Engineering, IT and facilities services company NG Bailey is actively working to ‘change the mindset’ of employees when they get behind the wheel.

Fleet manager Ronnie Wilson is encouraging staff to regard themselves as professional drivers rather than electricians or plumbers for the duration of any journey.

Wilson says: “When it comes to minimising accidents, my view is that you need to get the driver to take responsibility for his
or her actions.

“The best way to achieve this is by encouraging them to view themselves as professional drivers when travelling.

“In my experience, professional HGV drivers have a lot more discipline than normal van drivers – they carry out far more vehicle checks and take more responsibility for their vehicles.”

As part of this process, NG Bailey is subscribing to the Freight Transport Association’s Van Excellence scheme with a view to becoming accredited in the future.

This provides fleet managers with best practice guidance on areas such as driver behaviour and training, as well as vehicle condition and safe working.

Wilson adds: “This scheme encourages colleagues to take greater responsibility for the vehicles they drive, from simple things like checking their tyres more often.

“In addition, we aim to sit down once a year with and discuss safe driving practices as part of an ongoing programme.

“We are talking to our vehicle tracker provider to complement what they already do for us with a driver behaviour tool.

“This has the potential to emit an audible in-cab alert if it identifies inappropriate driving.”

NHS Blood and Transplant’s (NHSBT) 220 bluelight vehicles had just 17 at-fault collisions last year despite collectively
travelling more than 5.5 million miles.

The organisation attributes these results primarily to its ongoing driver training programme and the personal responsibility taken by its drivers to modify behaviour.

It’s now hoping to reduce its road accident tally further after installing telematics.

When each new driver is appointed at the organisation, which delivers blood and blood products to hospitals nationwide, they are sent on a four-day course.

This intensive programme provides each employee with ‘bluelight training’ and driving experience. Subsequently, each driver undergoes refresher courses every two years.

In addition, NHSBT fitted its 68 cars and 152 vans with TomTom telematics products two months ago.

This telemetry is now being monitored by NHSBT’s national fleet services manager, Larry Bannon, who intends to use the findings to amend, if necessary, the ongoing training programme and also send drivers on refresher courses if appropriate.

He says: “We’ve witnessed year-on-year reductions in the number of accidents we’re having and we’ve no intention of resting on our laurels.

“Initially, there was some suspicion among some employees that we’d be using the telematics to keep an eye on them.

“After explaining to them and their union representatives that telemetry is simply another tool to help minimise accidents, there’s been greater acceptance.

“Our drivers know that we’re investing in them through training and telematics, and this is actively engaging them to keep accidents to a minimum.”

Brake's perspective on minimising crashes

Road safety charity Brake maintains that fleets must take a “holistic approach” to minimising crashes.

It believes that isolated interventions are much less effective than creating “a road safety culture within an organisation”. And this culture begins with the creation and implementation of “robust safety policies”.

Ellie Pearson, Brake’s professional engagement officer, says: “Safety policies need to be communicated clearly and continuously via a variety of channels, like talks, staff bulletins, briefing meetings and appraisals.

"It’s also vitally important that there’s ‘buy-in’ to road safety throughout an organisation. There’s no point having a policy in place that isn’t respected by management or isn’t properly enforced.

“From initial recruitment, it needs to be stressed to drivers that safety is paramount.”

Pearson adds that to effectively engage drivers, employers need to explain to them why rules are in place, rather than just dictating the rules.

She says: “Driver training and development needs to be an ongoing journey, in which drivers are assessed on a regular basis and given additional training where necessary. Both on the road and classroom-based training have their place.”

Brake also advocates that employers look at other ways of monitoring drivers’ behaviour, such as psychometric testing, telematics and in-vehicle cameras.