LEGISLATION |
SPEEDING |
 Companies must look at the fundamentals of their operation to combat the speeding epidemic |
Under pressure company car and van drivers are among the main speeding culprits, prompting calls from safety experts for organisations to dramatically revise work and journey schedules.
Hard-to-meet work targets, whether relating to delivery times or the number of face-to-face meetings that must be undertaken, coupled with rising traffic congestion resulting in delays, further contribute to a “need to speed” mentality among many staff and a growing risk potential as stress levels rise.
Local authorities nationwide have been directed by the government to review speed limits; more sophisticated speed cameras are being introduced – including those which measure average speed between two points – and the plan to introduce flexible speeding fines under the Road Safety Act could see speeders banned after being caught twice. The trio of measures coupled with the ever-growing pressure on organisations to improve the safety of their at-work drivers means that companies must look at the fundamentals of their operation to combat the speeding epidemic.
Risk management experts say that the emphasis should be on the company to create an environment where employees do not need to break the law to complete their duties and to encourage responsible attitudes towards speed. Drivers who speed can put their employers at risk as well as themselves, say safety experts. A speed-related crash at work could, for example, spark a police investigation that might conclude that managers encouraged speeding through aggressive scheduling or that the business was negligent because it turned a blind eye to known offenders.
Either way, the employer would be vulnerable to prosecution because the Health and Safety Executive or the Crown Prosecution Service in a case of corporate manslaughter could show that management fell below expected standards.
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| “Local authorities nationwide have been directed by the government to review speed limits” |
James Sutherland, managing director of fleet risk management experts Peak Performance, says: “Sensible work scheduling and accurate route planning, with plenty of time allowed between business appointments are all commonsense measures that will encourage responsible behaviour amongst employees. “For those staff with a persistent problem, or those with points totals close to the limit, we recommend that such drivers attend a specialist driving-training course focused around the issue of speed.”
An analysis of more than 100,000 company cars drivers by LeasePlan, one of the UK’s largest vehicle management company, revealed that over 16,000 speeding tickets had been handed out in 12 months. This means that, on average, one in six company car drivers were caught. The expectation is that unless companies take decisive action, more employees will receive speeding fines as the plethora of roadside cameras increases and urban speed limits are cut – by 2008 Portsmouth will have become the first city in Britain to have a 20mph limit in all residential areas.
Mr Sutherland says: “The introduction of graduated speeding fines and more speed cameras, including those capable of measuring average speed over a given distance, will inevitably place more company employees who drive for business at risk of losing their licences. “Companies should ensure that their working schedules for business and delivery drivers do not promote a perception of the need to speed in order to meet company targets. “They should also promote a culture where drivers can be honest about the speeding convictions they have received, and where supportive action through training can be taken in order to keep key workers safely on the road to the benefit of all concerned.
 Unless companies take decisive action, more employees will receive speeding fines |
David Brennan, managing director of LeasePlan, says: “Although companies are not directly responsible for the speeding fines incurred by employees, they have a legal duty of care to reduce risk and ensure that drivers are safe behind the wheel. Reducing the number of their company car drivers who speed forms a part of this responsibility. “Companies don’t want a situation where key employees are off the road because they have accumulated too many penalty points. They also don’t want their insurance bills rising because their drivers have been caught speeding.” Mr Sutherland says that there is a widespread misconception that faster actually means quicker. But that may not always be the case, especially on congested routes. Staff who undertake driver-training courses are taught to drive slower and more efficiently to still arrive on time for all-important sales meetings.
“Losing key employees who have lost their licences through frequent speeding can be very expensive for the business in terms of lost sales or replacement staff, so it is often better to tackle the problem before it arises rather than deal with the consequences,” explains Mr Sutherland. As a minimum, employers need to have a written policy in place requiring employees to keep within the law when driving on business. Managers need to make sure the policy is communicated, with regular reminders to all staff, according to Jeremy Hay, managing director of Realtime Risk Assessment.
He says: “For legal protection, it is essential to maintain an annual audit of drivers: one that includes checks on policy awareness. This would enable the firm to prove if necessary that it was not negligent. Such an audit also helps pinpoint high-risk drivers via their answers to questions on accidents and convictions – we find that the vast majority of drivers in our audit surveys give candid responses.
“Companies seeking to protect themselves most thoroughly should also keep a second audit trail showing their road risk management activities. “Employers should treat speeding as one facet of the whole corporate road risk story and make sure they understand and manage the whole picture in a structured way, rather than applying sticking plaster remedies in a piecemeal fashion.”
However, speeding – especially marginal speeding just above the speed limit – is not considered “dangerous” by most drivers, private or company. Indeed, Department for Transport research shows that seven out of 10 drivers admit to breaking the speed limit in urban areas, where, paradoxically, most hazards are found and where the published statistics state that most collisions take place. This, says Jim Kirkwood, managing director of DriveTech (UK), is because the potential consequences of marginal speeding particularly in urban areas are not widely understood. But driving at 35mph, compared with 30mph, means that a motorist is twice as likely to kill a pedestrian in the event of a collision. So a few mph above the limit can make a difference.
| “Sensible work scheduling and accurate route planning will encourage responsible behaviour among employees” |
Doug Jenkins, managing director of Driving Services, says companies must identify the reasons why drivers exceed speed limits. Some employees, he suggests, will be “arrogant and foolish” who will need to be dealt with differently from those with a huge workload. “At times, drivers may not begin their day overloaded, but when the first couple of calls go wrong, they are playing catch-up all day,” he said. “There are a number of ways to tackle this issue. Most companies have a central point for any company car drivers that get speeding fines through the post, these should be monitored and action taken, with a suitable intervention, when a pre-agreed threshold is reached. The same must apply to all other drivers that may not have a company car and a system set up to monitor this.
“We have clients that provide training courses similar to the national speed awareness scheme for drivers that have more than six points on their licence for speeding. We also have clients that provide telematics in vehicles when drivers reach a number of points, such as the Smart Drive system that monitors the driver and a forward view and records all actions constantly. This does have a dramatic affect on driver behaviour and risk taking.” It’s a view shared by Mr Kirkwood, who says: “Companies need to take on board the potential consequences of their staff speeding, not only from a moral viewpoint but also a financial and legal one as well as an effect on their corporate reputation.
“What would be the consequences to a business if key members of staff were banned for driving due to multiple speed offences? What would be the consequences if a company’s policies and procedures encouraged – either by design or accident – drivers to speed to meet delivery schedules and the driver was involved in a fatal road collision?”
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| “The issue of speeding is particularly important where liveried vehicles are being driven” |
DriveTech recommends that companies adopt a preventative approach as opposed to “I hope it doesn’t happen to me” approach. A driving-at-work audit to identify risk areas providing management with a route map to improve road safety of their staff and other road users is a must, says the company. Mr Kirkwood says: “By undertaking driver licence verification of drivers at work, employers are able to identify staff who have a history of speeding. This information can then lead to remedial training and a speed recognition course for employees with several speeding convictions. ”Another approach is to determine driver risk via on-line assessments to identify ‘high-risk’ drivers who would benefit from further driver training or education.”
Steve Johnson, of Drive & Survive, says: “Drivers should have clear guidance on maximum mileages to be driven per day, recommended rest break periods and permission to book into a hotel if necessary, along with relevant expenditure guidelines.” He adds: “The issue of speeding is particularly important where liveried vehicles are being driven. A mobile billboard being driven at breakneck speed through a busy urban environment will alienate hundreds of potential customers and create a hugely negative image of the company’s brand and corporate social responsibility.”
Personal view
Education, engineering and discriminate police enforcement are the keys to improving safety on Britain’s roads, according to Tony Vickers, spokesman of the Association of British Drivers
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The philosophy was simple. Slower vehicles will have fewer accidents and the consequences when they occur, will be less severe. The ABD claims that this philosophy is not simple but simplistic. The “Speed Kills” dogma omits one critical word. That word is inappropriate. Inappropriate speed certainly kills but inappropriate speed is not the same as exceeding the posted speed limit. Although we do not condone drivers exceeding the limit, it is obvious to any reasonable driver that the correct speed for any given stretch of road is variable according to the prevailing conditions.
On an empty, clear stretch of road, in good weather, 40mph may be entirely safe, while the same stretch of road in wet and congested conditions may demand no more than 20mph. Responsible drivers have a natural tendency to drive to the reasonable limit for the conditions, using the posted speed limit as a guide. Sadly it is these safe, responsible drivers who have been the lucrative target of the safety camera partnerships. Driven by their conviction that slow equals safe, these unaccountable quangos have succeeded in prosecuting millions of drivers for largely trivial, technical offences.
If we are to believe camera partnerships claims, we should expect to see a dramatic fall in the numbers of deaths and injuries on UK roads. How surprising, then, to learn that in the past 10 years there has been no significant fall in either of these vital criteria. The bottom line is that the roads today are no safer now than they were in the mid-1990s. Deaths have remained at about 3,200-3,500 per annum and according to hospital figures, serious injuries have remained largely static as well. How could this be?
The answer lies in the latest figures released by the Department for Transport, showing for the first time in 40 years, the actual factors behind road crashes. It turns out that exceeding the posted speed limit was responsible for a mere 5% of accidents. The significance of this figure becomes even more pointed when one realises that it includes the reckless behaviour of criminal elements who would never be deterred by speed cameras.
In fact it turns out that failures in observation and hazard perception are at the top of the list in terms of loss of control. No wonder then, that road safety has been compromised.
Trained police traffic patrols have been scrapped in favour of ineffective but profitable automated speed traps. The reckless, aggressive and incompetent behaviour that patrols used to target has been allowed to flourish while natural, responsible and instinctive driving behaviour has been punished severely.
The time has come to scrap the cameras that have so undermined road safety and public respect for the police and return to the policies that led to the safest roads in the world.
Education, engineering and discriminate enforcement.
