THE company for driver risk management

WE’RE WINNERS – THANKS TO YOU!

Following a tremendous response to our request to vote for us in the 2007 Business Car Awards, Drive & Survive managed to secure not only victory in the ‘Risk Management’ section but also nab the principal accolade, ‘Service Supplier of the Year’, from under the noses of some very well known brand names.

We are very grateful for all those readers who took the time to go online before Christmas to register their vote. It’s a great start to the year.

For more information on this story please go to www.drivesurvive.co.uk and click on ‘News’.

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GROUND-BREAKING NEW COURSE

Drive & Survive has always had a reputation for being innovative and we believe we’ve done it again.

We have created a new one day course called ‘Driving Synergy’ which comprises two distinct elements: a personal resilience and stress management seminar, followed by a practical, on-road, defensive driver coaching session.

The group seminar element is ground-breaking, inasmuch as it is a distilled version of the renowned, one day ‘HeartMath’ coaching technique which has been used to dramatically improve the performance of stressed executives working for some of the biggest global brands.

‘HeartMath’ employs relatively recently developed, medically-proven techniques to allow the participants to regulate respiration and thus optimise the crucial ‘heart rate variability’ factor which dictates our behaviour in potentially threatening driving situations.  This is not just a form of meditation and the effects of the technique are both measurable and visible.

Driving Synergy is aimed at those drivers who have a problem with aggression, stress, anxiety or are just prone to being involved in on-road incidents.

The course structure enables us to accommodate up to 20 drivers per day, and on this basis the cost is just £170.00 per head.

More information about the course will be available on www.drivesurvive.co.uk from Wednesday February 7, under the Products/Hand On Training menu.  In the meantime if you require further information please contact Judith Burt, Sales Co-ordinator on 01295 724287.

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TOUGH NEW LAWS

February 27th is the day.

That’s when some of the new laws that form part of the Road Safety Bill come into effect. Most importantly for business drivers are the new, tougher penalties for the use of a handheld mobile phone whilst driving. We hope that all our customers have rigorous policies in place that stipulate the safe use of phones whilst driving but we thought it was worth reminding everybody of what will happen if drivers chose to ignore their employer’s exhortations.

If you’re caught it’s non negotiable. The penalty will be

Also, if the driver or the police choose to take the case to court, the maximum fine if proven guilty rises to £1000 for car drivers and £2500 for drivers of vans, trucks, buses and coaches.

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ROAD PRICING…AT A COST

Bizarrely, although clearly in favour of the road pricing concept, the government, through its own Department of Transport, has admitted that it is likely to cause more crashes.

DfT research has suggested that drivers will not only make much greater use of minor roads but also travel before dawn and after dusk to avoid paying road charges, consequently leading to an increase in collision rates.

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DRIVING EVENTS

Don’t forget that driving-orientated events are a great way to say thank you to customers or suppliers, incentivise a sales force or deliver a fresh slant on the team-building theme.

Now is the time to start thinking about events for the spring and early summer so Drive & Survive would be happy to help crystallise your ideas and turn them into an event to remember.

Driving events come in all shapes and sizes but we can deliver virtually anything you require to meet your objective. Have a look at www.drivesurvive.co.uk and click on Products/Driving Events/Corporate Organsiations. If you activate the ‘click here’ button you will be able to read our Events CV, which demonstrates the breath of our experience over the years. As you will see, we like a challenge.

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IN THE THICK OF IT

Newsletter subscriber Peter Jackson of Sheffield kept a cool head when it counted most:

‘A recent incident on a busy M42 made me realise that almost every driver is just bursting to get by – patience and good manners seem to have disappeared.

On a busy Friday evening back in September time I was heading north west on the M42 in lane two. All three lanes came to a halt and we waited for the queue to clear and continue on our way. Initially lane three started to move off and then lane one started to move too – meanwhile lane two was still stationary and I noticed that, about six cars ahead, a Fiat Punto was not moving and was clearly in trouble.

To my surprise and horror, cars behind this stranded vehicle moved out into to lanes one and three, leaving the broken down car exposed to traffic in the middle of the motorway, which by now was moving quite fast.

I rang the police, put on my hazard flashers and strobes which are fitted in the back of the car, left some room between my car and the stranded one in front, donned my high viz vest and hailed a truck to stop in lane one, thus creating a road block.

By the time I went to speak to the driver his wife was in near hysterics and their teenage daughter was in the back of the car crying. The husband was clearly at a loss to know what to do except for cranking the engine, which wouldn’t catch as he said it had overheated.

Mrs Fiat asked if she should get out and I said NO! I got husband to release his brakes and the truck driver – also in high viz - and I pushed the car over to one of the new emergency areas which was fortunately nearby.

As we were doing so an Audi drove up the hard shoulder and nearly hit us! I can’t tell you what I would say to him if I meet up with him again.

I then recovered my car from lane two, thanked the truck driver and moved on to the emergency area to help the Fiat family get the AA.

The Traffic Officers arrived when it was all over and I was surprised that the girl I spoke to on the emergency phone didn’t know from where I was speaking. I thought these control centres knew where each phone was exactly. I ended up going to the nearest marker to give her that position.

The Fiat family were very appreciative of my help and by now mum had recovered, though clearly both she and daughter were somewhat shaken by their experience and the thought of what might have happened.

I drove on home without rushing – there’s no point any more and especially on a Friday - and reflected on how selfish people seem to be and how desperately important it seems to be to get ahead of the man in front, even if he is stranded on the middle of the motorway.

I still don’t know if I did the right thing according to the emergency services. What would they have done? All I can say is that if it happens to me I hope some bloke like me is coming up behind!’

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SAFETY RATINGS

EURONCAP, the new car safety assessment programme, has just published its latest results for the MPV, small off-roader and small family vehicle categories. There are still some models from major brands which are only achieving two or three stars.  You would be well advised to check the results by logging onto www.euroncap.com to see if any of the offenders might be on your choice list.

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PRESSURE DAMAGE

If any of your fleet drivers ever have the need to use a hand car wash facility, tell them to be especially aware of the damage that pressure washers can do to tyre sidewalls. The damage is invisible and is likely to lead to failure at speed, particularly if the inflation pressures are lower than recommended.  Drivers should make a point of asking car wash operators to only pressure wash the wheels and not the tyres.

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SAFETY TECHNOLOGY

There’s been a lot of publicity recently about the danger of blind spots, usually created by fashionably thick vehicle A-pillars. Ford has risen to the challenge of solving this serious safety problem in a novel and cost effective way.

Special sensors detect shifts in the magnetic field around the vehicle when other vehicles enter the blind spot area covered by the sensor. The system still needs refining but it could be fitted to most vehicles in the Ford range within five years, at virtually no additional cost.

Lighting experts Hella have produced an after market ‘Daylight Running Lights’ kit using LEDs, which draws only a tenth of the current of existing units.

There is increasing support for the adoption of DRL in the UK on safety grounds. The latest research, from the Dutch Institute of Safety Research, confirms that half of all daytime road crashes could be avoided if vehicles were better illuminated.

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RE-ENFORCING THE MESSAGE

In-vehicle signage can be an effective way of re-enforcing a safety message and there are two useful sources of adhesive decals that might be worth referring to. For those of you with minibuses with more than eight seats there are decals stating “You must wear your seatbelt" (Ref. BELT1SAV) available from www.seton.co.uk and www.safetyshop.com  has “Do not use your mobile phone whilst driving” decals from £2.37 each.

Both organisations also provide ‘No smoking’ decals, in readiness for the forthcoming smoking ban, which will apply to multi-driver company-owned vehicles such as pool cars.

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WEIGHT PENALTY

A leading research organisation has warned of the dangers that overweight drivers are exposed to.

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