Training at the moment seems to be seen by at least the road safety world as holding the key Don't drive tired

But fleet managers are split on whether it is effective enough to warrant its costs - and only 13% claim to run training systematically. Is this a reflection of disinterest or of a choice between either doing nothing or having to put their drivers through training courses more in the manner of a sheep-dip than a scientific risk control programme? It prompts the question of whether there is a need for a middle way. And then we see that 70% of fleet managers, faced with a question about whether changes to legislation will change their safety policy answer that they don't know. This is hardly surprising - loosely speaking, the world is in limbo. As time goes by more companies seem to be adopting a precautionary approach and starting to implement the changes that eventually they will be required, or at least strongly "advised", to follow. But that is looking at fleets alone. How can this be extended to the self employed, occasional company hire and own car users? Ultimately, in any discussion of occupational driver safety there are two points of view. The angels in the safety world are easily seen as pursuers of utopian, impractical ideas. The hard-nosed competitive world is seen as cost-cutting to extreme. Both have an element of truth. No one who works in plc-land can underestimate the importance of keeping costs down. Likewise, the road safety world is serious about saving lives. These polarised views do not allow an understanding of the huge scope of what goes on.

What is reality?
Too many people think that at-work safety is all about company cars and forget the self-employed and the casual own car user. Too many forget that bosses cannot ensure that their salespeople set out on time, having allowed extra time for the eventualities of fog at Membury and delays at Clackett Lane. And they can't be sure that the office 'wisdom' isn't that it only takes 40 minutes to Ipswich. Bosses also know that they are never on the spot when a disaster strikes. And very many in the road safety world have at least a slight vested interest in promoting training. To understand the reality of the company driver, we should think whether there is someone out there who left their Northern Office this morning to work on a bid in company headquarters in leafy Hertford. Who set out at 4.30am - thus saving a night's accommodation cost - and expects to start back at about two this afternoon. But in reality, it will be 7.30pm before he escapes and he will then drive back. After all he has a booked one-to-one with his boss at 9.00am tomorrow morning. He can hardly break out of his meeting to try to identify places he could stay the night, and be left with a no razor, no toothbrush, no change of clothes and a night away. And he will find, like a Loughborough University study, that a straight stretch of the A1 is a very sleep-inducing place.
It is a shame that to many who look at company safety the saving of an overnight stay or two will be looked upon as the cause of his accident should it happen.
It may well be that the meeting with the boss was the cause. The boss may be astounded to learn that man had had no overnight stays, boggling at the thought that someone drove that far into the night for a meeting the next morning that could so easily have been cancelled. The boss may not know that the secretary had told our traveller that the meeting couldn't be rearranged within an appropriate timeframe.
Others will say that the driver in question should know the value of taking regular breaks and that a 15-minute snooze and a couple of cups of coffee will cut the effect of drowsiness. But is this tackling the cause of the problem or just finding ways to cut the risk?
This example raises some key questions. How many company driver accidents are down to tiredness, speed or aggression? Or, in reality, are they a reflection of the pressure the drivers feel under, pressure that may be real and boss applied, may be imagined, and may owe more to peers and personal lifestyle than the boss?

Stress and driving

Basically any creature can fight, or it can take flight from a threat. If it does neither, it gets stressed. Driving, meanwhile, is not a single task, but a combination of at least five - physical control of the vehicle; reading the road; anticipating the antics of others; navigation; getting there on time. Drivers try to wrestle all these five things in their minds. When we learn to drive, we start having to pay attention to them all, but gradually we automate them and only direct our attention to them when necessary. As examples, regular drivers don't think about changing gear - until they get it wrong. They don't think about the route home from work until they want to try a shortcut. It is all too easy to automate the lot, and let other thoughts in. Sometimes it can be that you are bored and invite them in. Others can force their way in - the mobile phone, mentally planning the meeting you're going to, conducting a post mortem on the one you've just been to, or the euphoria of a job well done. And if you've got real problems - family, marital, financial, they force their way in too. If something keeps you awake at night, it will force its way into your thoughts during the day. And it is far from impossible for the whole lot to arrive at once. But the same can occur when none of the driving tasks keep you occupied. Then you get bored and allow other thoughts, or even sleep, to creep in. Recent years have seen much more crowded roads and greater emphasis placed on the need to get the attention right. They may even have added a sixth driving activity - keeping to the speed limit. It can also be argued that too much concern is lavished on the last factor, getting there on time, particularly in terms of delays, schedules and management expectations. But a step back needs to be taken. We must remember that this is a process that doesn't affect only the business executive - think about the poor parent on the school run. We must never underestimate how much of a distraction thinking about something else can be. One of the major things that troubled researchers working on a project for the AA on rural accidents was what they called the "passive" driver. This was someone who described his accident as "well I was driving along on a perfectly normal afternoon and hit something that wasn't normally there". Not paying attention, I suspect, and driving on automatic. So it is important to remember that a stressed, or a distracted driver is not only one who is late. And if he or she is late it may not be the company's fault. Neither bosses nor fleet managers can ensure that drivers have allowed adequate time for the journey or that they aren't going to hurry on the way back in order to fit in cutting the lawn. They can't control the peer pressure of fellow working drivers. And how many managers really know whether they have employees driving back swiftly so they can be seen in the office, because they think that not being seen means people think they've sneaked off home?

Add a little stress and drivers become selfish, or totally removed from the whole act of driving Don't drive tired

What can stress do to a driver?
Firstly, it messes up the big five activities. On a normal journey, the route and the navigation take up relatively little mental capacity, but as you get late, their importance increases, and the other activities become subordinate. But stress can also change the whole way we think. In 'normal' mode most drivers obey the rules and try to drive in a way that means we all get to our destinations together. But add a little stress and they become selfish, or totally removed from the whole act of driving. If you break rules and ignore convention - a violation - an accident is coming your way.
All the evidence these days is that slips and errors - things you do unintentionally - have a relatively minor role in accident causation. It is the violations that we need to stop. A slip or an error combined with a violation makes an accident close to inevitable.
Feeling under pressure can be much deeper than just needing to go faster. Sometimes it becomes institutionalised.
A real example was a man who handled sales in the northwest for a national company. He worked from his home on the Fylde peninsula. It wasn't an ideal base, but it worked. A reorganisation gave him North Wales too. And guess what, they next added South Wales. A territory from Milford Haven to Carlisle.
And even once he'd convinced HQ that he couldn't go to both ends on the same day, he still had problems convincing them that Llandudno and Llanelli were more than half an hour apart. After all Wales is small and they both begin with Llan, don't they?
And many people's geography is very tatty. How far is it from Exeter to Truro? There is a tremendous difference between Chatsworth, Derbyshire and the southernmost Derby exit on the M1!
Most users hate mobile phones. Only a few drivers are against any sort of ban on their use while driving, while getting on for a third want to see all types of phones banned. There are analogies with seat belts, where most drivers wanted a law, but far more didn't wear them until the law changed. And the phone raises the stress level. A brave new world with many (or even all) mobile phones banned in cars by law will pose some very interesting new questions. Do we expect drivers to allow extra time in the journey to stop, check their voicemail and ring anyone they need to? Will callers realise that they are making drivers late and might make them drive faster or take a risk once they are on their way again?

So what can we do?

Firstly we need to recalibrate views on training. Should we be thinking about only assessing and training those who need it, rather than just training everyone. And serious thought should be going into producing a recognised central risk assessment for anyone who is going to drive in the course of their business. Driving risk has some very predictable trends. As you get older your risk of accident involvement per mile decreases. If you drive more on the better standard non-urban roads you'll have less accidents. If you drive further, even though you may have fewer accidents per mile, you'll still have more accidents in total. So we can start to build a sound risk- prediction system. Having done that, we can add in links between conviction and accident records and accidents, predictors of susceptibility to stress, and perhaps whether the use of the vehicle will be likely to lead to tiredness. Will the driving involve carrying passengers? Will the driver be required to have a phone welded to their ear? As a result we now suddenly have the makings of a real risk assessment tool. One that takes little time to fill in, one that could possibly be completed and marked on the internet. One that big fleet people can use to identify those at extra risk and who need training. They will even be able to see whether a change of job or responsibility can affect their risk. The mechanics of such a system are no harder than those needed to give insurance quotes on the internet.

A brave new world with many mobile phones banned in cars by law will pose some interesting new questions Don't drive tired

But it would also be a tool for the small business, the self-employed, the part timer, the big company which has occasional drivers who use company cars, hire cars or their own car. Anyone could assess their risk to accepted standards, and prove they had done it. And you could print it off and SHOW you had done a risk assessment. And that you'd done it honestly in a laid down, agreed form.
In my view, the best way ahead would be that such a questionnaire should be a key part of any strategy to improve safety among those who drive in the course of work. And it isn't difficult - many firms can give an online insurance quote.
Beyond this, there are some cultural things we can all act on. It must be remembered that a driver's perception is as important as their reality. Even if management is not pressurising driving staff, do the drivers think they are under pressure?

It isn't just line management that needs to think. Do companies even think about people driving to their premises, or at what time people have to leave home to get to internal meetings. Are 8:30am meetings with people from 100 or so miles away really necessary? Is there a procedure for driving staff if they are late? As traffic increases, there are more and more occasions when they will be. Should your staff phone up when it becomes clear they are going to be late for a meeting with a client? Or should they wait until just before the appointed time? Should they phone or get their boss to phone?

My summary would be that for everyone driving out there on business someone has to be thinking. It probably should be the line manager, thinking about timings and pressure, about other stressors, and keeping a perspective on safety. They should also be maintaining the licence and vehicle checks while making sure that they don't confine their efforts to those using company assets.
The goal is safe roads for everyone.