not drink and drive, use their mobile phone etc. If they do not do these things, they know that if they cause an accident or are pulled over by the police they only have themselves to blame and that they will be personally accountable.

 

However, the moment they are on company business responsibility shifts to the employer and we’ve reached that ridiculous stage whereby businesses are having to document the obvious, such as ‘don’t drink and drive on company business’ and ‘make sure you are sitting with your seat adjusted correctly’, in fear of repercussions if a driver has an accident whilst at work or makes a claim.

 

Many will agree that this is not fuelled by a genuine desire to improve safety at work. What is fuelling this requirement is the safety compliance market which is one of the fastest growing in the UK. As a result of its growing economic importance the purpose of health and safety now has extremely strong financial implications and I believe this is quickly outweighing its actual purpose of creating a safer world for us all to live and work in.

 

The best example is the UK’s rising compensation culture, fuelled by the no win no fee legal firms who encourage employees to take action against their employers. This creates the vicious circle of companies having no option but to turn to the health and safety experts for more and more protection which has nothing to do with common sense safety at all and is mainly driven by money and the threat of prosecution.

 

Enjoying the tax income is the Government which benefits from this increasingly important sector of the UK economy, from a revenue perspective, and has little incentive to encourage more rational behaviour.

 

It’s high time that the fleet sector campaigned for a more sensible approach to road safety which ensures that safe working practices are a requirement but whereby common sense prevails. Helping companies deliver improved safety and achieve legal compliance in a practical, cost-effective way is extremely important to E-Training World and adopting a grounded, business-like approach as well as improving safety is something that I personally feel extremely passionate about.

 

Because if we allow the health and safety sector to continue as it is, I can see many fleet operators quickly reaching a stage whereby they simply allocate budget for the avoidance of prosecution, rather than spending pro-actively on meaningful and essential safety initiatives, which completely defeats the object of what we are all trying to achieve.

Never drink and drive? What about the morning after?

Its December and the Police are launching their campaigns to reduce drink driving over the Christmas period.

And this year there’s more focus than ever on the morning after. With the economy biting hard I suspect there will be less “going out” this December and more “socialising at home”, which is often the cause for people to lose sight of how much they are drinking.

In our online driver training system, aimed at company vehicle drivers, you are asked to pour whiskey into a glass and see if you know what a unit of alcohol looks like. Its totally interactive and you click to pour, see the glass fill up, then click to stop. 

Your online tutor then tells you if you got it right or not and you have the chance to see how long that amount of alcohol would take to leave your body based upon the number of drinks you typically have in one evening. (www.e-drivertraining.com or to view a demo click on http://www.e-drivertraining.com/demo/1welcome.asp)

Based upon their usual consumption, most people are horrified to see that they should not be driving until mid morning the next day, when most class themselves as honest, law abiding people who simply enjoy socialising but have to be up for work and out of the house before 9am.

If you go to a pub, you are fairly aware of what you are consuming, because you know how many drinks you’ve had and the quantities in your drinks. I’d say that most people we train online would never consider “knowingly” drinking and driving – ie. drinking in a pub and immediately getting behind the wheel is something they would see as being very wrong ideed, both morally and legally.

However, ask the same people about drinking at home and they do not know how many units of alcohol they consume in a typical evening . There’s a number of reasons for this:

1. They do not know what a unit of alcohol looks like in the glass and so they think they are pouring 1 unit measures when in fact they are pouring a lot more. With spirits, when you drink in a pub the bar person tends to put ice in 1st and this makes the quantity look more in the glass. Take the ice away and its a small amount at the bottom of the tumbler that equals 1 unit, but when drinking at home people fill the glass to the same level (but without the ice!)

2. You tend to top up your glass at home, which you do not do in the pub. In other words, you’re only half way through your glass of wine when your glass is re-filled and you lose track of how many times this has heppened

3. You are not paying for each drink, which means you pay less attention generally to how much you’re having. 

Such is the popularity of our online drink awareness test (which is currently 1 module within our very interactive online defensive driver training programme), that in the new year E-Training World will be launching a “free” version of that module in isolation. This will enable anyone to test their knowledge of how much they drink and how long that amount takes to leave their body. It’s an extremely effective tool and a superb way of raising awareness of “the morning after”. If you would like a link from your web site to the online alcohol awareness test, please let me know and I’ll notify you when its launched.

Graham Hurdle, managing director of E-Training World and portfolio holder for AIRSO (Association of Industrial Road Safety Officers) graham@e-trainingworld.com

Driver Risk Assessments and Driver Training – How Much?

As a driver risk assessment and driver training specialist, its fascinating to visit fleet operators across the UK because I can place them into 3 categories.

The “Lets do it” fleets – they tend to assess a number of suppliers and options and then commit to one. Its a fair and open process.

The “We’ll think about it” fleets – these tend to delay and delay the decision. Whats interesting is that whilst doing so many are breaking the law. By not risk assessing their company drivers means they remain highly exposed if one of their drivers has a serious accident. Even with the very high publicity surrounding the Corporate Manslaughter law it amazes me how many major fleets are not meeting even their minimum legal obligations. Usually these companies reach a very quick decision after a serious accident and I’ve seen many companies do so in a matter of days after a major problem, having previously done nothing for years.

Then there are the “How Much?” fleets. These vary in size and do not want to foot the bill for risk assessing and training their at-work drivers, even though they know they must risk assess them by law. When I was managing director of one of the UK’s leading on-road driver training companies I understood the price objection. After all it could cost in the region of £300 to risk assess / train 2 drivers in a day and these employees would be away from their normal duties which was disruptive.

But having launched E-Training World (www.e-trainingworld.com) 2 years ago to provide driver risk assessments and driver training online, the costs are negligible. At just £15 per login for an online risk assessment (and no time away from work) www.e-driverprofiling.com and £30 for on-line driver training www.e-drivertraining.com the cost arguement baffles me.

Any company with more than 5 employees must undertake and record risk assessments by law and so businesses have 3 options.

1. Do nothing and wait for potential prosecution and a fine against your turnover

2. Do it on road – with the associated costs and time described above

3. Do it online – meeting your legal obligations at the lowest possible cost.

My guess is that company directors do not realise how serious it is not to be risk assessing their at-workdrivers and it is only after an accident that they suddenly appreciate the importance. However, if you are a fleet manager and you’d like to shed some light on this issue I’d be extremely interested to understand the factors that you feel are shaping the decisions by very many fleet operators across the UK.

FREE Online Drink Driving Awareness Programme

At E-Training World, we’re passionate about road safety, which is why we’ve decided to do our bit to help  those who, like us, want to raise awareness about the dangers of drinking and driving. But the problem doesn’t just lie with the law breakers and reckless idiots who blatantly drink and then drive their cars.

 

We also have the problem of those who drink at night and do not realise they are still over the limit the morning after.

 

Its something I’ve written about before in a previous blog but I decided it was time to apply the skills we have as a business to try and do more to stop it happening.

 

Because E-Training World specialises in online driver risk assessments and e-driver training, we’ve built a free online programme to highlight the dangers of drinking and driving.

 

www.drinkdrivingkills.com is being offered to any organisation, business or individual completely free of charge as part of E-Training World’s commitment to road safety.

 

We’re calling on any individual or organisation to help us highlight the dangers and risks associated with drinking and driving. And to achieve this we decided to offer this online programme free of charge and we’d like to encourage any company, road safety organisation, public sector body or anyone keen to promote safe driving to put a link to www.drinkdrivingkills.com from their web site.

 

This will not only promote safe driving more widely by giving simple access to a system that highlights the dangers of drinking and driving, it also acts as a badge of approval on any web site that drink driving is not acceptable.

 

The system allows you to pour alcohol into a glass to see if you know what a unit looks like, as well as testing your braking reactions. Why not have a go yourself, place a link to it from your own web site and join our campaign.

 

Please let me know what you think to graham@e-trainingworld.com as I’m always pleased to receive feedback.