SILENTNIGHT Beds has saved more than £500,000 after putting 1,000 of its fleet drivers through a driver training course.

Costs have been slashed as a result of fewer accidents, lower insurance premiums and reduced repair and maintenance costs.

Graham Butterfield, sales director at Silentnight, said: 'Two days' driver awareness advice is like a lifetime of education – not on how to drive, but more on how to think, look and behave. Since our sales team has discovered the art of driver awareness our accident rate has dropped to almost nil, a massive saving both in lost selling time and repair costs. Not a single person has been killed or seriously injured in an accident since we became involved with training.'

Adrian Shurmer, chairman of the Bolton-based, Driver Awareness Group which trained Silentnight, said: 'We are completely different from advanced driving schools because we don't set out to teach people how to drive.

'Driver awareness is focused on how to think when you are driving. When people come out with me I do the driving, the training it is not about tests and certificates, it is more concerned with changing the mind-set of drivers.'