THE company for driver risk management

FREE FLEET HEALTH CHECK

Are you holding off from committing to a programme of driver risk management for fear that you might not have the experience or time to formulate an effective plan of action?

Drive & Survive can help, by offering any organisation with a fleet of over 50 vehicles a free, no obligation driver risk management health check. We’ll look at policies and procedures, existing driver support provision and likely high risk exposure areas relevant to your particular business.

If you, or any colleagues or acquaintances you know with fleet responsibility, would like to take advantage of this offer, please email enquiries@drivesurvive.co.uk giving your contact details and fleet composition.

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MORE ON THE SMOKING BAN

There still appears to be confusion over the situation regarding the extent to which the smoking ban, which comes into force on July 1, applies to vehicles driven for work purposes.

These are the rules in outline:

Further information about the provisions of the UK Health Act 2006 is available on www.smokefreeengland.co.uk

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GATSOS GO DIGITAL

The old Gatso speed camera running on film will shortly be a thing of the past. All the existing 4000 units are having their innards replaced with a new digital image capturing system that can monitor four lanes at once and has in-built number plate recognition capability. Images will be downloaded remotely over the internet so they are much cheaper to maintain, making them far more appealing to local authorities, so expect to see more of them from now on.

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ACTION ON ROGUE TRUCKS

We’ve warned of the potential risks of tangling with foreign registered trucks in the past and have always suggested giving them a wide berth.  Now it seems we have additional evidence that our advice was well founded.

Half the foreign trucks stopped last year by VOSA and the police were found to have safety defects sufficiently serious to have caused a crash. When you consider that at any one time there are 12,000 foreign registered trucks on Britain’s roads that’s a sizeable risk factor for any business driver.

In a single one day operation on the M4 in Wales a few weeks ago, of the 49 vehicles stopped, 21 were taken off the road immediately, 10 were given prohibition notices for roadworthiness, 7 drivers were charged with breaching driver’s hours regulations, 4 were carrying excess weight, 2 drivers were driving stolen lorries and 2 more were over the drink-drive limit.

That means only three vehicles were entirely compliant and not presenting a known risk to other road users!

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PARKING MAD

According to leasing company Masterlease, some £7 million a year is being paid out unnecessarily in low speed collision damage costs by fleets as a result of their drivers’ over reliance on parking aids. There were some 25,000 parking related collisions last year and it seems that drivers have lost the ability to adjust their mirrors correctly whilst reversing or just haven’t ever received any coaching on the procedure.

Parking is an emotive issue of course and few drivers are willing to admit that they are not very good at it, which is why we make every effort to introduce it diplomatically during our regular on-road training sessions. The vast majority of drivers welcome it and admit it has changed their perspective on the manoeuvre.

Drive & Survive’s confined space manoeuvring module is an element of the ‘Two hour on-road refresher’ course (Ref IA029) and is priced at £99.00 a head, based on three 1:1 sessions in one day from the same premises. Please call our Sales team on 0870 1218339 for more information.

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USEFUL ITEM

A telescopic traffic cone, which can be easily stowed in a normal car boot, has just been launched and could be very useful for making stranded vehicles more visible to other road users. More information available on www.chbyron.com

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USEFUL WEBSITES

With the holiday period fast approaching, readers might find www.drive-alive.co.uk useful. Although principally a motoring holiday specialist, Drive Alive provides a wealth of useful driving-related information on its website for anybody planning a trip to Europe.

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SAFETY TECHNOLOGY

Nissan has developed a product called Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), which monitors the position of pedestrians near to the vehicle by using GPS technology to lock onto their mobile phones. The system determines the location of all pedestrians nearby and sends an alert to the driver to prompt avoiding action. No production date has yet been announced.

Nissan is also the first vehicle manufacturer to achieve almost maximum points in Euro NCAP’s strict front, side impact and pole crash tests. The Qashqai model recently received a five star rating for Adult Occupant Protection and four stars for Child Occupant Rating.

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WORDS OF WISDOM FROM OUR TRAINING MANAGER

There’s been quite a debate in the media recently about the decision to drop any reference to ‘accidents’ in the new version of the Highway Code. Here’s my take on it.

Crashes almost invariably hurt people and/or property. Collisions occur when two or more things share the same space at the same time – and may hurt. Incidents are things which road users do to themselves or other road users (and may therefore include crashes and collisions). Accidents are things that occur without prior warning and about which nobody involved could have done anything to prevent or avoid. There are therefore practically no such things as road ‘accidents’.

Crashes, collisions, incidents or ‘accidents’ involving more than one road user only occur when two or more road users attempt to, and succeed, in sharing the same space at the same time.  In simple terms, good drivers avoid sharing the same space at the same time with other road users more often than they do not!

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WELCOME TO...

…new member of staff Sarah Horne, who joins us in the role of Sales Support Assistant at Bloxham Mill and who will be the first point of contact for most customers enquiring about our products and services.

…also to several new instructors joining our ranks over the past few months: Michael Addis, Ray Cottrell, John Johnson, Robb Liddell, Graham Mason, Paul Murphy, Craig Preedy, Norman Stent, David Vickers, Yvonne Willan and George Woodward.

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WE SAY GOODBYE TO...

…Judith Burt, who, after four years with us, has left to take on a new challenge. We wish her every success.

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