Paul Tate: Safety isn’t just throwing a blanket over the problem. Target the areas causing most pain and work on that.

Long gone are the days where you start a job and just get given the keys to a vehicle. We ensure the people who are working in that vehicle are trained to use it.

Ronnie Wilson: Van Excellence is a good scheme. It doesn’t suit everyone, but it influences private behaviour. Car drivers are more difficult; we all think we’re good drivers. We need to get drivers to behave differently.

Are there any recurring themes when it comes to safety?

Paul Tate: As winter approaches we often get requests for 4x4 vehicles. But if a driver can’t use a normal vehicle without risk, why should they be given a 4x4 that they’re not trained to operate?

Craig Warburton: We have a high percentage of BMWs on our fleet and had an interesting debate about cold weather tyres.

Ronnie Wilson: We have a high number of requests for cold weather tyres. If you’re in a vehicle with cold weather tyres you’ll still get stuck when the traffic in front of you is stuck.

John Heussi: We’ve done testing with cold weather tyres. There’s no doubt that the difference in stopping distances is amazing. We put cold weather tyres on a portion of the fleet just so we have some capability.

Damion Bennett: It worries me that because you’ve provided cold weather tyres it seems like  you’re giving drivers permission to travel in bad weather. We still communicate our work from home plan.

How often do you do driver training?

Ronnie Wilson: Every three years and when drivers join us. For medium-risk drivers we have extra learning modules. For high-risk drivers we provide on-road training.

John Heussi: It’s a very costly thing to do and it’s a case of balancing that. It’s investing in people.

Paul Tate: There must be a return on investment. Employees must be engaged and show them targeted training.

John Heussi: The ingredients we’re adding to a very safe vehicle are the ones we need to concentrate on.

Crash testing is done by the manufacturers, but you have to do that in your own mind when it comes to the contents of the vehicle.