Open your eyes to the benefits of driver training

With a third of all road accidents involving business drivers, can you really turn a blind eye to the importance of driver training?

This year marked the 75th anniversary of the UK driving test. Since its introduction in 1935 we’ve seen the UK’s roads evolve, becoming increasingly busier with more cars on the road than ever before. In 1935 there were only 1.4m cars on the road, today there are over 28.3 million. Roads have become more complex in terms of architecture and our culture has become increasingly fast paced. Everything is done ‘on the move.’

Business drivers tend to travel many miles, often while tired and stressed, with the regular distraction of the ‘mobile office’. Our driving tests, however, have changed little over the years, and an improvement in driving standards is needed to fill the gap.

A third of all road deaths occur when driving for work. With such an alarming statistic, it is clear that continued driver training and development is vital to help rapidly reduce the number of deaths and accidents involving occupational drivers.  

DISTRACTION OVERLOAD
Although cars are becoming easier to drive – with much improved brakes and suspension as well as power steering and a host of safety systems – traffic has significantly increased and traffic networks have become immensely more complex. With the vast improvement in technology there is also a danger of information, or even distraction overload, both inside and outside the car. So the business driver needs to be far more aware of what’s going on outside the car and ensure they don’t let in-car technology become a distraction.

Recent research shows that drivers top concerns on the road are weather conditions, other road users and heavy traffic. Providing drivers with the confidence and the ability to drive defensively is key. Understanding how to drive in adverse weather conditions, such as in heavy rain or on icy roads needn’t be a worry when you know how. New techniques adopted from driver training should instil confidence in the driver and eliminate driving concerns.

The driving test was never built to teach you these types of driving scenarios in great detail. The test aims to bring drivers to an acceptable and safe standard of driving, but this isn’t enough. Younger drivers who have just passed their test are the most vulnerable on the road due to lack of experience, with 16-25 year olds having the most accidents. Statistically one in five young drivers has an accident in their first year of driving.

Experience, technique and continued learning all lead to a better driver. Businesses must ensure they encourage continuing professional development in order to address their driver’s conscious and unconscious risks.

OPEN YOUR EYES
At IAM Drive & Survive, we often train delegates who say driver training has really opened their eyes and made them look at their driving style and behaviour very differently. We’re all guilty of settling into our own driving style. Often we become blind to these habits that make our driving more difficult, not only for ourselves, but for other road users.  

At the commencement of driver training, our delegates will have an idea of areas they’d like advice and improvement on. In actual fact, they discover that there are many other driving habits they’ve adopted that pose greater risk to them as a driver. This is why driver training is important; it’s the unconscious risks that need to be addressed.

For example we find that a high number of our female clients fear motorway driving. They spend most of their driving lives avoiding motorways and finding alternative routes for fear of being involved in an accident. In 2007 all accidents (fatal, serious and slight) reached a total of 7.9 per 100 million vehicle kilometres on a motorway compared to 58.6 on urban/built up A roads*.

And so we see that motorways are the safest of roads with the lowest number of accidents. Interestingly women are much more vulnerable at junctions than they are on motorways and are more at risk of getting involved in an incident here. Men are more vulnerable in busy towns with lots of hazards – possibly because, as research has shown, men find it more difficult to process lots of information at once – something women are better at. The old joke about women being bad parkers has some truth in it: women are much better at driving in busy towns, because they can process a lot of different information all at once, but have less spatial awareness than men do.

These are only a few examples of how driver perception can be very different from the reality. It shows that continued driver training will help change driver perceptions and attitudes and hopefully help save lives. Improving the driver will make the single biggest improvement to road safety in the future, and drivers and employers need to take it upon themselves to adopt a lifelong learning approach.

DRIVER RISK MANAGEMENT
Therefore setting up a driver risk management programme is imperative for any business that has employees driving for work. Choosing a reputable driver training organisation is important to ensure drivers are getting the expert tuition and advice. A driver training organisation such as IAM Drive & Survive can help assess your occupational driver risk by reviewing and developing your driving at work policy, will assess the individual risk for each driver, validate each driver’s licence and help you manage your ‘grey fleet’ (any driver using privately owned or hired vehicle for business). Areas for development can be easily identified through online driver assessment, e-learning modules, seminar training and/or practical on-road training.

With the recent recession, businesses are looking to save costs, often driver training and assessment is the first things to be put on hold. This is a risky strategy and a false economy, as the long-term benefits and cost savings far outweigh the initial costs to train and assess drivers. Driver training enables businesses to exercise better control over costs, but more importantly protects businesses and its employees.

TRAINING OPTIONS
There are many driver training and assessment options. Not all company drivers will need to go through on road training, which some companies deem as too costly and time consuming. Drivers should be assessed on a case-by-case basis so that the best possible driver training solution can then be given, whether it’s online or on-road training.

There are also the eco benefits to consider. Companies are now aware of how much impact their business has on the environment. Car manufacturers are in a race to provide the next leanest and greenest vehicle and fleet managers are starting to see the environmental and cost benefits of eco-training. IAM Drive & Survive’s courses all offer some element of eco and fuel saving training. With the unpredictability of petrol prices, most businesses have found their fuel bills rising. We’ve noticed an increase in demand for our fuel-saving and greener driving training course, ecolution.

Customers completing the course have reported significant savings to their fuel bills, with one delegate achieving a 55.2 per cent increase in their mpg (miles per gallon).

Commercial Group, one of the largest office suppliers in the UK and an IAM Drive & Survive client for several years has seen significant fuel savings and carbon reduction. They expected a 15 per cent improvement from providing environmentally responsible driver training by using ecolution however their drivers saw improvements ranging from 20 per cent to 40 per cent over the six months after training. For an average driver, this equates to a cost saving of over £750 and a 2.2 tonne reduction of CO2 each year.

Written by Simon Elstow, head of training, IAM Drive & Survive

* IAM Motoring Facts

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