Let‘s Talk Fleet Risk

Simon: Welcome to Let’s Talk Fleet Risk – a podcast for those who manage drivers and their vehicles, and want to reduce road risk in their organisation.

 

My guest this month is a legal expert in the field of transport and regulatory law. It’s Chris Green, who is a partner at law firm Keoghs. Welcome to the podcast, Chris.

 

Chris: Hello, Simon. How are you?

Simon: Very well thank you. Now, I’ve asked Chris onto the show because we’re partnering with Keogh’s to present a mock trial prosecution of a van operator at this year’s Health and Safety event at the NEC later this month. The mock trial presentation will be on Wednesday 26th April in DfBB’s own Driver Safety Theatre – and I’ll give out full details at the end of the podcast.

Now Chris, I don’t want to give the game away as to what happens during this prosecution, but I do want to give a preview of the scenario and then discuss in some broad terms some of the issues that we’re going to be looking at in the presentation.

So, the scenario – roughly speaking – is that a van driver struck a cyclist shortly after starting a morning shift. And it’s a serious incident, with the cyclist taken to hospital and he’s in a pretty bad way – the police have classed his condition as critical. The police would then obviously conduct a roadside investigation to find out what had happened and to find out whether the driver was at fault – what might have happened that had gone wrong. So what would they be looking for in that investigation?

Chris: A couple of things. In the first instance they would have Forensics and Scenes of Crimes Officers present, to see – for example – where there were broken fragments from the car, and to indicate where the collision had taken place. So that might assist in terms of the position of each vehicle in the road, or to gather witness statements from those who were present. These days we see a lot of this is covered by dashcam footage or other CCTV – so that element of the job, many years ago when I started, I’m afraid has gone out of it. So that’s all done for us on a very high-tech, automated level these days. They would be interviewing the driver at the scene and checking suspected drugs or alcohol issues. They’d be asking to see the mobile phone records and potentially seizing it as well. And in addition to that they would be trying to obtain accounts from anybody present and to check the welfare of anybody injured in the collision, including the driver and anybody else as well.

So there’s a number of things they would be doing, and then of course the investigation would carry on afterwards where they would begin the interview process.

Simon: What about the state of the vehicle? How much attention would they give to the roadworthiness of the vehicle at that point?

Chris: It’s absolutely critical, because if there were any suggestion that there were mechanical failure that was either outside of the control of the driver, or something that had manifested itself between the time they started the journey and the time of the crash, then they’ve got to at least explore that possibility before they can decide how blameworthy the driver was. Occasionally I’m afraid, there are still cases that we deal with where there are examples where the vehicle just wasn’t in a serviceable condition, and on that basis it’s a different scenario in terms of trying to establish guilt.

Simon: So, we know that in law the driver is usually responsible for ensuring that the vehicle is safe and that they drive within the highway code. So, what potentially could lead the collision investigators to look beyond the driver and at the employer?

Chris: Well, the employer has still got a duty to protect both the employee who’s driving the car and anybody else who might be affected by that. And in addition to that, any employees who may be carried in the vehicle at the same time as the driver. So, that obligation is actually quite wide. If, for example, there were any suggestion that the employer wasn’t carrying out either mechanical inspections, or didn’t have a policy on the use of mobile phones, drugs and alcohol, eyesight, and these sort of issues, and monitoring the hours that the driver was working… then these days, those are all aspects that the police can and will be looking for. Because there is the potential to bring in the employer as well.

Simon: You mentioned policy there, so let’s delve a little deeper into that. Whenever I’ve seen prosecutions like this in the press, normally reported where there’s are a fatality, they seem to hinge around policy. And those that are found guilty have either failed to implement or failed to follow and establish policy, whereas employers that are found not guilty were generally able to prove that they did have the right policies in place, and that they were rigorously followed and monitored. So, what typical examples do you see of poor practice from a policy point of view, and more importantly what impact would this have on their case in court?

Chris: The thing is with prosecutors, sometimes I wonder whether my opponent is believing that the very fact that an accident has taken place is evidence of the breach. So in other words, you couldn’t have had an accident if all was complied with, and that in itself generates the suspicion that they’re negligent. I’m not sure it’s quite like that, but take for example a case I had recently where it was a company which was really loath to be amending their mobile phone policy. We sat down and, once we’d really spent some time to consider whether the mobile phones were actually necessary in the business, through gritted teeth some people had to concede that actually they probably didn’t need it. So, really, the answer to your question is that they’ve got to be really clear on the test of reasonably practicable. And there is a balance to be struck between the cost and the time and the inconvenience on one side of things – in terms of implementing further measures – and on the other, the risk involved.

So, if that is balanced for example against a serious or fatal incident, then the bar is set quite high. And I think in the first instance, a court and a police prosecutor might want to prove that they’ve actually considered all of the right factors. They’ve then, as you say, got to implement anything that comes out of that process, and then critically, to follow it on the road as well. So it is quite an onerous duty, but whenever things go wrong, with reverse engineering, they would be looking to see whether that’s all been done as it should have been.

Simon: Now, we’re going to be prosecuting a company in our mock trial presentation, so, it’s a fictitious incident obviously but the investigation in this case must have obviously raised some serious concerns about the way the company managed driver safety. And you mentioned a couple of things there that a policy needs to include – mobile phones, driver fatigue, that kind of thing – there are other things as well like driver checks, vehicle defect reporting, that kind of thing. These are all things that should be included in a policy, so how would you expect companies to manage these things and what impact does managing it poorly have in a prosecution?

Chris: Well, the onus is on them. The balance of probabilities there that they would need to demonstrate – i.e. it’s more likely than not that they comply – but the key point is the onus is actually on the company to prove they’re innocent rather than the other way around. So, if I’m prosecuting Health and Safety offences, all I need to show is that the individual was an employee – well that’s usually straightforward, that the company employs people – and that there had been an accident. So, as soon as I’ve established those two factors as a prosecutor, then the onus shifts to the defendant – in this case the company – and they would need to prove they’d done everything they reasonably could, and there’s law on that that suggests that that’s got to be not only in disproportion, but it’s arguably got to be grossly disproportionate, and it’s only those things that you’re entitled not to do as a company.

If roughly the time and the expense involved in putting that measure in place doesn’t look totally out of kilter with the risk of a serious or fatal accident, then really the onus is on you to take that step, or at least explain – having gone through the assessment process – why you don’t think it’s practical. So, be it on your head, and then – as you say – it’s then got to be followed through by the individuals out on the road.

Simon: So, the onus in on the employer to prove that they’re innocent. That would suggest that record-keeping is pretty important, yes?

Chris: Well it would. It’s really sad in my line of work where it’s quite clear that a company has good processes and the custom of practice is that it’s usually followed by people. But of course, many times where there has been a fatal accident, the absence just of one document ironically could be the one that would prove that the measure the company needed to demonstrate it had taken – there’s just no evidence on the point. So, some HSE inspectors say to me that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence – so if it’s not documented it didn’t exist. So, I’m afraid it won’t be the first time a lawyer’s said this, but the key point behind what you’ve said is that you don’t just need to take the step, you need a mechanism to gather and collate and keep the proof of that as well, else it does leave you fairly vulnerable as I’m sure we might see at the trial.

Simon: It’s not just proving that you’ve done something, you’ve implemented a step or a policy now I guess, is it. Because, a key part of this is ensuring that you monitor compliance of that step or policy or procedure – whatever it i

My guest this week is someone whom many of you may have seen

 

Welcome to the podcast Lisa.

Lisa: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

Simon: So, Lisa, you’re an Associate Professor of Driving Behaviour and Director of the Driving Research Group at Cranfield University. You previously founded companies like DriverMetrics, you were co-founder of The Floow. But you’ve now founded a new company called PsyDrive – all of which were to, kind of, commercialise some of the valuable research that you’ve done and make those learnings available to fleet operators. So, perhaps you could start by telling us a little bit about what you’re working on at the moment.

Lisa: Sure. So, with Cranfield, some of the work I’m doing right now is looking at behavioural adaptation in response to autonomous vehicles. And so, we’re running a series of studies in the field, looking at how people change their behaviour in response to automated systems over time. A lot of people think that driverless vehicles are going to be safer, but I think there are some things that we really need to understand a bit more about first.

So that’s my work with Cranfield. And then, with PsyDrive I essentially developed an accredited CPD course on Human Factors in driving, which is available for fleet managers and anybody working in the fleet industry really, to help them understand a bit more about driver behaviour.

Simon: Excellent. Now, this episode of our podcast is part of a range of content we’ve created this quarter around the theme of fitness to drive – which obviously covers physical and mental health, fatigue, wellbeing etc. – and so I wanted to start with an overview of the general demands of driving for work on the driver. We’re focusing generally on commercial vehicle drivers – so vans and trucks – and those drivers are probably doing reasonably high mileages across the year. So I was wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about what the general demands are for those of us who are largely office based and probably wouldn’t be aware of the demands on a commercial vehicle driver out there all day.

 

Lisa: Yeah, and that’s an important distinction, because a lot of people who are not driving for work really don’t understand some of the problems of actually driving a truck or a van, and some of the demands that drivers have. Often professional drivers complain about how the road users get in their way, and make things a bit more difficult for them because they don’t really understand things like turning circles, just being able to get around a corner and how they need to be considerate of what a big truck needs. So, yeah, there are a lot of stresses on professional drivers – not only just the type of vehicle that they’re driving, but also the nature of the work. What it is they have to do during the day. Some of the professional drivers have multi-drop kind of activities, others are long-haul, short-haul… it all varies. And they have to engage with customers and these are often quite stressful situations, especially if they’re running late. Management, supervisory practices… and of course there are a lot of issues around the traffic, and having to get through traffic to a tight schedule.

 

Simon: So I guess the main pressures sort of revolve around workload and time pressure. I often describe these when I’m talking to fleet operators, or warn them against creating unrealistic work schedules where it often doesn’t seem possible to make all of those deliveries, or all of those service visits within the expected time, without the driver having to speed or take other risks. So what does that kind of pressure… what sort of impact does that have on the drivers?

 

Lisa: Yeah. So, all drivers at some time or other will suffer from driver stress just because of the nature of driving these days. Traffic’s actually moving slower every year, so there are just general demands of the task itself. The work involved in manoeuvring a vehicle is actually quite resource intensive. And so, it can be quite high on workload. For example, the road environment itself represents quite a high workload – for example, if there’s poor visibility, or poor road markings or road surfaces. These are all things that professional drivers have to negotiate their way through, and it adds to the workload. And then, if they’re on a difficult route, or they’re having to perform difficult manoeuvres – perhaps having to park in very restricted areas… they also have a lot of different tasks to do at the same time. You know, thinking about work. And these kinds of situations mean that there are quite large fluctuations in the demands placed on professional drivers during the day.

So, the impact really can have a very negative impact on things like blood pressure and stress hormones – the research is… there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of studies to show how driver stress can impact on these physiological measures.

 

Simon: Now, I know a lot of us talk to our delivery drivers when they turn up at home to gauge what kind of pressures they’re under. And following on from that last point, not only is excessive workload and time pressure really hard for them to cope with at times, but then many of them have their routes planned down to the very last minute. And so, if they encounter roadworks or congestion – those unexpected delays and diversions can probably really compound that, can’t they?

 

Lisa: Yes, that’s right. Whenever driving is externally paced and not self-paced, it becomes a demand. So professional drivers, delivery drivers, they often have performance targets to achieve. And, you know, if they’re being held up for whatever reason, then there are going to be impacts on the way in which they feel and how they tend to behave. So, for example, they’ll tend to get more irritable, more frustrated, more aggressive. And really develop quite an unpleasant, angry mood in some cases. And that can be quite difficult to deal with as another road user, when you see this quite hostile delivery van driver trying to get past you. And yeah, these are some of the everyday experiences that professional drivers have to go through I’m afraid.

 

Simon: Many drivers work odd hours, as well. Some of them have very long days, some of them are doing shift patterns, unsociable hours. And I know that one or two long days will do me in. Probably the same for most of us. So, how does that consistent, day-in day-out, long hours and unsociable hours – how does that impact on their general wellbeing?

 

Lisa: Yeah, there are very strong cumulative effects of fatigue, for example. The sort of, general wear-and-tear of doing this kind of job day-in, day-out, can have quite a terrible impact on their health. One of the first things that often goes when people are stressed is that they sleep quite badly – they can’t relax when they get home after work, they can’t switch off and have a good night’s sleep. And then, of course, stress itself is fatiguing. Because you’re operating the system at a very high spec, if you like. You’re trying to cope with all of these demands and that’s really quite fatiguing. So, yeah, there’s a general impact on wellbeing, such that there can be some really negative impacts on health.

 

Simon: And, it can sort of feed on itself, can’t it, then? Because if you’re taking stress from work home, and that’s causing you to sleep badly, you could have other areas where you’re bringing the pressures of home to work. Cases like those who have got a new baby in the house, or maybe have got financial worries, or other things. You’re bringing pressures to work, and the pressures of work are compounding it and going back home, and it just gets progressively worse.

 

Lisa: That’s right, and recently I’ve been looking into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which sounds like it’s a clinical condition that not many people have but, in fact, it mostly goes undiagnosed. And that’s a classic case of the chronic exposure to stress that can build up.

Let’s say, for example, you’ve had some very bad news at home, perhaps a close family member or friend has been diagnosed with a terminal illness or something of that nature. And then you have to go into this work environment where it’s quite stressful. It’s difficult because you’re going to be distracted by what’s going on at home and bring that into the work environment as a driver.

 

Simon: Yeah. I did a recent podcast on the increasing problem of drug driving, and how the police in many areas are now catching more drug drivers than alcohol. And actually, a lot of those turned out to be – in some cases, sort of half the offenders – turned out to be commercial vehicle drivers. So where we’ve got drivers experiencing these pressures, presumably quite a few of them are turning to drink and drugs as coping mechanisms for that stress. Which again, similar to the cycle of pressures building up between home and work, it’s a further destructive downward spiral, isn’t it?

 

Lisa: That’s right, and yeah, obviously these rather unhealthy coping strategies that commercial drivers might turn to – it’s sort of like a quick fix, if you like, to get you out of that state at that moment. You know, have a drink, have some kind of drug that would actually make you feel better. But, it is a destructive downward spiral because eventually, that will reduce your ability to actually handle stress in the long-term.

There are far better coping strategies that can be used to kind of offset the sedentary lifestyle nature of driving for work. Often we see that there are issues around diet and smoking as well as drugs and alcohol. So it’s about opening up other kinds of coping strategies that are much more effective.

 

Simon: Yeah, you mentioned d

Show notes: Driver Fitness – What If Your Drivers’ Jobs Were Good for Them?

In the first quarter of this year, the Driving for Better Business campaign is taking a deeper look at the area of fitness to drive and driver wellbeing.

This month, we’ve published a revised risk management case study for WJ Group – one of the UK’s leading road safety and highway maintenance businesses. With over 650 employees and a fleet of more than 400 vehicles, driver wellbeing is a big focus for WJ.

My guest today in WJ Goup’s Sustainability Director Paul Aldridge, and we’re going to talk about how WJ Group mitigates the effects of what is a physically and mentally demanding job role, on it’s staff. Especially those who also drive the company vehicles.

Paul Aldridge, WJ Group Sustainability Director

https://www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com/podcast/episode/what-if-your-drivers-jobs-were-good-for-them

 

Useful Links

Paul Aldridge, WJ Group Sustainability Director https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-aldridge-072608109/

WJ Group https://www.wj.uk/

Driver Fitness – what if your drivers’ jobs were good for them? https://www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com/articles/driver-fitness-what-if-your-drivers-jobs-were-good-for-them/

 

Simon: Welcome to the February episode of ‘Let’s Talk Fleet Risk’

In the first quarter of this year, the Driving for Better Business campaign is taking a deeper look at the area of fitness to drive and driver wellbeing.

This month, we’ve published a revised risk management case study for WJ Group – one of the UK’s leading road safety and highway maintenance businesses. With over 650 employees and a fleet of more than 400 vehicles, driver wellbeing is a big focus for WJ.

My guest today in WJ Goup’s Sustainability Director Paul Aldridge, and we’re going to talk about how WJ Group mitigates the effects of what is a physically and mentally demanding job role, on its staff. Especially those who also drive the company vehicles.

Paul – Welcome to the podcast.

My first question is obviously why wellbeing is so important to WJ? As a company, WJ seems to go further than most employers, so perhaps you could tell us about the challenges your staff and drivers face as part of their jobs, and what drives this commitment to their wellbeing?

Paul: Sure. Wellbeing is critical to most businesses, I believe. It’s about looking after the whole person, so we’ve got health and safety and wellbeing, and they fit into this group – it’s better for the company – better for productivity – and better for the people that work for us. What could be wrong with that?

Our people face a lot of hazards – we’re working in the middle of the roads putting lines down, and working with hot materials is one of our principal activities so it’s fundamental to what we do.  The obvious hazards are materials and the vehicular activity so it’s providing a safe space – that’s important . Over the last few years for everyone working in the public realm there seems to be increasing abuse that people have to face. It seems strange to me that somebody feels they have the right to shout and swear at the people that work for us. They’d feel weird if we walked into their offices and did it to them, but they feel they have the right to do it to our workers – it’s not good for general wellbeing. There are also wider problems – air pollution is a real big problem for us as a society and by the nature of our work we contribute to it. There’s the physical risk – muscular skeletal risk, and as I say, the hazards of working with hot materials. Some years ago we started looking at this and we looked at the idea of stealing the title from our work with Business in the community – what if your job was good for you? We divided wellbeing onto several pillars – physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing, financial wellbeing and social wellbeing and it all fits together in trying to provide a holistic wellbeing for our people.

Simon: I think that’s really important. I like the idea of the pillars, So, if we drill down into the physical one to start with – tell us about the impact of poor fitness and what you do to help them.

 

Paul: A lot of the work we do – and we can’t forget those who don’t work on the roads – it’s a physically demanding job – but there’s lots of manual handling problems. Do they lift properly? We have added issues around the heat of the materials. There’s a lot of driving – sitting in a driver’s seat – so designing things as ergonomically the best it can be. We design equipment fundamentally for safety but also so its easy to use. So there’s splashguards in place, height protection for the back of a vehicle. Interlocks so moving parts don’t get in the way. We ask our people to contribute to the design of the vehicles they use. We have an SOS system – safety automation – so people can communicate with the safety and design team on improvements they can see on the vehicles or their working environment to reduce risks. It helps them better able to do their job.

 

Simon: It’s ot physical strength is it – they’re out on the roads all day – difficult to maintain reasonable diet, stay hydrated that kind of thing?

 

Paul: It’s a really good point. I think, we didn’t think about these things back in the day. We tended to live on the food in the local garage – and there’s a lot of night work so it’s hard to maintain a good diet – but we try to give advice. In our driver’s handbook we have a section on nutrition. We do work on occupational health – the employees have medicals – people from 21 to 60 have a medical every 3 years and if you’re over 60 you have it annually. If you have a medical need we review it annually and part of the process is the nurse talks to people about their diet and it helps pick up any problems with health early. We do regular eyesight checks every 6 months. Everyone who drives a company vehicle has one. We had lots of people starting to wear glasses – it helps pick up residual problems like cataracts – it’s good for your life beyond work. I believe it should extend ito their whole wellness.

 

Simon: You obviously take this approach with all your operational staff but some of those are going to have to drive your vehicles between jobs and then back again at the end of a gruelling shift. You mentioned earlier some is carried out overnight. How do you deal with things like fatigue and ensure they’re still able to concentrate and do that safely?

 

Paul:  Fatigue is a big risk for us and others in our industry so we have a fatigue policy which is regularly updated. We have a set of rules about rest – planning it properly and not too many shifts consecutively so there’s time for rest. Sometimes shift run over, and people end having to stay on site due to other circumstances, something further down the cycle so if people work a longer shift we have to have something in place so they aren’t going to work the following night – and that is a really important part of what we do. It’s vital we understand fatigue and mitigate the risks.

 

Simon: So let’s talk about mental health now – we’ve done some work with the suicide prevention charity CALM so we know 75% of all suicides are male – which means that every 2 hours, somewhere in the UK, a man takes his own life. I imagine most of your operatives are male and I know you take this very seriously so talk us through how you support staff on mental health.

 

Paul: Unfortunately we have lost colleagues who have taken their own lives. Its terrible for all involved – so desperately sad. Many years ago under the auspices of our Safety Director, Craig Williams, we set up a mental health first aid group. That came out of those tragedies. Craig made it his mission and we set up a strong group of mental health first aiders across the company. We began to see other things happening that people were doing in the industry. A few years ago we engaged the services of a mental health counsellor. The results have been remarkable. We do a staff survey averey 18 months and we collect information about disability. The survey results were astonishing – we have 14% of employees declaring a disability – on the face of it it’s potentially worrying but actually it reflects the national statistics and it made us proud of the work we have done.

 

In 2021 our counsellor conducted 227 sessions – wellbeing checks, management support meetings – teaching managers how to deal with mental health of colleagues, 38 crisis risk assessments with 71 additional meetings and that wasn’t  because it was a bad place to work – I think the numbers reflect what life is like for people in society in general.

 

We ‘are really pleased we’ve been able to offer that support. We do red flag training – it’s about getting our staff onto this course – and some people don’t want to do it an d that’s fine – but those who do are taught to look after colleagues and learn about the red flags. A chat often helps. It takes the stigma out of mental health and wellbeing. We all suffer with doubts and mental health problems from time to time and having that time and to see it as normal – going back to the statistics about men being very vulnerable in this area, the more we can do to overcome the stigma, the better off we will all be,

 

Simon: That sounds like an excellent programme. It works both ways, doesn’t it? Not only picking up on others with problems but identifying issues you ma

Show notes: How Do You Know Who is Drug Driving in your Organisation?

In the first quarter of this year, the Driving for Better Business campaign is taking a deeper look at the area of Fitness to Drive. We’ll be sharing content on driver impairment, fatigue and wellbeing.

In this episode we’re going to look at drug-driving at work and I’m joined by two guests:

We have Ean Lewin, who is the Managing Director of Dtec International. Dtec supports hundreds of fleet operators on policy, screening and testing for drink and drugs. They also supply all 43 British police forces with the DrugWipe roadside testing kits.

And we have Lesley O’Brien, who is the Managing Director of Freightlink Europe, a haulage firm based in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and one of Dtec’s corporate clients. Lesley was awarded an OBE in 2020 for her work in the transport industry and is going to talk to us about her personal experience of implementing screening and testing within her own firm.

Ean Lewin, DTec International and Lesley O’Brien, Freightlink Europe

https://www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com/podcast/episode/who-is-drug-driving-in-your-organisation/

Useful Links

LinkedIn - Ean Lewin, Managing Director of D.tec International https://www.linkedin.com/in/ean-lewin-44110617/

D.tec International https://www.dtecinternational.com/

LinkedIn - Lesley O Brien, Managing Director of Freightlink Europe https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesleyobrien2010/

Freightlink Europe https://www.freightlinkeurope.co.uk/

PDF - The Hidden Cost of Substance Abuse in the Workplace Download PDF

PDF - Lose your FLT licence, Lose your livelihood Download PDF

PDF - Effects of Stimulants on the Body Download PDF

PDF - Effects of Depressants on the Body Download PDF

PDF - Effects of Alcohol on the Male Body Download PDF

PDF - Effects of Alcohol on the Female Body Download PDF

Transcript

Simon: Welcome to first episode of ‘Let’s Talk Fleet Risk’ for 2023.

In the first quarter of this year, the Driving for Better Business campaign is taking a deeper look at the area of Fitness to Drive. We’ll be sharing content on driver impairment, fatigue and wellbeing.

In this episode we’re going to look at drug-driving at work and I’m joined by two guests:

We have Ean Lewin, who is the Managing Director of Dtec International. Dtec supports hundreds of fleet operators on policy, screening and testing for drink and drugs. They also supply all 43 British police forces with the DrugWipe roadside testing kits.

And we have Lesley O’Brien, who is the Managing Director of Freightlink Europe, a haulage firm based in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and one of Dtec’s corporate clients. Lesley was awarded an OBE in 2020 for her work in the transport industry and is going to talk to us about her personal experience of implementing screening and testing within her own firm.

Welcome to you both

Ean, perhaps I can start with you. Can you give us an idea of how prevalent drug driving is, and why employers should be concerned?

Ean: The basic message about prevalence of drug driving is that, it is more than drink driving and it’s just not analysed or detected enough and to back that up some recent figures released from Merseyside Police, covering the pre-Christmas drink / drug driving campaign – this time it was expanded to 6 weeks adding on a couple of weeks for the world cup, they made over 500 arrests in that 6 week period. 350 of those were drug drivers, 150 were drink drivers. That shows you the proportion and to bring this into context on the workplace - in 2020 their data showed that 50% of Merseyside police detections that year were either drivers at work in a company vehicle or they would be driving for their work the next day so 50% was shocking. That was repeated the year after – high 30%’s so it is very prevalent in work time and work vehicles.

Simon: Can you tell us a little about what drugs we should be concerned about, how common they are, and how long impairment can last?

Ean: In principle this is not medications, but illegal drugs. 80 – 85% of that is cannabis and then cocaine. Cocaine is very much more prevalent and in the workplace environment people use cocaine to stay awake. Cannabis is used then to calm down after shifts, and to take the edge of the cocaine they’re taking. There is a third one which I’ll go back to medication – the third thing we see from our corporate clients is codeine. Yes, it’s a medication but it’s the most abused medication on the planet. Rather than using it for a few days, people start using it permanently and getting addicted to it and increase the amount they’re on. All 3 of those drugs impair you in different ways. The cannabis will slow your brain down, your body clock, you react much slower if something is happening in front of you – do you slow down in time? Do you take avoidance action or not? Cocaine is speeding you up and you’re more likely to take risks and you are more likely to think you can achieve an overtake or you can dive through a gap and all the time increasing the likelihood of an incident.

Simon: If these drugs are being take socially in their own time – some of these effects can last a long time, can’t they?

Ean: Yes, your body reacts in similar ways to drugs as to drink – some of those reactions are like alcohol, like a hangover. So, you say I’ll have a hair of the dog and have more. Whether you deem that full blown addiction or dependence it’s definitely multiple use so it’s rare that personal private time use is ever able to be separated from when people are at work and of course in this environment we’re discussing we are talking about transit vans doing 70 mph plus on a motorway or 40 tonnes of HGV - there’s a lot of implications to that greying of taking drugs in personal time.

Simon: The driver if he or she is caught with drug driving, that’s basically their licence gone. How much responsibility does an employer have?

Ean: The road traffic act 1988 is clear – if you are caught drug driving or drink driving then there is a minimum ban of 12 months. That’s the responsibility of the driver. That then would impinge on any other additions to their licence and what the traffic commissioner would say – they would have an opinion on the company.

As far as the company we’re looking at The Health and Safety at Work Act, several other bits of legislation but in the worst case when there is a death, we are talking about the Corporate Manslaughter Act and the company would definitely be complicit. The judge would be looing at who was involved and how much effort the company had made to put prevention steps in place, if they hadn’t, then individuals in the company would then be considered complicit and they would be prosecuted and personally fined. Not the company cheque book. The traffic manager or the directors would potentially go to jail and be selling their house to pay the fines.

Simon: Clearly no employer wants to be in that position. Lesley, could you tell us what made you decide to start screening and testing your drivers?

Lesley: 2 or 3 years ago I was at a meeting with the DVSA and trade bodies and the focus was on vehicle safety and maintenance. Someone, a small operator, said the real problem impacting on safety on our roads is drivers under the influence of drugs or alcohol and the lady recounted a story whereby all of her small fleet was occupied on one contract and the contractor insisted on drugs and alcohol testing and overnight over 50% were found to be positive and that impacted on her being able to service that contract and she lost half of her drivers overnight.

At the same meeting a large operator echoed those statistics and I thought, my goodness, this is frightening. We all think we know our drivers and we would know. and there’re all nice people and it couldn’t happen to us but clearly that was something that made me start thinking that I need to be doing something about this. I need to be testing not only my drivers but office workers who were driving, and have a total culture of wanting to be drugs and alcohol free so that’s when I started on the journey. Looking at the variety of providers out there and of course there are a lot of providers, you have a choice. For me I finally went with DTec not because they were the cheapest but that they were providing the police, so I presumed that the police had done their due diligence, but I also wanted a system that was legally defensible in court. There’s no point doing this if you find someone who is impaired, and you can’t carry on to take action that can be backed up.

Simon: If testing isn’t something you’ve done before, I guess your primary concern would be how are your drive

Show notes: Transitioning to EVs - Start Now

With the rapid transition that many fleets are making to electric vehicles, I've been interested for some time in how that affects risk management for these fleets. The vehicles are more powerful, have some unique driving characteristics and have different maintenance requirements. Plus there's recharging, load carrying and driver training to think about.

My guest for this episode of the Let's Talk Fleet Risk podcast is Richard Parker, Corporate Sales Manager at Webfleet – part of Bridgestone Mobility Solutions.

Webfleet is a leader in helping fleets understand the management processes that are needed to ensure safe and efficient operation of EV fleets so Richard and I are going to get into the key issues that fleet and driver safety managers need to be looking at.

Richard Parker, Corporate Sales Manager, Webfleet

https://www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com/podcast/episode/transitioning-to-evs-start-now/

Useful Links

Richard Parker - LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardjparker1/

Webfleet https://www.webfleet.com/en_gb/webfleet/

Webfleet Video raises the bar on fleet safety standards Download PDF

An electrifying journey: A step-by-step fleet guide to making the electric van transition. Download PDF

Dispelling the myths: Six common misconceptions about video telematics Download PDF

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Transcript

Simon: Welcome to Let’s Talk Fleet Risk - a podcast for those who manage drivers and their vehicles and want to reduce road risk in their organisation. 

With the rapid transition that many fleets are making to electric vehicles, I've been interested for some time in how that affects risk management for these fleets. The vehicles are more powerful, have some unique driving characteristics and have different maintenance requirements. Plus, there's recharging, load carrying and driver training to think about.

My guest for this episode of the Let's Talk Fleet Risk podcast is Richard Parker, Corporate Sales Manager at Webfleet – part of Bridgestone Mobility Solutions.

Webfleet is a leader in helping fleets understand the management processes that are needed to ensure safe and efficient operation of EV fleets, so Richard and I are going to get into the key issues that fleet and driver safety managers need to be looking at.

Hi Richard and welcome to the podcast.

 

Simon: I'm not an expert in electric vehicles but I've driven a few and there are obviously areas of their operation that are significantly different to operating conventional petrol or diesel vehicles. Where do you think the key challenges in risk management lie.

 

Richard: Let’s start from the very top which is Central Government legislation and remind everyone on some of the timelines – 

From 2030 – there’ll be no more diesel or petrol vehicles sold, that doesn’t mean there be zero tailpipe emissions, plug in hybrids will still be able to be sold until 2035. 

2035 – this is the cut off date for 26 tonne HGVs, and 2040 for the 44 tonnes and below down to 26, so we’ve really got 16 years before we will no longer have new petrol and diesel vehicles on sale. It’s also worth considering that sitting underneath that is a number of other things that will potentially give businesses some risks that need to be managed. Things like Local Authority changes, with zero emissions, clean air and ULEZ zones. There is financial reporting changes that are coming that will require many of your audience to report on their carbon footprint as part of the supply chains and contracts they hold. That’s here and now and building quickly. Finally the other one is that we are all consumers ourselves and I think  that especially after the last few years, weather, and things we see, our awareness of the need to change what we do to protect our climate is that much more visible. As consumers we all look to deal with more businesses that are genuinely looking at their sustainability and how they do business. I think we will take that into our business-to-business conversations and expect organisations we work with to be leading on decarbonising their operations. So that’s the big picture – when I look at an individual business, I think it’s quite easy to split it into 3 key areas of risk. 

First one is Operational, second one is financial and the third one, and the most important to me, is the driver. I know we are going to talk in more detail about each of these, as these are the 3 key areas when I’m talking to customers about transitioning and de-risking the change to zero emission tail pipe vehicles.

 

Simon: So, if we look at those in turn, let's start with operational risk. The capabilities of EV's are different when comes to things like range and load capacity, etc. How should businesses be assessing operational requirements and vehicle capabilities 

 

Richard: Well, in some ways, the fact that you can’t get vehicles very easily at the moment, especially commercial vehicles, there are real challenges in the supply chains, is also a really good opportunity to plan. When we look at operational and planning, tomorrow’s vehicle is not going to do the same job s today’s vehicle. For businesses, that operational view needs to be - what does the vehicle actually do for for our business? Does it need to do in the same way tomorrow? Organisations are looking at total use of the vehicle in a different way. Previously, going from a large panel van where it was a daily trip to collect stock, to now in a much smaller EV van, and stock is delivered directly to site. 

So they’re looking at the operational model and planning how they do it differently. Historically when I worked in the fleet sector, we talked about averages – so the fleet did a average 25,000 miles a year, the average payload was X and actually in this transitioning – it is a transition – not every vehicle has to go tomorrow to a zero tailpipe emission vehicle, but it is about looking at each individual vehicle. Where does it go? How often does it go, how long does it stop there – is that long enough for charging? What loads are we carrying and what impact does that have on the range of the vehicle? If you look at the weather at the moment, in Scotland, it’s minus 11 and the impact on the range of those EVs is significant so operationally planning for that annual cycle is really key. I guess that comes from data and if you’re going to look at things on a vehicle-by-vehicle basis you have to have the right set of data.

  

Simon: Most of the medium and large fleets are well on their way to a full transition to EVs – you recapped the dates and a number of fleets I have spoken to have transitions planned to be completed in the ext 2-3 years - but many smaller businesses often don't seem to realise the amount of change required by a move to EVs. You mentioned governance changes and things like that - It's getting quite urgent, isn't it?

 

Richard: It is getting urgent. The ULEZ Zones and particularly, it might not mean much to listeners, but please research what Scope 3 Emissions look like. A number of larger organisations are going to be required to report their climate position in terms of carbon footprint and also their activities to reduce it and if you’re in their supply chain you may well be required to deliver some of those activities. Anecdotally I did hear a story this week that there is a school and if you’re a provider to it, at then next round of contract supply you will have to deliver in an electric vehicle so there are things that are happening beyond central government that may require your business to change things now. 

I would also say for smaller businesses, it’s the larger businesses we tend to see in social media and covered in the news, and we must not forget that they employ very specific resource to help them through this – whether its ESG managers, sustainability managers or their fleet manager has a specific role in transitioning to zero tail pipe emissions fleet. For smaller businesses, that’s so much harder – the people in the business that have that expertise – I would encourage if you’re starting to look at this don’t be afraid to buy in resource to help you do it. 

Some expertise – there are plenty of really good EV consultants out there to help you understand all the parts that are needed to successfully transition. That will be things like energy, where’s it coming from, can you substitute some of that power requirement with solar panels on your roof? How much charging infrastructure do you need? And that’s before Driver Training and what vehicles - that’s a lot to undertake for a business that potentially hasn’t got an internal resource. Don’t’ be afraid to go and procure some of that expertise because it will save you the mistakes other people have made. 

 

Simon: As you say not having that expertise on hand could exclude you from future work 

 

Richard: Yes, start now. If you have to dig up the pavement on

Show notes: Does your Organisation know the true cost of Downtime in your Fleet?

Matthew Neale, Group Fleet Manager, Platform Housing

https://www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com/podcast/episode/does-your-organisation-know-the-true-cost-of-downtime-in-your-fleet

 

Useful Links

Case Study - Platform Housing Group https://www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com/case-studies/business-champion/platform-housing-group/

 

Transcript

Simon: Welcome to Let’s Talk Fleet Risk - a podcast for those who manage drivers and their vehicles and want to reduce road risk in their organisation.

My guest today is Matt Neale who is Group Fleet Manager for Platform Housing. The group manages 47,000 social housing properties and Matt looks after a fleet of 500 LCVs to allow employed tradespeople to maintain these properties.

Matt - welcome to the podcast.

I wanted to get you on the show as we have just published a really great case study on the improvements you’re making at Platform Housing and the business benefits you’re seeing as well, and I wanted to dig a bit deeper into some of those. Can you just give us a brief summary of your role and your responsibilities?

Matt: I have been here since September 2021. I’ve worked in the industry for about 18 years. My responsibilities are the maintenance and repair of 500 commercial vehicles while also managing the driver’s downtime to support in the wider operation of the repairing of tenants’ properties. I also look after EV infostructure throughout the organisation, and driver training.

Simon: You’ve been at Platform Housing for just over a year now and I’ve got a two-part question to start with:

• How long did it take you to get to grips with the existing state of driver and vehicle management?
• And, what did you identify as the biggest challenges you were going to need to address?

Matt: To get to grips to start with it was quite easy. Being an experienced fleet manager, I was able to come in and know what I wanted to do. As part of my interview process I understood what the challenges were so I had an idea as to what I wanted to do. It didn’t take long to get to grips with that – I managed to get lots of stuff done in the first month actually, but throughout that first month I identified a plan as to what I saw as the bigger challenges moving forward.

We detailed about 20 different projects and the main one was that we had no system so every vehicle was managed off a spreadsheet - so that will be the driver allocation, the maintenance, the buying management, damage management end of contract, vehicle replacement programme – so that was my first challenge. I refused to manage a fleet off a spreadsheet bearing in mind the information was out of date as soon as you put the data into it.

Second biggest challenge was the management of our accidents – we had quite a high accident ratio in the organisation – I say accident ratio, it could be vehicle damage ratio – a prang or something - things like reversing into stationary object, however I didn’t like the idea of our insurance company managing their own work so we looked to introduce an accident management company to support us with that.

Simon: You’ve been working with partners such as Fleetcheck to implement fleet management software, FMG for accident management. How have you worked with them to get the data you need in a manageable format, and to be able to make good use of it?

Matt: So, Fleetcheck has allowed me to have a confidence in the data that I am managing. Because a lot of our workforce is hybrid working – since the pandemic, 90-95% of our workforce is hybrid. All my team work from home so it’s impossible to manage from a spreadsheet so implementing Fleetcheck allows us to work remotely while still having access to the same information. Fleetcheck is now my one version of the truth when it comes to anything to do with management of our systems. When we look to partner with others – FMG – we will go on to talk about Lightfoot later – but Fleetcheck has to integrate with them otherwise I don’t partner with them because I want one version of the truth as to where the data stems from,. I don’t want to create additional work for my team when updating vehicle allocations or driver allocations in the system so Fleetcheck has allowed me to have more of a detailed overview and I mentioned in my recommendation for them that they actually reduced my stress levels as a fleet manager so it’s definitely a worthwhile move for us to partner with Fleetcheck.

Simon: A key part of that is the ability to improve your vehicle checking & maintenance regime, isn’t it? What was that like when you came in and what does it look like now? Have there been significant improvements in that area?

Matt: Yes – Fleetcheck also allowed us to adapt the vehicle inspection profile – a driver app allows all our drivers to do a weekly vehicle inspection and it has a fall-out which means any defects that are reported come through to us and we can manage that maintenance a lot more pro-actively. Prior to having Fleetcheck the check data went into a group drive so somebody had to physically check every single PDF to see if there was a defect in there and then report it, so by implementing Fleetcheck we have saved half a day’s job for somebody, so it’s savings in other areas of the business and it’s allowed us to manage the vehicle and the safety of the driver as well, bearing in mind some of the defects maybe safety related.

Simon: Does that have an impact on any other incidents you see where mechanical faults with the vehicle were a problem. Have you seen any reduction in incidents related to that?

Matt: Yes definitely. Again, it’s important if they have a warning light on a vehicle it allows us to book the vehicle in proactively. If a vehicle has an amber warning light it allows us to get the vehicle straight into a dealer and we can arrange for a swap out of the vehicle which reduces the downtime of the operative. Leaving it often results in the vehicle breaking down and that can cause a knock-on effect and further damage to the vehicle which we can then become liable for. It also supports the downtime of the driver to get them back on the road a lot quicker through the effective management of doing these vehicle checks through Fleetcheck. Without it we were waiting for the vehicle to break down and being reactive which isn’t how an effective fleet manager should be working.

Simon: You’ve done a trial with Lightfoot to try and improve driver behaviour which yielded some fantastic results and projected annual savings of over £1m which should grab anybody’s interest. Can you tell us more about that?

Matt: It was something that the business openly adopted really – when Lightfoot approach you they come forward with some shocking proposals – shocking reductions, they say they can save you this, this and this. It almost sounds too good to be true – and you’re rather sceptical about it – but they do offer you a free trial, so we took the free trial and the figures – the data that came off the back off it, backed up their claims. The majority of our savings naturally came through fuel, with safer individual driving, allowing the fuel cost to be reduced dramatically. On average it saved us about £30 per vehicle per month on fuel. In addition to that, with the drivers driving a lot safer in the vehicle and not having so many harsh braking events or harsh cornering events or harsh acceleration events – it means that over the period of time – we set 5 years in our trial – it meant that we could save in other areas like accidental damage and in downtime which is really important. I would really urge all fleet managers to look at the true cost of downtime so the business can really understand it – it’s not just the vehicle and somebody’s hourly rate. It’s the fleet managers time, the fleet team’s time, and of course once you’ve driven the vehicle to the end of its lease you need to consider the end of lease charges that might result from abusing the vehicle over a number of years so by driving the vehicle in a safer, more safety efficient way it actually generates a considerable amount of savings. That’s how we got to the £1million saving over 5 years through those 4 main elements. In our first year it was about £180,000 and then it escalated over the next few years – but it’s not just financial. There are other benefits as well. As we are a charity, we receive grants from Homes in England to support our tenants in the social housing sector, we do have to offset our carbon footprint to meet ESG and CSR targets, so by going with Lightfoot, we not only make the fuel reduction but it will allow us to save 1.4 tonnes of carbon as well. It further supports the wider business, and the environment.

Simon: Yes, I think the environment and the downtime savings are two of the things at top of the list for most experienced fleet managers at the moment aren’t they – an experienced fleet manager understands how much time that unplanned mechanical failure, unplanned downtime can cost. So, to any new fleet managers its one of things they need to be managing isn’t it – the amount of downtime in the business.

Matt: Yes definitely – it doesn’t matter whether you manage a commercial fleet or a vehicle fleet – downtime is always going to be an issue. If someone is not able to perform the duty they are employed to do – in our line of business we deal with social housing and we have vulnerable tenants. If we can’t get out it has a knock-on effect – the tenants wellbeing - so the downti

Show notes: Tyre Safety - 35,000 tyre incidents a year, the tip of the iceberg

Stuart Lovatt, Chairman, TyreSafe

October is National Tyre Safety Month, organised by the charity TyreSafe. I’m joined for this episode by Stuart Lovatt – the new Chairman of TyreSafe – to talk about why fleet operators should get involved with this year’s campaign.

https://www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com/podcast/episode/tyre-safety-35000-tyre-incidents-a-year-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/

 

Useful links

TyreSafe https://tyresafe.org/  

Transcript

Simon: October is National Tyre Safety Month, organised by the charity TyreSafe.

I’m joined for this episode by Stuart Lovatt – the new Chairman of TyreSafe – to talk about why fleet operators should get involved with this year’s campaign.

Hi Stuart and welcome to the podcast.

Congratulations on your new appointment. We’ve known each other many years from your previous role as Strategic Road Safety Lead at National Highways – could you start with a brief introduction to TyreSafe for listeners who maybe aren’t familiar with it?

Stuart: Yes of course – my own experience in working with TyreSafe went back to 2006 at the Prince Michael of Kent Road safety Awards, at that time I started to understand what TyreSafe was, prior to them becoming a registered road safety charity. I started to understand more and more about the importance of tyres and what that means for trying to reduce the number of incidents on the network. My role within in National Highways – we could be looking at something like 35,000 tyre related incidents on the strategic road network, and that network is only 3.5% of roads within the country, so you can extrapolate that and think of how many incidents mut be happening each year. To me the importance of safer tyres became an increasing concern that more needed to be done in this field, so I’m pleased to say that something like 16 years I’ve been working on tyre safety and so upon my retirement form National Highways it was very kind of TyreSafe to offer me the Chair of the organisation to carry on the work I was hoping to do when I was in National Highways.

Simon: 35,000 tyre incidents a year is a staggering amount – and that leads onto my first question - DfBB often puts out information talking about the need for regular vehicle checks because the DVSA statistics show really big failure rates for MOTs on both cars and vans. The number that fail an MOT at the first attempt is a staggering amount. How big a problem is tyre safety for company vehicles?

Stuart: I think it would be fair to say that safety of tyres and the importance within keeping your vehicle on the road is probably not very well understood and that’s not just people who are driving on business – it’s generally that people don’t understand the importance. We talk about business tyre safety – these 4 things that are actually touching the road ( or two tings if you’re on a 2 wheeler) and it’s that piece of machinery, a very complex piece of machinery, it’s that which can actually help you to stop if something unexpected happens on the journey. It’s not just drivers on business – it’s a general campaign that I think what business can do and from our previous work with Driving for Better Business, it’s important we continue to raise awareness as you said, your daily checks before you set off, a more detailed weekly and monthly check - its continuously reminding the drivers, the fleet managers, the depot mangers about the importance of doing these checks and that’s why in Tyresafe we have the acronym to ACT upon your tyres – air, condition and tread - because anyone of those can lead to a failure which can have not only consequences around the actual journey but potentially much more serious consequences.

Simon: Yes, air, condition and tread is a very good acronym and it forms the basis for a lot of your campaigns, but one of the good things I think about Tyresafe, is the messages are all backed up by hard evidence and research you’ve done. I wanted to talk about that. One of the recent research projects was National Highways together with Bridgestone and TyreSafe on the causes of HGV tyre failures on the SRN. What did you find?

Stuart: That research that we did was a very good piece – we collected the debris on the road and very often when you are coming to do research you think you know what you’re going to find, but of course, it’s always enlightening when you’re proven wrong. We thought that retread tyres in company vehicles would be a cause of tyre failures leading to debris.

Unfortunately, we’ve had fatalities of people who have hit tyre debris so it’s a growing concern within NH but also again generally across the industry. It’s not just the tyre bursting – I’ve seen CCTV footage where a vehicle’s tyres have burst and gone through the central reservation and hit oncoming traffic. What we found actually was it wasn’t the retreads, it was actually a significant under-inflation of tyres, leading to a build up of heat in the tyre which then caused the tyre to fail. For those who are more familiar with this the Psi on a heavier tyre is like a mini bomb going off – when it does finally give. It can ultimately lead to loss of control of the vehicle. You see these vehicles hitting central reservations because you do lose control so that was a very interesting piece of research which has helped to change our thinking and for us to re-push those messages about the need to constantly check your tyre pressures. We have other research on the tread depth, but this particular one is helping us to get that message across. People need to check their tyre pressures more regularly than they are.

Simon: I’ve seen CCTV of some of those HGV tyres blowing out and it’s really quite spectacular and you realise you don’t want to be in the vicinity when that happens, so any fleet operator would be wise to have look at some of those videos if you don’t have an appropriate pressure checking regime as part of your vehicle checks.

Stuart: There is actually new technology now that you can use to help you monitor that for heavy vehicles.

Simon: Presumably they have pressure monitors as well so how does the new technology work?

Stuart: You can attach them to the tyres and it helps you to alert you when the tyre pressure starts to drop, so it is certainly something that fleet managers can check on more regularly – tyre pressure is not something you are going to pick up as a driver when you do your daily walk around – this is something that can be done weekly or monthly which will start to see those pressures starting to drop. As your tyre pressures start to drop actually you could only have 50% of the tyre touching the road surface so that’s what causing the heat that is dangerous. Going back to CCTV, I once saw a clip of a National Highways traffic officer who had to put a rolling road block on to remove tyre debris. This thing was probably several feet long – it was the length of a traffic officer and these can weigh up to 80Kg so we had to stop the entire motorway network while it was removed, so even if there’s no catastrophic failure, the debris alone means we have to shut the network while it’s removed and so therefore its leading to more business delays and disruption and these are the kind of things irrespective of potential consequences for injury or the loss of that vehicle and the insurance costs and downtime that comes from that. All that leads to affecting the business bottom line so all this can be linked in to generally trying to support business which is why we are so delighted to be working with DfBB on the whole issue of work related road risk and fleet management.

Simon: So this research was around HGV tyres – you mentioned some other research around tread depths. As I understand it that bought in cars and vans as well?

Stuart: Yes, back in 2016 with TyreSafe we did a project on tread depth – it was 6 years ago now. The campaign talked about 1 in 4 vehicles potentially had an illegal tyre in terms of tread depth. 70% had below 2mm – the thickness of a credit card – so we tried to remind people within your fleets you should be starting to check the tyre more regularly and replacing it when it goes below 3mm. Once you get to 2mm it’s the thickness of a credit card before it becomes illegal. If you’re doing a lot of miles that tread will very quickly burn off. Prior to previous economic downturns, a lot of business and public sector organisations had a policy of changing the tyres at 3mm – and that started to drop and people ran them for a bit longer. The issue we found at that time was we needed to remind businesses and the general public on the need to be checking much more regularly. As we hit harsher financial times and we talk about recession and cost of living, it’s a good time to remind businesses it’s a false economy not to replace them. National Highways has partnered with TyreSafe this year to look at where people have made that decision, and there’s over 133 retailers who are supporting this research by checking tyres, and this research will go onto about March 2023.

We have already checked about 150,000 tyres and that data will be analysed and checked to see if there’s been a difference – improvement or getting worse. We have that research as an independent evaluation by Imperial College London who can give that research some academic rigour and independence so they will help to produce the information and we can then work with people like Driving for better Business and other strategic partners to raise awareness of the findings. Previous research helped us to get some key messages out and I think this wi

Show notes: Tavid Dobson, RSSB

Increasingly, good management of work-related road risk is becoming a pre-requisite for winning new work, with the power of procurement being used to drive up standards through supply chains, and even across entire sectors. Rail is one sector where this approach is being rolled out

My guest for this episode is Tavid Dobson who is the road risk lead for RSSB – the Rail Safety and Standards Board. Tavid is leading efforts to get rail sector organisations including Network Rail, train and freight operating companies and construction firms to collaborate on an innovative project to improve road risk management across an entire industry. National Highways and the Driving for Better Business programme are working closely with Tavid to ensure its success.

https://www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com/podcast/episode/tavid-dobson/

 

Useful links

Tavid Dobson on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tavid-dobson-365203116/

RSSB https://www.rssb.co.uk/

 

Transcript

Simon: Increasingly, good management of work-related road risk is becoming a pre-requisite for winning new work, with the power of procurement being used to drive up standards through supply chains, and even across entire sectors. Rail is one sector where this approach is being rolled out

My guest for this episode is Tavid Dobson who is the road risk lead for RSSB – the Rail Safety and Standards Board. Tavid is leading efforts to get rail sector organisations including Network Rail, train and freight operating companies and construction firms to collaborate on an innovative project to improve road risk management across an entire industry. National Highways and the Driving for Better Business programme are working closely with Tavid to ensure its success.

Tavid, welcome to the show.

Simon: My first question is that everyone understands the railways can be a dangerous environment to work in. What does safety management mean in your world

Tavid:   Safety management systems and application is incredibly important – it’s a very dangerous environment with lots of engineering and passengers moving around. It helps to recognise lots inf incidents over the years like the Kings Cross Fire and Clapham Junction which helps us focus to ensure we manage the risks and the causes of those risks. We now have a mature approach to this management, but the roads area is something we haven’t looked at until recently.

Simon: When we talk about the rail sector we think about trains and the obvious risks, but what are the typical road risks you have to manage in the rail industry?

 

Tavid:  This is an interesting question. I think there’s an assumption that it’s just about road fleets. The rail industry has unique road risk profiles to address. Taxis – procurement of taxis, replacement buses,  and there are road fleets obviously. Network rail has a road fleet of 10,000 vehicles and there’s the road fleets within each of the supply chain areas. There’s also grey fleet, people using 2 wheels, so there’s a whole range of areas we have to take account of and obviously the process and standards we are looking at need to address all of those.

Simon: Now I’ve worked with businesses in other traditional hazardous industries such as energy production or dangerous manufacturing processes, and  I’ve found it can be common in other traditionally hazardous industries for business leaders and safety professionals to focus solely on the hazardous work and either forget, or fail to see the level of risk involved in driving. What’s driven the increase in focus on road risk?

Tavid: There’s been a number of key areas coming to light – it’s been activated by things like CIRUS who identified the issues around fatigue and we’ve also had a number of fatalities investigated by the LORR recently so I think we realised that road risk is a significant issue when we’re killing more of our staff on the roads than on the railway itself.

Simon: What’s the split between incidents on road and rail within the sector?

Tavid: Quite a difficult one to pin down because the data we have is quite poor. It’s influenced by even as far as the DFT in terms of how the Stat 19 information is provided but within our own safety management info systems it’s difficult to get accurate data so quite a lot is anecdotal so we need to encourage companies to provide us with the data.

Simon: In the introduction I talked about this as a collaborative project – I know collaboration is one of your real focuses for this kind of work How are you involving the different areas of the rail sector to make sure we get the right approach as an industry wide approach?

Tavid: The industry has a strategy called Leading Health and Safety of British Railways and road risk is one of the 12 significant areas where we can benefit from collaboration among all the parties. We set up a road risk group to be a forum to bring the parties together and what we’ve started to do is to introduce sector road risk groups to encourage companies and members to share and to learn and generate good practice for reducing and managing road risk

Simon: So, I sit on one of those groups as do some of my colleagues from National Highways and it’s a really insightful place to be because across those groups we’ve got dozens of people from a huge range of organisations contributing different viewpoints that you wouldn’t have thought as you don’t have the same experience so it’s providing a benefit to a complete understanding of what that risk is about and how it arises and the best options for implementing solutions isn’t it?

Tavid: It is and I think the focus around each of the railway sectors with Network Rail as the infrastructure manager, train operating companies an freight operating  companies, supply chain and contractors – we’ve tried to put in a whole range of experts around these people from insurance companies, regulators from ORR and HSE together with other benchmarking partners like TFL and HS2 and this gives us a healthy environment to start sharing good practice and get better analysis so we’re better informed on the types of improvement programmes we can focus on across the rail sectors. There is no one size fits all. Each sector has a unique range of risks - taxis and replacement buses, with the supply chain the movement of workers using minibuses and other light goods vehicles and network rail has it’s own fleet of 10,000 vehicles so all these sectors require different things to help them manage the risk. The idea is to distil that and working with the Driving for Better Business team we now have a good solution to provide that one stop shop where everyone can go for good guidance and information to help them manage road risk.

Simon: How do you see DfBB contributing to this project? We’ve been working on this together for some time now, what do you see as the contribution DfBB can bring?

 

Tavid: Immense. The Railway industry – we’re focused on the railway. We even refer to road vehicles as non-rail vehicles. So I am pleased we have developed this relationship. I think of National Highways as the landlord of the roads and the DfBB programme and the key work it’s done. We’re privileged to have the opportunity to grow and develop  the programme to help the rail industry around this collaborative framework we’ve been building. We’ve been lucky to have one of the DfBB representatives as our rail Industry representative providing that guidance to the teams.

Simon: Driving across what needs to happen and how people should be viewing work related road risk because it’s easy for people in hazardous industry not to understand the level of road risk so that direct involvement with the Dfbb team working closely with the various partners in this collaboration helping them understand what the best way of approaching this issue is – that’s worked well hasn’t it?

 

Tavid: It has and the big area for me is seeing the increase in understanding by the safety management teams. Road risk is a health and safety risk, and we need to make sure the safety management systems are properly addressing this particular risk. It is significant. To be fair, it’s a cultural change in behaviours that we are trying to introduce. It’s a slow process like change always is but with better data and knowledge and experience we are starting to influence areas like fatigue management, working hours, making sure that journeys are planned better. There are significant changes that are coming which will help to raise that effectiveness.

Simon: The DfBB seven -step framework came out of the work we’ve done together –to help risk managers, driver managers, work through the necessary steps to improve work related road risk management, starting from raising your own awareness of the issues you need to deal with, understanding base line points and whether there are any gaps in your management systems, how to improve the culture by sharing resources and raising awareness and constantly measuring and monitoring – and then right up to the point where you can start to see benefits and share that as a story to inspire others to do the same. What many people won’t realise is that 7 step framework came out of our work together with the rail sector - how are you planning to engage businesses in the rail sector and get them to start using the DfBB framework?

Tavid: Yes, thank-you I think there are 3 key areas which support the 7 steps. The first is the charter which we’ve introduced – the occupational road risk management charter which is a commitment statement by each of the MDs and CEOs of rail compa

Show notes: Strong leadership in driver risk management delivering business benefits

At Driving for Better Business, we’re currently focused on promoting the business benefits that flow from good management of drivers, and how strong leadership is key to this. My guest this month is Stewart Lightbody:

"It’s picking the message and not throwing rocks at people but saying there is scope for improvement to gain the benefits – reduced spend on fuel, reduced incident collision, less hassle for the drivers, getting to the first job in a better frame of mind. I work with fleet managers day to day and through the AFP, and getting drivers to acknowledge that the driving element is as important as general health and safety when they get to their first job on site is a challenge."

https://www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com/podcast/episode/strong-leadership-in-driver-risk-management-delivering-business-benefits

 

Useful links

Stewart Lightbody on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/stewartlightbody/

Matrix IQ Risk Management (formerly Driive) https://matrixiq.com/risk-management/

Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP) https://www.theafp.co.uk/

AFP Education & Training https://www.theafp.co.uk/education-training/

 

Transcript

Simon: Hello everyone and welcome to the August edition of Let’s Talk Fleet Risk. At Driving for Better Business, we’re currently focused on promoting the business benefits that flow from good management of drivers, and how strong leadership is key to this. My guest this month is Stewart Lightbody.

Stewart is a former fleet manager, with experience running very large fleets with thousands of vehicles for companies like Siemens, Kier, Anglian Water and M Group. He is also currently Deputy Chairman of the Association of Fleet professionals. Stewart is a recent winner of the Fleet News Fleet Manager of the Year; however, he has now decided to use that experience to help others, and last year joined Driive Consulting as Fleet Innovation and EV Manager.

Stewart, welcome to the show.

Simon: We showcase some amazing achievements from organisations that manage road risk well. They show significant reductions in collisions and equally significant improvements in business efficiency, performance, cost control, sustainability, etc. How important is strong leadership in driver risk management to delivering those achievements?

Stewart: In my experience it’s critical. Fleet managers normally aspire to do their best for the business and supporting their drivers, and sometimes the results coming back and the things needed to make those changes require some significant business input. Sign off at board level as well in a lot of cases. You’re looking at human behaviour and trying to make decisions in day to day life at the same level which is a challenge and also for them, you start to see data coming through that you want to look at and it is getting the leadership teams on the operations side - to understand you’re not necessarily criticising but trying to get a comparison of where the driver is in comparison to another driver or set of drivers so they can see potentially - through coaching and supporting - you can get that driver to improve. It won’t happen overnight as you are trying to unravel potentially 30 to 40 years of driver experience and driver habits and it’s not until you see it in black and white – for some drivers that can be intimidating. It’s picking the message and not throwing rocks at people but saying there is scope for improvement to gain the benefits – reduced spend on fuel, reduced incident collision, less hassle for the drivers, getting to the first job in a better frame of mind. It’s not an easy message to land – the driving element is not as key as the general health and safety. I work with fleet managers day to day and through the AFP, and getting drivers to acknowledge to that the driving element is as important as general health and safety when they get to their first job on site is a challenge.

Simon: You mentioned you look at reports on a regular basis –you mentioned operations – how do you go about impressing on others why this data is so important in making improvements? In a bigger business you have to push that up to the board on a regular basis and in a smaller business maybe other stakeholders looking at driver risk as a part time role so how do you ensure that people understand the importance? What’s your experience of how well business leaders understand the need to do this, and their understanding of how this can lead to a better performing business?

Stewart: I think it’s tailoring the message – in the early days I probably made the mistake of almost being a one trick pony because it was my view, if if our average was 25 mile sto the gallon in the average panel van, and I said I think we should be pushing 30 – it was almost subjective as to what that target should be. I think I learnt to tailor the message to every stakeholder by understanding what their objectives were and their views on the subject.

Some were very finance driven so actually if we are going to reduce our collision rate by 10% I put it into monetary terms for them. I would see the value of a one-to-one conversation with my driver - when you reduce your harsh braking – and they could see it in pounds and pence so they could buy into it. Others were not interested in the financial aspect. They were more interested in the wellbeing and safety of their drivers. So, it’s knowing your audience and understanding what they want to achieve and then working out how I could help them. I found that was the best way of getting their buy-in, especially over time. When we started to then track performance I could show them a continuing downward trend on their fuel spend or continued up time because the driver was on the road more often. Then you can have wider conversations and they buy-in to what we want to achieve.

Simon: Yes, it’s so important to have everyone pulling in the same direction and different people in different areas understanding how it impacts them in their own area. You are working with a number of fleets at Driive & speaking to lots of fleet managers in your role at the AFP – are there any areas of managing driver risk that they are particular concerned about?

Stewart: It’s the sheer amount of data. Fleet managers – people think you get to look at shiny new metal, place new company car orders, but it’s much bigger than that. It’s now a risk management role. So, it’s having the understanding of their drivers, and a lot of them tend to work in isolation is what I find. It can be quite a lonely role you’re trying to change the world from inside the organisation., So the challenge is understanding who your key stakeholders are and managing driver risk sits on the fleet manager’s shoulder and actually, largely, we don’t put the drivers to work. It feels like a poisoned chalice as you have awareness of what’s going on, but you don’t necessarily have everything you need or direct access to the drivers to do something different. It’s that intimidation piece – it’s a very big subject and lots of opportunities to improve safety and wellbeing but it’s not all in the gift of the fleet manager. So, some feel more isolated than ever because of the sheer amount of change - delays to new vehicles, electrification of the journey – all this has gone on top of what is a fantastic but challenging role as a fleet manager.

Simon: Your role at Driive also includes EVs – are there any areas of risk management that people should be looking at if they’re new to EVs?

Stewart: A lot of fleet managers feel under pressure with the EV Transition – that they must progress electrification with everything now. That’s not the case. Company cars are going that way – taxation policy is driving that change – having significant increases in fully electric car numbers – that’s heading in that direction, other than the cost parity and understanding where your total cost of ownership is going. On the van side its far more confusing – trying to find an asset that will do the job and not run out of juice before the day is done is not so clear. Consider electrification as part of what’s happening but not too much onus on the electric vehicle element because the biggest thing is the driver induction piece is done – but that should be happening with ICE vehicles as well so moving from one vehicle to another its very easy to say I’ve driven a van for 20 years and moving from one van manufacturer to another it’s no different, so I’ll be fine. That handover piece has always been important – the advantages on moving to an EV need to be maximised if you’re going to prevent some cost creep because EVs tend to be faster and they drive differently so make sure your driver has embraced the good things – the battery regeneration, certainly when I’m driving around in my EV, I don’t break now unless it’s an emergency situation because if I’m driving around using my regeneration to top up my fuel level that’s an important piece – otherwise the drivers have all this new found power in electric vehicles but don’t the most of their EV range so I think it should be happening anyway but not as strong as it could be and if you want to maximise all the good stuff it needs to be.

Simon: I think it’s critical - when you were talking about fleet managers feeling isolated – managing EVs is something they’ve got to get on top of fairly quickly but I guess supporting fleet managers through some of these challenges is the role of

Show notes: Leadership in road risk management - do you pick up the phone?

30 vans are stolen each day which is a 45% increase over the last 4 years plus over £60million in lost tools and other items. Our podcast guest this month is Laura Moran, MD at TVL Group who tells us why she believes it's critical that a successful road risk culture is driven from the top of any business. She talks about the business benefits they've experienced as a result, how they maximise driver engagement, and why she regularly picks up the phone to her drivers...

https://www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com/podcast/episode/leadership-in-road-risk-management-do-you-pick-up-the-phone/

 

Useful links

TVL Security https://www.tvl-ltd.co.uk/

Tell TVL https://www.telltvl.co.uk/

Van Driver Toolkit https://vandrivertoolkit.co.uk

 

Transcript

Simon: Welcome to Let’s Talk Fleet Risk - a podcast for those who manage drivers and their vehicles and want to reduce road risk in their organisation.

30 vans are stolen each day which is a 45% increase over the last 4 years plus over £60million in lost tools and other items. My guest today is Laura Moran, MD at TVL Group which is the UK specialist for commercial vehicle security products and a tier 1 OEM supplier to some of the biggest van manufacturers.

Simon: Welcome Laura. I’d like to cover 2 topics – why van security is part of driver risk management and what employers should be doing about it, and also, as the MD of a business yourself how important leadership is in driver risk management.

Now I mentioned the statistics regarding stolen vans and content theft which I imagine would represent a huge amount of cost and disruption to any business. Could you talk us through the most common types of incidents and the business disruption these incidents cause?

Laura: Sure – you mentioned statistics around vehicle theft and contents theft. I think the majority of what we are seeing and some of the survey statistics show that it’s tool theft which is 67% content stolen from vehicles. There’s some other research from the Federation Master of Builders across their membership, showing that 51% of their members have had vans broken into and tools stolen. It’s a hot topic. Unfortunately, vehicle crime is linked to the economy. When there is high unemployment, you see a rise in vehicle crime. What we do have now is the cost-of-living issue which is also fuelling vehicle crime. It is on the increase. In terms of the disruption it causes it’s a very costly inconvenience too, and what we see is where it’s independent traders – builders, plumbers etc, the self-employed guys – they come to us when their vehicles have been attacked, their tools stolen – it’s their livelihood so they cant work and they can’t’ earn money. |They need to repair the vehicle so it really is costly and in terms of the value of the contents stolen the figures we’ve had show the average cost of the contents stolen is just over £4000. It really does cause a lot of disruption to people’s livelihoods

Simon: I guess there’s an increased cost of insurance for those people but even one-man bands, contractors, many of those will work as contractors to larger companies, part of a larger company’s supply chain so it still has a knock on to a bigger organisation as well.

Laura: Absolutely – it’s a costly inconvenience across all van fleets. The major van fleets are using contractors on service levels etc so they will have penalties involved if they don’t have a van that’s operational. Financial penalties in addition to the actual theft of tools and vans.

Simon: I understand you’ve launched a campaign called ‘Tell TVL’

Laura: It’s an initiative we launched last week – it’s something we’ve been working on for a number of months now. The police in terms of their crime reporting, they have very basic crime reporting codes. If you have your tools stolen it will go down as theft of contents from a motor vehicle. And that could be a pair of sunglasses, or it could £5K worth of tools from a van. They don’t have the granular detail. There’s a lot of campaigning at the moment to increase the crime reporting codes for better intel. That’s the challenge.

You’ve also got 43 regional police forces and there’s differences in the way they all report so there really isn’t a national picture on the problem of vehicle crime. We’ve worked with a number of police forces, great cooperation and engagement. They asked us if we could provide some of this intel. We see the customers who have had vehicle break ins and we engage with the major fleets who talk to us about their security requirements and share with us new forms of attack and that’s critical in picking up new trends and methods of entering a vehicle. In addition, we also have an informal network of the big van fleet managers, and if one of their vehicles get attacked, they will share it with other van fleet managers. The initiative is around bringing together all of that and creating a national picture of what’s happening with vehicle crime. It’s an online community where you can go on and report what’s happened in terms of vehicle or contents theft – you still have to report it to the police but we’ve worked with the police in terms of the data and it’s backed by the National Business Crime Centre and has backing from the Home Office.

You can ‘Tell TVL’ more details about the incident – we don’t collect personal data. We simply get data on the incident itself. We will then share it with the police in terms of their intelligence, so they get more granular data. If you become a registered user of ‘Tell TVL’ we will send you vehicle crime insights and we do heatmapping to show hotspots as well as alerts if there are new trends or particular hotspots.

That’s our plan – it’s an online community to fight back against vehicle crime. Our message from TVL is we don’t want our customer’s vehicles to be broken into so if we can provide intelligence on how to avoid that happening then that’s a good thing and we’re arming them with the information to try and safeguard their livelihood.

We will be sending crime prevention advice and the National Business Crime Centre; we will host their advice and push it down with the insights so that the van operators have everything they need in terms of trying to secure their livelihoods

That’s Tell TVL – it’s in its early stages. We will be doing some PR around it and we have some good traction. We are already seeing our first crime incident reports coming through and we’re building our registered user database so I’m very optimistic about it. It will help prevent crime hopefully. That’s the primary objective and it will always be free. The crime insights will be free and we will never market to any user.

Simon: It sounds like an excellent campaign - where can people go to find out more?

Laura: website address - tellTVL.co.uk – the website’s there. You can sign up as registered user if you want to receive the crime insights. It’s very new so until we get meaningful data those crime insights won’t be going out just yet, and you can report an incident on there as well.

Simon: Great – we’ll put a link in the show notes for anyone who wants to find out more.

Where do you see vehicle security fitting into overall management of work-related road risk?

Laura: The thing with vehicle security is it isn’t just about securing and protecting the vehicle and the contents. What we do know, working with many of the large parcel delivery companies, they will only secure the vehicle to a certain level. If they go beyond that they have realised they put the driver at risk. If they make it too difficult for thieves, they risk their drivers so that’s the balance. You need to protect your assets and certain fleets are more at risk than others. Your baker and your florist are perhaps not as much a target for contents theft as a builder, utility company and you’re carrying tools, that puts that vehicle more at risk. Equally the parcel delivery companies, people know there’s a lot more vans on the road carrying valuable items, so they are also a target. It becomes about the driver as well depending on what is being carried in the vehicle.

Simon: So, it’s not just incidents of theft overnight, it’s also while the driver is with the vehicle or just temporarily away from the vehicle on someone’s doorstep?

Laura: Unfortunately, we do hear of incidents when the vehicle is attacked when the driver is with the vehicle. It’s getting the balance right between the level of protection and not placing the driver at risk.

Simon: What would be your main tips for business owners and safety managers on where to start with this.

Laura: Some of this in is how the driver responds – if attacks occur while they are with the vehicle, my advice would be let them take it, succumb to it. That comes down to their fleet risk policy. In terms of safeguarding that driver, let the thieves have access and safeguard themselves.

Simon: Moving on. Let’s talk about how TVL manages road risk. Can you give us a brief overview of your fleet and what sort of journeys your drivers undertake?

Laura: We operate a fleet of about 40+ vans so our mobile engineers are travelling nationwide, doing van accessories and fitting vehicle security, they operate every day. In terms of how we manage road risk, when I joined, we already had a driver policy and we managed and reviewed speeding and driver behaviour, and we have now updated and refreshed that policy. You need to take it out and look at