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When I talk to companies,
they are
usually very good
at training their
team on general
safety that’s relevant for their workplace
– food safety, fire safety, sharp blades,
dangerous machinery and so on – but
almost universally they ignore their drivers
and, to a lesser extent, their forklift
operators (who end up being shuffled
off to a three-yearly course of variable
quality). Driving is a task that is either
taken for granted or seen as the person’s
individual responsibility, and training is
considered to be not worth it because
the risks are perceived as low.
Except the risks aren’t low. The Health
and Safety at Work Act 2015 is clear:
a vehicle is a place of work and that
means any vehicle that is used for work
purposes. The statistics are sobering.
The average cost to a company of a
vehicle accident is $15,300, according to
the Ministry of Transport. Around 25%
of fleet vehicles are involved in some
kind of incident every year and at least
50% of fatal workplace accidents are
vehicle-related, according to NZTA and
WorkSafe. The average panel damage
to a company car in a three-year period
is around $2000, according to two fleet
management companies we deal with
regularly. We have spoken to companies
whose insurance excess for their light
vehicle fleet is $5000!
More than 30% of all reported road incidents
happen when driving for work,
and around 20% are driving to and from
work. Drivers driving for work have an
increased risk of having a crash. Partly
it’s the amount of time they spend on
the road; increased time on the road
equates to increased risk. The type of
driving that company drivers do tends
to be under time pressure, for example,
going to meetings or making deliveries
when traffic is heavy, and work
pressures cause distractions. Company
drivers sometimes drive pool vehicles
which they are less familiar with than
their own vehicle, they often drive in the
dangerous 2-4pm period when the body
wants to nap, and they can be distracted
by hands-free phone calls and looking
for unfamiliar addresses.
Do you and your drivers know the road
rules? Once we pass our driving test
there’s no legal obligation for us to do
any type of refresher course. How long
was it since you looked at the Road
Code? Do you know how many road
rules have changed in the past two years
(hint: it’s quite a few)? If you employ or
work with drivers that moved here from
overseas, did you know that NZTA simply
gives a New Zealand driver licence
to anyone from 24 approved countries
that already has an equivalent full licence
- without them having to even take a
theory test? Nineteen of these countries
drive on the right and 17 of them don’t
have English as their primary language.
Almost every one of your drivers will
be using more, and in some cases far
more, fuel than they need to and creating
more wear and tear on the vehicle
than is necessary. This is because we
are usually not taught to drive economically
or smoothly; if we are, it takes only
10 weeks after passing our test until we
are influenced by the drivers around us
and become poor drivers, according to a
study of 2000 drivers in the UK. Driving
that is too timid or too aggressive contributes
to traffic congestion.
What are the consequences and risks
of having an incident in a company vehicle?
It’s not just the panel damage.
Vehicle accidents cause lost opportunities
because meetings are missed
and deliveries can’t be made. Goods
could be damaged in transit, leading
to fulfilment problems for your clients.
Staff productivity can suffer if a person
is injured or suffers trauma. The
vehicle’s insurance excess is a cost to
the company. Someone must deal with
the insurance company and organising
repairs or a separate vehicle. The driver
could be fined and disqualified, meaning
you might have a recruitment issue to
solve. Finally, the driver and the company
could be prosecuted by police and/
or WorkSafe.
What are the solutions? You must have
a safe driving policy. You must identify
the main risks for your drivers. Usually
the biggest overall vehicle costs are
caused by manoeuvring and low-speed
incidents, but the biggest business impact
is caused by high-speed incidents.
You must identify the training that is
relevant to your drivers.
Online driver training is an excellent
option which can be augmented by
in-person driver training when a driver
needs that little extra. Online training is
efficient at teaching rules and concepts
which a driver can then apply on the
road, like reading a recipe and then cooking
the meal. It’s convenient because it
can be done anywhere on any device at
any time, and it’s cost effective.
Online training doesn’t suffer from variable
teaching quality, as the delivery is
consistent. You don’t have to coordinate
multiple people to be in a room at the
same time, as it can be done as and
when is suitable for each driver. As an
average person’s attention span is estimated
at 20 minutes, spreading learning
modules over a number of days means
that concepts learned can be applied in
the workplace immediately, whereas
trainees in longer sessions tend not to
remember as much and feel more tired
at the end of a session.
This kind of training allows a company
to take complete control over the delivery,
quality and results of training.
Managers can get reports on training
activity and results, and training can be
easily repeated for no extra cost if it’s
not understood the first time. It’s easy
to teach manoeuvring techniques, the
road rules, driver health and safety and
advanced driving methods online.
It’s also relevant for your forklift drivers.
It’s possible to do the theory for a forklift
licence or refresher online, and then
assess practical skills separately. This
is convenient for night shift operators
or in busy warehouses with workloads
that are hard to predict where it’s hard
to schedule a day off. As mentioned
previously, the learning is broken into
shorter modules which are easier to
schedule. Online driver training is the
minimum a company should implement
to ensure that its drivers have a level of
driving competence.
Darren Cottingham is director of DT
Driver Training, based in Auckland.
www.drivertraining.co.nz
WHEN THE
RISK ISN’T
WORTH IT
The training most frequently forgotten is the one
that can cost you the most, DT Driver Training’s
Darren Cottingham warns the New Zealand food
and beverage industries.
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