“But it’s more challenging in terms of risk because now I’m working for an organisation that has large pieces of glass strapped to the side of its vans.

“There is a big focus on health and safety.

"There’s a lot of thought and work going into the fitment of the vans because they need racking and shelving, so we have to make sure it’s fit for purpose.”

Short points out that the company employs people as glaziers or locksmiths and not drivers; “they happen to have to drive to do their job”.

“It’s up to me and my team to make sure that side works safely and efficiently,” he says.

Short is conscious that the vans create an impression about the company. And that impression is influenced by how they are driven.

“Our vans are quite prominent,” he says. “They are all sign-written so they can be our best or our worst advert.”

He has introduced a number of changes to help ensure that they are the company’s best advert.

Telematics is being rolled out across the van fleet and a driver training programme has just started.

When he joined Evander in November 2012, the accident rate was a big concern.

“We probably averaged a collision every other working day in 2012 which is not something we were proud of,” Short says.

“Thankfully, they were minor incidents, but we had to do something about it before one of those minor incidents became a major one.”

The company had decided to introduce TomTom telematics to the response vans for deployment purposes just prior to Short’s appointment.

He recommended that telematics was rolled out across the van fleet as a management tool to control the fleet more closely.

“We can look at fuel economy and driving events such as harsh braking,” he says.

“We run weekly reports from the TomTom system and those reports are disseminated among branch managers so if they have got any drivers that have been speeding they can deal with it.”

The reports are getting smaller each week “which shows we’re making good steps”.

“The number of accidents reported each month fell to eight incidents in August, which is the lowest for 12 months and probably longer,” Short says.

Evander’s driver training programme with AA DriveTech has only just launched and is a combination of risk assessments, workshops and post-collision courses for repeat offenders.