Let‘s Talk Fleet Risk

Menopause: what you need to know & how to support

Show notes: Louise Clarkson, National Highways Customer Services

For this episode, I’m handing the reins over to my colleague, Anne-Marie Penny of National Highways and the Driving for Better Business Programme Manager. She’s talking to Louise Clarkson, who is Operational Assurance and Capability Business Services Team Leader for National Highways’ Customer Services Division.

Louise founded the Menopause and Hormonal Conditions Network for National Highways. This was a fascinating discussion covering how menopause can impact a woman’s ability to drive for work, the impact on a menopausal woman’s partner who may also drive for work, the need for a corporate menopause
policy, sharing corporate best practice across different sectors, and finally, Louise’s award for the valuable work that she’s done to support others.

Are your drivers mentally ready to control a vehicle?

Simon: Hello everyone and welcome to Let’s Talk Fleet Risk. My guest today is James Tillyer, Managing Consultant at Transformotion, based in Ireland, who are specialists in immersive driver training.

 

Welcome to the podcast James.

 

James: Thanks Simon, it’s lovely to be here.

 

Simon: James – perhaps you could start by introducing yourself, and explaining a little bit about who you are and what Transformotion does?

 

James: Sure. Well, I’ve been involved in road transport for over 20 years now, and a lot of my time has been spent working on driver development – in terms of careers, training, and engagement.

 

For Transformotion, it’s a road transport consultancy and training developer. We work on projects that focus on things like vehicle autonomy, and what it means for the labour market, as well as driver training. In fact, our latest project is called Gaming DRV, championing the cause for distance learning in formal driver training. We’re also developing prototypes for games and gamification in general, particularly where driver CPC is concerned.

 

In addition to that, we also develop products for fleet managers, to help them manage vehicles and drivers. It’s a fairly unique service – or I like to think it is – where we build our bespoke toolbox talks, audits, that sort of thing. And that’s offered through a website called EasyFleetr.com.

 

And then finally, we develop immersive driver training. We use eye-tracking technology – which is a bit of a first in our sector. We use 360-degree video and drone footage to create really engaging visuals, which is all wrapped up into a classroom-based training course. And drivers get to use an interactive app where they improve their knowledge and attention, and it also reduces a lot of the tedious admin tasks because we’ve wrapped up things like feedback forms and ID checks within the app.

 

So, we do a fair bit, and we’ve wrapped that up into three sections.

 

Simon: Brilliant. This conversation came about because of a chat that you and I had a couple of months ago around driver wellbeing. At Driving for Better Business, we’ve been looking around a range of issues throughout the quarter that fall under the broad heading of ‘fitness to drive’. So, I was wondering what that term means to you?

 

James: I remember our conversation very well. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with that – because it is a very broad term. And it’s sometimes quite difficult to pin down, but for me, it’s about being mentally ready to control a vehicle. A lot of the time, if we’ve got cramp, or a headache, or a cold, it’s quite clear. But it’s more difficult to know if we’re suffering from mental fatigue.

 

Simon: We know there are rules about how much time you can spend driving in any given day because the concentration required can take its toll over time. This issue of mental fatigue, it’s assuming your head is in the game to start with, isn’t it? If the driver’s got personal issues to deal with, what effect does that have?

 

James: It’s interesting because one thing we discovered with the immersive training is that through the eye-tracking tech, we can actually see how often a driver’s eye is looking in a certain direction. And the sheer volume of eye movements to point A to point B in a given journey is enormous – it’s huge. And a driver doesn’t realise it, because it’s an involuntary movement. But it goes some way to explain why a professional driver feels so exhausted at the end of the day. It’s not just the physical task of driving, it’s also what their brain is doing, and actually where they’re looking.

 

But in terms of personal issues, it’s very difficult for anyone to avoid thinking about the general rigours of life – I think we all appreciate that. But the result is almost always emotive. Things like anger, resentment, worry – they all come to the fore.

 

And in terms of what that means for driving – well that tends to lead to things like erratic driving, risk taking, distraction, speeding. All the negative stuff. And obviously those are really detrimental to the safety of the driver and other road users.

 

Simon: Just give us some examples of what those issues can be. What sort of issues are we talking about that drivers can bring into the cab with them?

 

James: It’s the ones you might expect. So generally speaking, health issues, money worries, relationships. But more than that, it can be the hum drum. Things like daydreaming about the latest box set, what’s for tea, or the next holiday – things like that. All of those factors create a distraction or brain fog that’s detrimental to driving.

 

We very often get into a car or van or truck or bus and we just drive – it’s very much an automated thing. We just switch to driver mode – and it’s fair to say that some do. But it’s not a natural given ability. An argument, for example, that happens at home tends to linger once you’re out and about. The issue can fester, and grow in your mind, and take over the rational part of your brain. When that happens, it’s an alarm – it’s a bit of an issue that can’t be reversed. Alternatively, as I said, worrying can cause the brain to become fogged. Which again, leads to late braking or poor judgment.

 

There are so many different factors, in terms of mental awareness, that have an impact on your driving.

 

Simon: You mentioned the eye tracker. Did you notice any trends with those eye movements that possibly – I don’t know whether you discussed the results with the drivers afterwards and were able to match up certain levels of distraction, or types of distraction, with the behaviour they were exhibiting and the eye movements. Were there any lessons you took out of that?

 

James: It’s very interesting because when you do the study on eye tracking and break down the eye movements, you have the benefit of being able to see – through heat maps and single points on a video – where exactly they’ve been looking and how often.

 

What we don’t really know is why. So, what we’ve done in the past is approach the driver and say “look, we’ve discovered that you’ve been doing this, do you know why it is?”. And more often than not, they don’t know. I’ll give you an example – we had a situation where we filmed a driver joining a motorway. As he was joining the motorway, he looked twice as much to his nearside than his offside. You’d think that doesn’t really make sense, because as you’re joining a motorway, you’d naturally look in your offside – looking for traffic and traffic flow, and where the gap is.

 

He said, “I don’t really know why I did that”, and we pinned it down to him being so focused on looking at the nearside because of left turns. This was an HGV, he very often drives in London, and his brain has almost tuned in to naturally look at the nearside as a way of protecting cyclists when they’re making left-hand turns. So, what we’ve discovered, is that naturally over time, the brain has been trained, but the awareness just isn’t there – because it becomes an automated response. That was quite interesting.

 

Simon: I can understand why that would be an automated response – he’s a professional driver and he’s doing it day-in, day-out. But of course, it’s important to remember that we’re not just talking about those drivers who spend all, or most, of the day on the road. There’s many of us – me included – who go out for occasional meetings too.

 

Presumably, those sorts of drivers are prone to the same sort of distractions – relationships at work that could affect you in the same way as relationships at home, worries about work or deadlines, in the same way as you might worry about health or money at home. Would that be true?

 

James: Absolutely. I think as an example, if you take a hands-free call, we all know that’s a well-known distraction. But how many of us actually think about the effect of the call, once that call has ended? The conversation may have been heated, for example – something you disagreed with. In which case, when you end that call, your emotions possibly take over your rational driving style. As a result of that discussion, your ability to drive may decrease – which means you increase the risk.

 

Something that I’ve researched before is called cognitive tunnelling – it sounds very scientific, and it certainly is, but the fundamentals of it are quite straightforward. Why cognitive tunnelling is important is that it often flies under the radar, but it’s the main cause of accidents involving human error. In a nutshell, it’s where the brain focuses on a single task or an issue, and neglects the other factors.

 

As an example: a driver is travelling on an unfamiliar road – which is often the case. They’re looking for an entrance. They’re so fixated with finding that entrance that things like a cyclist, or a tight bend, or warning alarms, become barely noticed or registered. Of course, what that does, is it means that through cognitive tunnelling, they’ve created risk for all other factors on the road. That’s one to really pin down, because there are so many risks involved there.

 

Simon: You raised an interesting point about finishing a call, and that still affecting your emotional state. A very good friend at the Driving for Better Business programme is Professor Gemma Briggs, a professor at the Open University who is one of the UK’s foremost experts on mobile phone distraction from driving. I had a discussion with her the other day, and she said your brain can take up to five minutes to disengage from that call because you’re still thinking about the content of that call, mulling over certain things – you’re not back in the game.

 

It's not a case that you end the call and you’re back concentrating on driving – your head is still out of the game for another five minutes after that.

 

James: I’m not surprised that that research has come to the fore – it’s a real problem that we sometimes neglect to remember.

 

Simon: If we look at this from a driver manager’s point of view, an employer’s point of view, approaching these kinds of issues with drivers is probably going to be quite difficult. There could be instances where there are signs that might indicate an issue with a driver – there might be some mental health issues, or they’re distracted by various things. But probably many other drivers who are suffering in silence are able to hide it quite well.

 

So, where does a driver manager start with this issue?

 

James: It’s a good question. It’s a tricky one, also, because a lot of managers feel as though they don’t want to intrude or pry into the private lives of any drivers. Sometimes it’s quite difficult to feel as though you’re able to cope with that topic.

 

But there are things that you can do as a manager. For example, you might want to set up an informal get-together. You could nominate a driver to be a welfare rep. With groups where you’ve got colleagues or peers, that could be very effective.

 

Of course, not everyone is going to up – and again, that’s fine. But if you allow the drivers the time to actually talk to each other, rather than the usual banter, there’s a chance that they’ll build a different culture within the company, and so it becomes easier to talk about this sort of thing.

 

It’s important to reassure drivers that there’s no judgment or bias – there’s an inherent suspicion sometimes about these actions, but it’s really important to keep them on side. So, avoid talking about things like disciplinary process, or general process, because that just falls into the trap of being a manager. In this case, you want to take a step back and let them have the freedom to talk. But it’s really important to remember that it’s not about prying into somebody’s life – it’s about offering non-judgmental support, if it’s wanted. If it’s not wanted, then leave it. But it’s important to open that up.

 

Simon: And part of that conversation needs to be to understand whether there’s anything the company or the work environment is doing that is potentially causing that distraction. I can understand why some drivers wouldn’t want to talk about personal issues going on at home, but if it’s relating to an issue that stems from something at work, then it’s incumbent upon the employer to do their best to find out what that is.

 

James: Absolutely. I think it’s important to take it on a case-by-case basis. You have to react to the issue, but also provide something that makes an impact. As a manager, you can determine quite quickly whether something is a work-related issue, or if there’s more to it. Often, if it’s a work-related issue, then drivers would generally say, “look, I’m having this issue with a certain task” or, “I want more training on this”. When it’s a private issue, generally speaking, they won’t.

 

But don’t assume it’s right to ask them what they need – because they might have no idea. As a manager, if you ask a driver what they need on a personal or private issue, it sort of puts the pressure back on them, and very often drivers might close up and not feel free enough to talk about that sort of thing.

 

That’s why it’s a difficult balancing act – but it is possible. Going back to what I was saying a moment ago about having a peer or colleague group, that can make a real difference. But there are also things like resources that are freely available. So, DfBB’s own CALM Driver Programme, for example. There are plenty of resources there for people – and it’s important to take stock of that, and use what you’ve got out there.

 

Simon: Once that conversation’s started then – if a driver does open up and admit that they’re struggling – what are the best ways that an employer could support them. Are there any resources available to help employers with that?

 

James: I suppose, in addition to things like the CALM Driver Programme, there are lots of different resources available. You may want to look at how you deal with internal policies, for example. So, when you’re writing a policy, try to avoid dictating – and instead, explain what the company will do to support the necessary actions. That can have an enormous effect.

 

If you have shared responsibility within a policy, it makes a huge difference. It tends to stick in the minds of drivers more when they understand what they have to do, but also what the company will commit to do in relation to that process. That can be a big win, because time and time again, companies fall into the trap of writing chapter and verse with safe systems of working, policies, and procedures. It can be detrimental to the end user.

 

Don’t just hand a pack of documents to drivers just to wade through – very often that’s the case on induction. Instead, look at how you’re communicating. Maybe reduce the number of words you use within policies. Don’t write policies for health and safety managers or insurance companies. Instead, write them on the topics that drivers connect with.

 

Something else to be aware of – and it goes back to what I was saying about cognitive tunnelling – is something called mental modelling. This is a technique which sounds complex but it’s quite basic. What it means is that you can develop behaviours, improve performance, and enhance safety standards, by adopting mental modelling. There are generally four good examples of that.

 

Number 1 – on your way to work, envisage the day. Think about what you’ll be doing ahead of time.

 

Number 2 – during that journey, describe to yourself what you’re seeing, and what it means. Talk out loud about what you’re seeing – that helps to secure or cement hazards in your mind.

 

Number 3 – find other people to hear your experiences and talk about them. Discuss them.

 

Number 4 – force yourself to try and anticipate what is going to happen next. You’ve got to be predictive.

 

Then you’ll notice what goes unmentioned or unnoticed – not just in the car or van or truck, but also in everyday working life. That can act as a warning sign, so that’s quite a useful technique.

 

Simon: Yes. You mentioned CALM earlier on, and we did some work with CALM a couple of years ago and created what we call the CALM Driver Toolkit, which was a series of resources to go in the vehicle including a leaflet, stickers… basically information to point them in the right direction for helplines or web resources.

 

Because if there’s a driver in a vehicle, quite often they’re a lone worker, and if they’re not going to put their hand up and offer to talk about it, you’ve got to put the information where they’re going to have access to it when they really need it – which is probably when they’re on their own in the vehicle. I’ll put a link to that in the show notes as well – that was a really good pack, it’s a physical pack that we don’t charge for and can just go in the vehicles to support the drivers.

 

So, finishing up on that point about creating a good culture, where it becomes easier for drivers to speak up. There are all sorts of things that employers can do, and information that they can put out – we all know that we should eat better, and exercise more, and that can help some of these issues.

 

What are the key points around creating a culture where we can help minimise some of this, from the employer’s side of things and minimise some of the way these distractions manifest themselves with drivers? At least encouraging them to make some changes might minimise the effects – are there easy ways that employers can do that?

 

James: Yeah. Factoring in issues from home, there’s a limit on what you can do. But also, in a way, you can provide information that helps them to make their own decisions. If you have a toolbox talk, or training exercise, where you highlight the impact of what happens at home to what happens out on the road, that could be a huge thing.

 

Very often we focus on driving for work – we don’t focus on just driving, and actually just the commute to work. It’s a real missed opportunity. If you want to get the message across, and you don’t necessarily want to tap into, or pry into, a driver’s life at home, there are things you can do – just to let them know the impact that that has on their working life. Start to make the connection, start to put it all together for them.

 

When they actually get to work, there are more things that you can do than just having the discussion group, for example. You can tap into plenty of resources. But the fundamentals need to be in place – and the fundamentals are that you don’t have office staff that call drivers unnecessarily. You minimise the number of calls that a driver might have. You encourage drivers to put their phone in the glovebox. These are very well known, but these are quite simple ways of limiting the amount of distraction. Because it’s not just about that conversation that might create emotion – it’s also about the risk of the distraction out on the road.

 

Fatigue is a big issue – there are things that you can do to look at driver scheduling. Driver routes. How much rest they’re getting – but maybe focus on the quality of rest that they get at home. And again, it’s not just about instructing them on how to sleep – that would be nonsense. But what you can do is explain the value of sleep, and the right mattress and all of that. It’s just recommendations. And all of that can really help a driver to understand the impact and make those connections.

 

Simon: That’s excellent advice. Before we started recording this, James, you mentioned a toolbox talk that you’ve created to help employers with these issues. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that?

 

James: Yes sure. We decided to tackle this head-on. We produced a toolbox talk called ‘From Home to Roam’. It’s a toolbox talk that does exactly that – it makes the connection between home life and a drivers’ ability out on the road. As an exclusive to DfBB, we’re looking to make that free for any podcast listeners – we’re going to put up a code. The toolbox talk will be available on EasyFleetr.com, and hopefully, you can see what we’re trying to achieve.

 

It's a useful toolbox talk – about 35 minutes – about measures that can make a big difference to a driver’s life.

 

Simon: Fantastic. I really appreciate you extending that offer to the DfBB community James – thank you for that. I will put links to that in the show notes, along with some of the resources that we’ve mentioned, plus some other resources that we’ve got around fitness to drive, fatigue, and driver wellbeing – some of the issues that we’ve discussed today.

 

Also, I’ll point people as to how they can connect with you, James, on LinkedIn, Transformotion and EasyFleetr websites as well. If you’d like to get in touch with James, feel free – the links will be in the show notes.

 

James, thank you very much – really enjoyed that. A very interesting topic to discuss with you.

 

James: It’s been a real pleasure Simon.

Diabetes - a hidden epidemic for Driver Managers?

Welcome to Let's Talk Fleet Risk, a podcast for those who manage drivers and vehicles, and want to reduce road risk in their organisation. In this episode, I'm talking to Kate Walker, Managing Director of the Diabetes Safety Organisation.

We'll be discussing:

• Why Driver Safety Managers need to understand the hidden epidemic that is diabetes.
• When is diabetes a DVLA notifiable condition?
• The potential consequences of a typical on-the-road diet, enabling conversations with employees around driving with diabetes.
• Good practice for managing diabetes risk, and some resources to help.

 

Hello everyone and welcome to this edition of Let's Talk Fleet Risk. This quarter we're looking at various aspects of fitness to drive, and my guest today is Kate Walker, who is Managing Director of the Diabetes Safety Organisation.

Welcome to the podcast Kate.

 

Kate: Thanks for having me today, Simon.

Simon: Kate your website says that diabetes is a hidden epidemic leaving all companies exposed to increased absenteeism, increased risk of accidents, and therefore increased risk of company liability, so, why is that? And why does somebody who manages the safety of people who drive for work need to listen to this podcast?

 

Kate: I think it’s really important to address this epidemic of diabetes. I think it's hidden in several ways, so I don't think people necessarily living with it understand the complexity of it. And also, I think it's hidden in the workplace.

There's actually one in 12 in the working population living with diabetes and we've just hit 5 million people in the UK. And we can touch on some of the stats in a minute but in terms of your question around why, why is this important for a manager… I think we need to understand that diabetes is a known foreseeable risk in the workplace. And there is legislation that needs to be followed, which again, is often not understood – people think diabetes and they think medical, GPs. And I think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done around bringing this to light and removing the stigma, and also understanding the implications in the workplace.

We know that there are 5 million people with the condition. A further 12.6 million in the UK have pre-diabetes. So, these numbers are significant. And if people are unmanaged, time off of work increases, there is an increased risk of accidents from those who are undiagnosed, or those who are not necessarily managing it as well – we know it’s not always easy to get GP appointments, or the time and support that may be needed for people living with diabetes. And there's also the experience we have when we're going to companies – it's hard for people to come forward and share, because of the unknown. Are they going to lose their job? Is their job still safe? What are the requirements? You know, it’s either let's not get diagnosed and we never have to address it, or let's hide away from it – and that poses a risk in so many different ways. As an employer as well – and I think for any safety managers –there's a real need to understand the difference between the two types of diabetes, which we’ll come on to.

The right conversation needs to be had, also to understand that the Health and Safety at Work Act does come in here, and people, need to make sure they are managing this risk. People living with diabetes have to also comply with DVLA regulations, and they fit under the Equality Act because, more often than not, diabetes would be a disability. So, for all of those reasons, I think we really need to start a conversation around diabetes across the industry to make our roads safer and to help anyone who is living with it to feel safe to come forward, and really be able to share and understand that it's okay and safe to do so.

 

Simon: Before we started this discussion, I went on the DVLA's website just to see what they had to say about diabetes and notifiable conditions. And it said that if you have diabetes and you manage it with diet, it's not notifiable. But if you do need insulin, it is notifiable.

So am I right in thinking that if you're treating with insulin, it's type one, if you're treating with diet, it's type two. And if so, what's the difference? And I guess, how do you come to have diabetes?

 

Kate: So no, it's not only type one on insulin. And again, this question alone, I think really raises a good question of how can we have the right conversation in the workplace if we don't understand diabetes and the two variations here?

So, type one people living with diabetes often are frustrated. So, type one diabetes is an autoimmune disease – at some point, their body had a reaction and now their pancreas, which produces insulin, no longer works. And of the 5 million, only 4% - about 400,000 – are living with type one diabetes. Predominantly everybody else is living with type two. In my experience, when we work with people with type one diabetes, they find it frustrating that they are bundled into the same category, and they’re not understood. You’ll often see them now with sensors on their arms, and they have to manage their diabetes throughout the day – so any time they eat, they have to put the right insulin in. They’re effectively self-regulating their own blood sugar levels, which we – myself, as someone not living with diabetes – take for granted; my blood sugars are managed for me. They’re having to deal with it – it’s effectively like another job. Even temperature can cause insulin to do something. As a condition, it’s a lot of work for someone living with it.

On the other side, we've got people living with type 2 – so that's 95 % of the 5 million – and 600 ,000 people with type 2 diabetes are also on insulin. Now, the condition is different. So, for type 2 diabetes, it's often progressive. The easiest analogy – if we use vehicles – is if I was driving down to London from Birmingham in first gear, we wouldn’t be surprised if my car engine was smoking. I hadn’t changed gears. If I turn around, come back, change gears, hopefully I’m in no further trouble. If I keep driving at first, at some point the engine will smoke and it will breakdown.

The pancreas, from the perspective of living with type two diabetes is very similar. So, if we look after our body, it will work effectively. Over time, if we keep driving in first or pushing too much in – and that could be stress, it could be other medical conditions, it could be the choices of foods, lifestyle… there's many factors that contribute to type two. But if it all pushes on that organ too often, at some point we get the smoke, the warning signs of diabetes, pre-diabetes. And if we ignore that, it turns into type two diabetes.

Sadly, it’s a progressive disease – caught early it can be managed on food and lifestyle choices. But left, or not well-managed, it can need medication from different strengths of tablets – some of them strong, and reportable to the DVLA – right up to insulin. So, people living with type two diabetes who are on insulin, they don’t become type one – they are type two on insulin. As I said, there are 600,000 in the UK.

So, when we look at insulin, often people with type one diabetes have had it since they were young, and they get a lot of support. Often people with type two diabetes on insulin are not as well educated because there’s not as much support for them. So, I think it’s another place, in the workplace, to help educate and support people living with both types of diabetes on insulin. And under DVLA regulations, they have to test every 2 hours whilst driving on insulin to ensure the blood levels are correct – safely – for the prevention of any accidents happening due to their blood sugar levels dropping too quickly and having a hype.

So, if we can have managers and people inside companies understanding the difference, understanding the requirements of people, and the differences that they're living with, it really allows it to become safer – and there are no blanket bans in the UK. So again, anyone can drive as long as their blood sugars are well managed and they're looking after themselves.

 

Simon: Well, what would be typical symptoms of someone who is pre-diabetic?

 

Kate: Classic symptoms of pre-diabetes is over-thirsty. Changing sexual excitement. Going to the toilet regularly. Getting too hot. The difficulty – which is why we say that it’s hidden – is they’re very subtle symptoms. Over-fatigued, can feel more stressed than normal… they’re all symptoms we could put down to a busy day, or work, or drinking too much. Diabetes UK have a Know Your Risk Score – you can do some questions and check it out and I absolutely recommend it. The sooner we catch the pre-diabetes, or the edge of diabetes, it’s reversable for many – not all – and actually, it prevents the complications and the damage that occurs, which are really the major problems that come with diabetes down the line. So, there are some good solutions to it but caught early it can make a massive difference.

 

Simon: You said previously that diet was one of the possible contributory factors, and a lot of the drivers that are managed by the audience on the call today… a lot of those drivers are on the road all day and they rely on cafes petrol stations, motorway service stations, etcetera for their daily nutrition, which obviously isn't great. What are the likely consequences of that?

 

Kate: Yeah, I think this is an industry that is faced with some additional challenges. We've got to look at what impacts diabetes. Stress does, as we've said, nutrition does, movement does. So, can we move a little bit more? Well, that's let’s have a little walk around whilst we're in those cafes and petrol stations just a little bit longer.

The food choices are interesting. We all know what it's like to stop at a cafe, but are there better choices? I think we live in a really interesting time where we're seeing huge amounts of sugar in things, or chemical sugars, and processed foods. My question always is, could they take something? Maybe, maybe not. If we do go to a café or petrol station, what is the better option? Not the best, necessarily, but what would be better? Is there a cottage pie and vegetables, over a burger and chips – because there’s less starch, more nourishment. That would make a difference. I think we’ve forgotten that a small amount over time will make a difference. And I think it’s about going in and making a better, informed choice – instead of the big grab bags, can we just have a normal bag of crisps. If that’s 5 days a week, by the end of the year, it’s a significantly smaller amount of food eaten. That could be the catalyst to be enough not to go into diabetes.

 

Simon: Absolutely, it's so easy to go for those bigger portions because they're very good at marketing it, aren't they?

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The Driving for Better Business Van Driver Toolkit contains guidance on combating a range of other fit-to-drive challenges, including fatigue and driver impairment. There's a range of fact sheets and pre-recorded toolbox talks that are all free to access. The web address is in the show notes.

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Simon: Your website says that 1 million people don't know they have the condition. So, how do you start a discussion around diabetes? Because I imagine there's some stigma felt by people who have diabetes about discussing it. And how do we create a culture where that stigma is minimized, and it allows that discussion to take place?

 

Kate: Yeah absolutely, and it's a big part of the work we do. I think it's frightening to think there's 1 million people that are undiagnosed, and for me, before we kind of get on how do we do this, and stigma, why it concerns me is that the longer we leave diabetes unmanaged our blood sugars get higher. So, if we imagined a glass of sugary water and dropped a dull coin in over time it would shine the coin. Sadly, as we are not robots, internally, what actually happens is it starts to rot us inside. So that’s why we get damage to the nerves in the feet – people can end up with lack of sensation in their feet which, in this industry, is a scary concept.

It damages eyes – diabetes is the leading cause of blindness in the working population. And also, nerves, particularly for men around your manhood and erectile disfunction. 75% of men who have diabetes get erectile disfunction at some point.

So, when we understand the risks, it starts to beg the question – how do we help people to think it’s safe to go and get tested. And this industry is very challenging because we have to recognise as a driver – if they're the key breadwinner at home and they are nervous they may lose a job, that's quite a frightening concept. It's easier to bury their head and ignore it, and we know that's often done.

So how do we start this, as you say, this conversation? And I do think there's a part where employers can start to say, look, here's a sign of symptoms, how do we start sharing this with you – we're not trying to remove from the company. Actually, we're trying to help you stay well and safer and keep you in employment for longer.

Because the complications from diabetes are what cause people to have to quit their jobs – we have 190 amputations a week in the UK from diabetes from the toe upwards. So, if we can capture this early, we can give good quality information and make people realise it is safe to come forward and share, there is no stigma… and it’s not always because of what you’ve eaten, it’s not always poor choices. There could be 1001 reasons why your body is not able to produce, or do enough work with, insulin. If we can get this message across well, and that small changes will make a difference and you don’t have to stop everything – we could at least have a sensible conversation, like the one that we've seen with mental health, people do want to come forward, people do want to share, but we need to provide that space for that conversation to take place where it's not a blame and it's not I'm not good enough, it's actually hey, we all don't pick the best foods. My daughter loves Haribo’s, it's my weak spot, they're often in the house, you know, one for her, two for me when I make packed lunches. None of us are innocent in this, we all know this world, so how do we start to provide that opening and say let's talk together and how do we start to make a small change, so people feel safe to come forward.

 

Simon: If we manage to have that discussion and a member of staff feels able to come forward and admit that they're diabetic, how would you expect an employer to deal with that member of staff? What would be good practice for managing that diabetes risk?

 

Kate: Yeah, great question. I think firstly, from a management perspective, it's great if they had the education around the different types of diabetes – and have a general understanding themselves, so that conversation can be well-managed and the person living with diabetes can feel heard and supported, and they’re not having to do all the education for the manager.

When we work with people living with diabetes, we hear all the time, oh, I have to tell them everything, they didn’t know anything. So, the starting place for a manager is that there is some understanding of diabetes – both type one and type two, so they can provide a safe place and an effective place. Then, it’s about asking the individual what they need – because everyone’s diabetes is different, even within type one and type two, there’s differences within that, what medicines they use, are they on medicines, what do they need… so a real open conversation to find out what that individual needs is a great starting point.

And then, if they need to take time to take blood tests, if they need somewhere to keep their insulin cool, particularly in the summer, these are all important things. Have they got somewhere on-site or with them that they’ve got their sugar and glucose shots, in case they have a hypo. Do other people need to know around them, are they happy for that to happen. These small things will make a significant difference. Do first aiders around know how to deal with diabetes and hypos? I think with all stuff, is the right risk assessment policy in place to ensure everyone understands this in the workplace to make it safe.

They’re quite small adjustments, paperwork and the background, and then small adjustments – and also ensuring they can get to medical appointments to keep them healthy and well and to keep them in work.

 

Simon: Can you just explain a little bit about what a hypo is, what that looks like?

 

Kate: Absolutely. So, a hypo is when blood sugar levels go too low. So, for us all our blood sugars vary up and down throughout the day as we need to do things. When somebody is living with diabetes, it is more often than not the medicine – specifically insulin and one of the others that is quite strong – that pull blood sugars back down to keep everything nice and safe, and keep our bloods in the nice range.

If the right food hasn’t gone in, or there’s a different stress – a lot of other factors could contribute – but something happens and the blood sugar goes below 4, generally, people will present with what is known as low blood sugar – a hypo, or hypo-glycaemic episode. And they can present very differently. Somebody might act as if drunk, they might pass out, they can go quiet and slump in a corner, they might start being unclear with their speaking, over-sweating. And their bloods are going dangerously low. And at that point, they need to be given sugar. Not in the form of chocolate as it has too much fat, but like a glucose shot, a liquid shot, to get their sugars back up and to stabilise them there.

That’s why we believe it’s really important that people around do understand if somebody has diabetes – if they’re willing to have that information shared – so they can be supported and helped. And if left untreated, it can be very serious and even go into a coma, and worse potentially.

 

Simon: Are there any common failings, around how employers manage diabetes, and how would that affect them from a duty of care perspective to those employees?

 

Kate: I think the largest thing that we see as we go into companies and work with organisations is we see very little understanding of diabetes. So, almost the first failing is that it's not recognised to have any impact in the workplace. It is seen as just purely medical, it's s medical condition. Organisations often have, if they're big, occupational health. If someone has chosen to come forward, then they may well be under occupational health and have what we've talked about already in place.

The challenge is that we know 1 in 12 in the workforce have diabetes, and we know most organisations haven’t got that sort of number on their books. So, the biggest failing is understanding that they’re in the workplace and providing a culture or environment where they are free to come forward and share that safely. I think it’s the biggest failing. If we’re unfortunate enough for an event to happen where something serious or fatal happens, someone having a diabetic hypo, post-event, they will be asked what have you done that is reasonable and practicable to ensure that everything was safe? And if they said it was due to diabetes, what have you got in place? Very few organisations currently would be able to say we provide this education, the opportunity for them to come forward, we give this space. Many would say, well, they didn’t tell us.

There’s a grey area in this part, because under the Equality Act, diabetes is more often than not a disability. There is definitely a grey area, but it would be still questioned – what had you done to give them the opportunity to come forward and speak about this? So, I think one of the biggest failings is just a lack of recognizing that diabetes is a known and foreseeable risk, and putting in place awareness and education in the workplace so people can come forward. And then just ensuring that they’ve got the policies and risk assessments that would then follow on from that.

 

Simon: The obvious question after that is what resources are available that can help employers understand the issue? And are there any things that they can share with their drivers as well?

 

Kate: Absolutely. I mean, there's some great resources out there. Diabetes UK have a risk assessment and lots of information. We have a charity arm called Cuppa Squad – it's free to access for anyone living with diabetes to join support groups because it's not always easy to live with diabetes.

From an employer's point of view, there is less available. From ourselves, we provide a lot of work around awareness and education. And then it’s simple stuff, like campaigns that can be done to bring awareness about symptoms, about health choices… there are resources available. There aren’t as many directed purely at the workplace, around the legal side, but we can help with that. And I know the work you do around policies and risk assessments will all come together and work as a collective for an employer.

And one of the things we spoke about earlier was the One Less campaign, which we provide for free for any organisation, around if you had just one less spoonful of sugar in a coffee, or tea, or hot chocolate – one less, six cups a day, it’s a whole kilogram bag less of sugar a month, and by the end of the year that’s 12 bags of sugar. If you’re pre-diabetic and took out 12kg of sugar, that could be the saving grace. And suddenly, over a couple of weeks, you get used to not having it. So, we have a whole campaign that can be put into place, and these small changes will really make a difference – so it’s free if anyone does want these resources.

And it’s about opening up those conversations in companies, bringing it to light and then providing simple steps for those who choose to take them.

 

Simon: I think that's fantastic. Thank you very much, Kate. I was staggered at the number of people who had diabetes, I had no idea the issue was that big. So, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge on what I find is a fascinating subject and I think all of our audience will think that as well.

We've got all the resources that we've spoken about, I'll put links in the show notes so people who want to make contact with you and Diabetes Safety Organisation can find out where to contact you, and also that campaign you just spoke about the One Less campaign and Diabetes UK, I'll put links to all of those in the show notes. So, Kate, thank you so much for your time, it was a fascinating discussion.

 

Kate: Thank you and thank you for asking me on.

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems - what driver managers need to know

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

 

In this episode I’m talking to Nick Reed, Founder of Reed Mobility and Chief Road Safety Adviser to National Highways about the active vehicle safety technologies known as Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. We’ll be discussing:

 

• How the latest driver assistance technology is keeping drivers safer
• Why fleet managers need to pay attention to vehicle safety ratings
• How telematics systems fit in to the vehicle safety technology suite
• Whether drivers could struggle with any of this technology
• The issue of maintaining driver concentration when these systems are doing some of the driving
• And finally, a quick look at where we are now with fully self-driving vehicles.

Tyre Safety Month - EV Vehicles, illegal tyres and other challenges

Show notes: Stuart Lovatt, Chair of Tyresafe

This is the second instalment of our 2-part podcast for Tyre Safety Month, where I chat to Stuart Lovatt, Chair of the road safety charity, TyreSafe.

In the previous episode we looked at:
· The number of tyre-related incidents and their consequences.
· The results of this year’s survey looking at the legality of tyres at the
point of replacement
· The specific tyre safety issues businesses need to look at for each
vehicle type including trucks and vans.

In this episode we continue that, looking at company cars and grey fleet, including the emerging concern regarding tyre safety on electric vehicles, and the safety implications of grey fleet drivers opting for part-worn second-hand replacement tyres to save money. We also discuss the key messages and resources that are part of this October’s Tyre Safety Month campaign.

Tyre Safety - the hidden impact on fleet managers

Show notes: Stuart Lovatt, Chair of Tyresafe

Welcome to let’s talk fleet risk – a podcast for those who manage drivers andvehicles and want to reduce road risk in their organisation. I’m Simon Turner, Campaign Manager for Driving for Better Business, and in this episode I’m talking to Stuart Lovatt, Chair of the road safety charity, TyreSafe. In a wide-ranging chat, we discussed:

The number of tyre-related incidents and their consequences.
The results of this year’s survey looking at the legality of tyres at the
point of replacement
The specific tyre safety issues businesses need to look for each
vehicle type including trucks, vans, company cars and grey fleets.
We talk about specific emerging issues around tyre safety for electric
vehicles.
The impact of poor tyre-management on the bottom line
This year’s Tyre Safety Month campaign and free resources you can
share with your drivers.

Fleet Safety Culture - leading or just managing?

Fleet safety culture.

Welcome to Let's Talk Fleet Risk – a podcast for those who manage drivers and vehicles and want to reduce road risk in their organisation. In this episode, I'm talking to Alison Moriarty about leadership and road risk management.

We’ll be discussing the difference between leading and managing; how to get buy in from senior leaders; the impact leadership has on safety culture; the importance of managing reputational risk; and how all of this can impact the organisation’s financial performance.

Fleet Accreditation - part of your risk management strategy?

Geraint Davies is the new concession director for FORS, the UK's leading fleet accreditation scheme. Established 15 years ago, FORS now boasts almost 5000 accredited operators who, together, operate over 90,000 vehicles. FORS are Driving for Better Business partners and this month's podcast offers insight into Geraint's breadth of experience across many areas of driver and vehicle management, and how accreditation can support fleet operators. 

 

Simon: Hello and welcome to this edition of Let's Talk Fleet Risk, a podcast for those who manage drivers and their vehicles and want to reduce road risk in their organisation.

 

Welcome to Let's Talk Fleet Risk. My guest for this episode of the podcast is Geraint Davis, who is the new concession director for FORS, the UK's leading fleet accreditation scheme. Established 15 years ago, it now boasts almost 5000 accredited operators who, together, operate over 90,000 vehicles.

 

Welcome to the podcast Geraint. So perhaps you could start by just telling us a little bit about what your role involves and what you're looking to achieve with FORS?

 

Geraint: It’s great to have the opportunity to join you today. Driving for Better Business is an initiative we at FORS fully support, and in my role as Concession Director I’m really looking forward to strengthening our ties with you. So, what does my role involve? Well, I will be leading the FORS team through the day to day of running the scheme, helping to develop a standard, and liaising with key stakeholders via the trade associations Logistics UK, RHA, and others; local authorities, politicians or the enforcement bodies. The DVSA, the Office of the Traffic Commissioner and such like along the way. I'm personally very passionate about FORS and the difference it brings for specifiers, our operators and as well the wider community.

 

So really, I'm looking forward to developing FORS as a leading quality assurance scheme, improving the value for our accredited operators and specifiers and also growing into new sectors where we can. In my previous roles at the coalface of the road freight sector. I have taken a business through FORS accreditation, I've worked through audits – I’ve been a FORS auditor and personally delivered FORS training. I know the benefits FORS can bring to an organisation when it comes to improving safety and efficiency, and essentially – and crucially – winning more business.

 

Simon: That’s a really broad role, and you alluded to some of the experience you've got over the last few years which we’ll come onto as we go through the podcast, because some of those I think are really interesting and relevant.

 

So, you've only been with FORS for a few weeks. You mentioned about your previous role as a FORS accredited operator – so you were Chief Operating Officer for John Raymond Transport, and while you were there you led the risk management strategy for over 22 years, wasn't it? So, I just wanted to sort of ask you what were the biggest challenges you faced when you when you started managing driver and fleet risk?

 

Geraint: Where do you start? John Raymond Transport has over 100 trucks and 200 trailers and multiple depots - over 150 employees. As COO my key responsibility is to make it work every day while delivering value for our customers and profitability.

 

While doing all this we also had to make sure we were operating to the highest standards of roadworthiness and complaints across all aspects of transport, business, and of course employment legislation – that's nothing new. These are challenges that every fleet operator faces every day, and you need systems and processes in place to give you and your team the confidence that it is a well-run business. That's easier said than done of course, and to be successful requires teamwork, and everybody pulling in the same direction with a set of common goals; one vision, if you will.

 

Communication is key, it’s the most important thing in my leadership toolbox. I've always been good at talking – that's what everybody says! And it’s developing the right framework and support, and also training. At John Raymond Transport, I delivered the driver CPC training myself. There won’t be many COO’s that do that, but it kept me close to the business, and gave me direct communication channels to the drivers – that pays dividends when you try to develop a winning culture in an organisation and take everybody on the journey with you.

 

Simon: Yes, it certainly does. 22 years you were there – that’s a very long time to be managing risk for one operator, so I was wondering what changes you saw over that time – in how you manage risk, and how the challenges evolved.

 

Geraint: Well, one of the most exciting things about the fleet sector is the constant state of change – be it technical improvements, legislation, or external impacts. During my time at John Raymond Transport, I worked through the stock market crash, the banking crisis, the credit crunch, and of course the pandemic – and now the cost of living crisis, and everything that that brings. All of these things brought about a massive change to the sector.

 

On a technical front, vehicle development has been dramatic. When I first started out, we had paper tachograph discs. I remember driving a Seddon Atkinson 401, and now we've got the Volvo I-Shift shift, and automated manual gearboxes, all sorts of things. Improving safety for vulnerable road users – that's been huge. We’ve seen big improvements in greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. And we witnessed digitisation in the sector – whether it be digital tachographs, telematics, tracking. There’s a tremendous number of things available to operators, which at best were patchy when I first joined industry.

 

Data is the new oil. It needs to be refined in order to be used and be useful. The underlying lesson is you need to be flexible and adaptable to survive. As an operator in the sector, you need the tools and support to help you navigate your way through these changes. This is one of the key reasons why I recommended the FORS accreditation at John Raymond Transport 15 years ago. FORS has been right beside me, and we've evolved as a business, and as the industry has changed so has FORS. When I look forward to at the changes still to come, the biggest impact will come from decarbonisation of commercial vehicles. It’s on the horizon now. This is going to transform how fleets operate and I'm excited about how the next developments in batteries, electric or hydrogen vehicles, or alternative fuels, and how we’re going to adapt and bring them into fleets.

 

 

Simon: So, you mentioned that you brought FORS into John Raymond Transport 15 years ago. Now, we’re looking currently at leadership and business benefits as part of our campaign messaging. And presumably the FORS framework helped improve the way you were managing, and that's what led to some of the business benefits you saw. We recently published a case study that you helped us put together for John Raymond Transport which showed up reduction in incidents of over 23% year on year. But not only that – it showed a reduction in driver penalties by about 1/3, as well as improvements in fuel use and CO2 emissions. That's clearly very important to you as it demonstrates the value of the work that you've done – but I was wondering how those kinds of results were valued by the rest of the board. Did you have the support from the rest of the management team to do what you needed to do, and did they value what came out of it?

 

Geraint: Absolutely – from the board and the wider group. For an organisation to be successful you’ve got to get everybody on board, from the boardroom to the drivers rest area, and of course the technicians and everybody involved in the business. Vehicle safety and compliance can’t sit in a back corner outside the main performance indicators of the business, and I was always very appreciative that John’ Raymond Transport recognised that.

 

Ensuring you have a well-run business is obviously crucial to the financial performance of the organisation, which is a key consideration for the board. Improvements you mentioned around reduction in incidents and driver penalties are also important indicators for the underlying health of the business. And of course, they make a direct correlation with the bottom line.

 

Simon: You recently left John Raymond Transport and you've now taken up the role of Concession Director, which is a role with Sopra Steria, who now run the FORS programme. Sopra Steria only took over FORS at the beginning of last year, 2022, so perhaps tell us a little bit about what's happened with FORS since Sopra Steria took over, and how your role is going to fit into that. What are your objectives and aspirations for the FORS programme going forward?

 

Geraint: Well, it's a really great honour for me to take up this role. I know how important FORS can be for a business, as I’ve seen it from the other side, of course. Sopra Steria took over the administration of the scheme in January last year and it's been an exciting year of transition – keeping the service firing on all cylinders, while putting up the building blocks in place for future growth and development. We've trained over 4600 managers, seen over 130,000 e-learning courses taken, and we’ve funded over 1600 driver training courses, and delivered 265 practitioner courses - I think those are some great numbers and it's definitely something to build on.

 

And just a word on FORS practitioners – I’m one of them – they're a very important part of the FORS family. These people have a deep knowledge and understanding of the benefits of FORS, at a level equivalent to a master’s graduate. We’ll be looking to work even closer with our practitioners in future, and that's a key goal of mine.

 

Simon: Your past experience that we spoke about earlier - Chief Operating Officer and Transport Manager – you've also been Chair of Logistics UK's Road Freight Council. You've been a director of the RHA – that's obviously a great help. You've also been a FORS auditor and a Driver Trainer. This must be a fairly unique breadth of experience – so what kind of insight does all of that experience give you as you look to develop FORS and engage with fleet managers?

 

Geraint: What operators want… what operators need… I always think about that Mel Gibson film, What Women Want, where Mel Gibson has a terrible accident, gets electrocuted and can suddenly read the minds of women.

 

Well, I like to think we can get into the minds of operators, and we know what operators want now, and we’re much more aligned with that. My previous role at an operational level with John Raymond Transport, as a member and chair of the Logistics UK Road Freight Council, UK Road Freight Council at Westminster, and more recently, Director of the Road Haulage Association will certainly be a benefit as we move towards the future.

 

Simon: It was a very good film, and I think that is a good analogy for the sort of benefits that you can bring to FORS, so that’s really good. Now, there's obviously a number of audited accreditation schemes out there for fleet operators. FORS is probably the most well-known of those. Just being a bit agnostic about schemes for now, why should fleet operators consider registering with an accreditation scheme? What does it bring to the fleet operator?

 

Geraint: Well, for me, FORS has always been the benchmark for the fleet and transport sector, and this remains the case really. I certainly don't think there's an equivalent scheme offering anywhere near the breadth of the offering that FORS does at a holistic level. We’ve got nearly 5000 accredited operators as a testament to that. I think the vast majority of people in transport want to be known for running a good tight ship, and I think people want to work for those types of businesses.

 

On top of that, of course, customers want to work with transport suppliers they can trust. A trusted supply chain: that’s what FORS accreditation offers. I think of it as the equivalent of a Michelin star. The scores on the doors on the restaurant. It tells other people something about you that sets you apart. You’re a reputable business. You care about the people you employ and take the necessary precautions to look after other road users. It also says you're happy to have your systems and processes measured by a third-party auditor. It’s a mark of quality.

 

Simon: And these schemes typically go much further than the legislation or HSE guidance goes, as far as compliance for fleet operators. And I know FORS certainly goes a lot further than that – why is it so important to go further than what’s legally required?

 

Geraint: Right. I say that minimum standards get you a ticket to join the race. But if you really want to excel and demonstrate your capabilities to your clients, your competitors, and future employees then you need some means of differentiating yourself, which is where FORS delivers. It sets you apart from industry peers.

 

On another level, all of us involved in the industry have to strive to improve standards every day, and the FORS audit is one of the few measures where operators can demonstrate they're pushing the boundaries of safety, efficiency, and business performance.

 

Simon: Okay, so last question now. If a fleet passes their audit – and obviously many of your accredited fleets have done, you've got thousands who passed their audit – they've effectively been shown to meet the standard. But I'm wondering whether that's like a vehicle passing its MOT. Because, you know, the audit is a snapshot of the position on one day. So how does an accredited standard like FORS ensure compliance throughout the year, and what do you expect of your registered fleets to ensure that those high standards are continuously monitored and met?

 

Geraint: I think it's important that we see FORS as an accreditation… well, we see it as a process, or a business concept, rather than just a moment in time. It is a process. A culture. In passing the audit and gaining accreditation, a fleet operator has – in the first place – voluntarily put themselves forward for review. They said “yes, I think I meet the necessary standard in the way I run my fleet”. And then during the audit, they back that up with a demonstration that they have the systems, the processes, the data reporting in place to operate at the highest level, particularly if you achieve FORS Gold.

 

As I said legislative compliance is a minimum standard, and of course operators have to demonstrate that when they present the vehicles for MOT, annual test, or they’re stopped at the side of the road; a DVSA encounter, or it could be police CBU for a check. But have quality assurance processes in place within a FORS accredited operators’ business, and should – and I’ve emphasised should – ensure that these issues are picked up in the normal course of fleet operation.

 

Simon: Excellent answer – I think you're absolutely right. It's all about improving and strengthening culture because that's how you embed the improvement.

 

So, Geraint, thank you very much for sharing your insights with us today. I appreciate you sharing the case study as well that we put together on John Raymond Transport, and I will put a link to that in the show notes, and I wish you well for your new role in FORS. Geraint, thanks again for your time today.

 

_________________________

 

If you many drivers and their vehicles and you face similar issues to those discussed in this podcast, there are links in the show notes to some useful resources on the Driving for Better Business website – and these are all free to access. If you enjoyed the conversation, please don't forget to hit subscribe so you know when the next episode is released. And please also give us a 5-star review - this helps us to get up the podcast rankings and makes it more visible to others who might also find it useful. You can follow us – that's Driving for Better Business on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. And most importantly please help us to spread the word – all our resources are free for those who manage fleets, and their employees who drive for work. Thank you for listening to Let's Talk Fleet Risk, and I look forward to welcoming you to the next episode.

 

Brought to you by Driving for Better Business.

 

Driver behaviour - do you work with the data?

Simon: Hi everyone and welcome to Let’s Talk Fleet Risk. My guest for this episode of the podcast is Gareth Jones who is Group Fleet Compliance Manager at Speedy Asset Services.

Speedy Asset Services is the most recent good management case study that we’ve published on the Driving for Better Business website and I’m going to talk to Gareth about some of that in more detail.

Welcome to the Podcast Gareth.

 

Simon: Gareth – you’ve been with Speedy a long time so could you start with a summary of how you came to be involved in driver safety and fleet compliance, and what your role entails at Speedy?

 

Gareth: Thank you Simon. My journey into transport and fleet and driver training started many moons ago when I was employed with HM Armed Forces. From there, I spent a lot of time at DHL International in the driver training department. I first came to Speedy in 2007, as the Driver Trainer, and stayed there for just short of 7 years – covering all aspects of driver training, driver behaviour training, CPC which had just come in, accident management training, and various other training courses.

 

I then left the business for just over 18 months, and then came back to the business as the Group Fleet Compliance Manager, where my role then involved the HGV and van compliance, road risk management, and also duties around driver behaviours, and also dangerous goods safety advisor.

 

Simon: So, it’s obviously a very complex role - you’re running over 1,000 vehicles at Speedy but they’re not all just simple vans. You’ve got a lot of specialist vehicles, and open back vehicles where safe loading is critical. What are the key safety and compliance challenges you face in your day to day operations?

 

Gareth: The key challenges are that we must make sure that everybody who uses the road is always safe – that includes our drivers, but also all of the vulnerable road users at the same time. We all have a duty of care to make sure that everybody is safe at all times. So we ensure that our drivers go through a load security training programme for various types of vehicles.

 

So, we have a load security training programme for our tanker drivers. Some people wouldn’t class that as a load, but it is a load – it’s liquid. We have a load security course called The Light Side, for our transit drivers, and we have a heavy load security course for our heavy side drivers. We also have a load security course for our powered access side of the division which is run through the International Powered Access Federation. And all of that is captured on our internal training portal, so people can log in and see the progress, which has expiry dates and completion dates etcetera.

 

Simon: Safe and secure loading I think is one of the main challenges on the roads for most fleets – a lot of vehicles that get stopped by the DVSA and enforcement authorities are overweight, and it’s often not managed, so it’s really good to see you’ve got so many procedures and training programmes in place to make sure you’ve got all of that covered.

 

Gareth: Safety is at the heart of everything Speedy do – we have a simple rule: “fit one extra strap, just in case”.

 

Simon: Wise words. So, if we look at how you manage driver behaviour first, your case study shows a 13% reduction in collisions in 2022 over 2021 and a 90% recovery of uninsured loss. What have been the key factors in those achievements? What have you been doing?

 

Gareth: I think what you must first look at when you look at driver behaviour is that you need the data to understand where the driving behaviours and where you can have some wins. And with regard to wins, if you think about speeding – well if someone is speeding, what usually comes after that is a harsh braking event. So, if you look at the harsh braking and speeding events together as one event, you’ll get two actual subjects that you can cover off. And again, it’s simple things like speaking with the drivers, looking at the time of days these speeding events are happening, looking at the level of the speeding event, looking at the harsh braking event.

 

That’s not to say all harsh braking events are a bad thing – if someone has seen something like a ball or a child running out from the side of the road, and a harsh braking event happens, then that’s a good thing. It means they’ve seen it; they’ve observed it.

 

Talking to our drivers, and going through their driving behaviour… we send out monthly reports to our Chief Operating Officer, and that’s cascaded all the way down to the Depot Manager who then speaks to the drivers – and we manage that locally. With regard to our recovery from our uninsured losses, we have a fantastic Claims Manager who came into the business 4 or 5 years ago now, and we now actively manage our uninsured loss recovery – and she does it very well, to the point where she managed to get in excess of 5 figures back last year. I think it’s an area that sometimes some people forget to actually claim back.

 

Simon: It can make a huge difference to the bottom line and allow you to invest that in other areas.

 

So, we’re talking about speeding and harsh braking events, and all that data comes from systems like telematics and cameras. It’s clearly something that all vehicle operators should be looking at – I think with nearly all the really impressive case studies we share on our website, those improvements have been achieved with the help of that kind of technology but for operators who don’t use telematics and cameras, the impression is that there’ll be a lot of push back from drivers. How would you recommend fleet safety managers start that process of implementation?

 

Gareth: With telematics, we’ve had telematics in our vehicles since 2009 with relative very little pushback on the telematics as I remember back then. Like with any telematics data, it’s like a phone – it does go out of signal, and there are areas of the country where sometimes the telematics data does drop its signal, or you can get what’s called a Dual Speed Alert – so you could be driving on the A168 in North Yorkshire, or you could be driving on the A1. And if you’re driving on the A1, the speed limit is 70, but on the A168 it’s only 50. But because both roads run parallel you do sometimes get a discrepancy.

 

But unless businesses are willing to fit the telematics, you’re never truly going to understand driver behaviour to the point where you can better manage it. With regard to the cameras, we first installed cameras into our vehicles in early 2013 to be compliant with the new FORS & CLOCS regulations. Subsequently, we’ve now increased our cameras to having left, right, front, rear, load, and driver facing. We have then subsequently integrated our camera system company into our telematics system company, so that in the event of a harsh event, where the G-force has been triggered, it will automatically download the footage from 5 seconds before, during and after. That alert is then sent through to myself, the Fleet Director and the Claims Manager to view the footage.

 

Simon: You’ve got to be able to see the context around each of those events.

 

Gareth: Yeah, it gives us what we call our Golden Hour to deal with the third party if we’re deemed as liable, but also, we can better understand how the incident has taken place and interview the driver.

 

Simon: If we look at your vehicles now, I know you put a lot of investment into safety technology like cameras. Are you fitting other sort of other safety technology and why?

 

Gareth: Yeah, every day is a new day at Speedy and like I said earlier, safety is at the heart of everything we do, we’re always on the lookout for the next bit of technology. We’ve already decided to fit the new AI cameras, which supersede Sidescan. So these take away the need for Sidescan at the front of the vehicle, and so takes away the false alerts when it’s constantly buzzing off for rainwater, flies, cars, street furniture, rain, dust. The new AI cameras actually identify a hazard so that’s really good, we’ve fitted those.

 

We’ve recently installed a system called the FHOSS, the cycle safety system, where it illuminates an orange laser line down the left side of the vehicle, 1 metre away from the vehicle that’s only shown when the vehicle is turning left, on the indication. The more visibility you can give to cyclists and vulnerable road users of the vehicle’s intentions then it’s better for all road users. Like I said earlier, the safety of all road users is paramount to Speedy, not just ourselves.

 

 

Simon: I want to now get onto the key piece for me. We’re publishing this podcast and your case study as part of our current quarterly focus which is on leadership and business benefits. So I want to ask how engaged the board and the rest of your senior leadership team are when it comes to managing driver safety, and how supportive they are with any new initiatives you want to pursue.

 

Gareth: First and foremost, the Fleet Director Aaron Powell used to do my role, so the support from him comes naturally as he’s been where I’ve been. Our CEO, Dan Evans, has worked in various positions around the Speedy business, in sales, in the hire desk at the depot, he’s even been a drop driver at one point and I have great admiration for Dan that he supports everything that myself, Aaron and the fleet team do – and it’s his words that safety is at the heart of everything Speedy do.

 

Simon: I know you’re very proud of the fact that Speedy’s whole fleet has been accredited to FORS Gold for the 9 years now and that, you don’t just put drivers through the courses, you put managers through the courses too. Why is that important?

 

Gareth: If you’re going to manage a driver, there’s no point putting a driver through that course if you don’t understand the importance of the course and what it’s going to deliver itself. Having the knowledge of the objectives that the course will give to the driver is not only beneficial to all other road users, it’s beneficial to you that you manage drivers. And our managers do sometimes use our vehicles, so why not? Training is a free subject when it’s internal, and what better can you get than upskilling your skills in an area that, like I said earlier, can benefit all other road users?

 

Simon: And road safety is a shared responsibility, isn’t it?

 

Gareth: It’s a shared responsibility. Everybody needs to be safe. So, everybody does the FORS training, even some of our staff who just take a van home at night because there’s nowhere safe to leave the vehicle at night, they will do that training – the pedestrian safety, the cycle safety, and all other training that goes with it.

 

Simon: Very good. So for any fleet safety managers looking to better engage their board, success generally comes from being able to measure and monitor fleet activity properly so you can quantify risk and measure improvements & present it to the board. What are the key metrics you focus on? How do you monitor and report on that data?

 

Gareth: So we monitor our driver behaviour, we monitor tachograph infringement, and also, we have a Post-Accident Review Group meeting. So every month we gather all the information from our accidents, post-accident, we review all the data and look for the blame, whether driver, third party or 50-50. We then decide on a course of action for that, whether that be online driver training, classroom training, or a 1-to-1 driver training day, or if it needs to go to the next step in line with our policy.

 

It’s about having the data to look into driver behaviour – you can’t just sit down with a driver and say, “you were speeding”. You need to look at when and where he was speeding, how long he was speeding. And then, like I say, understand why he was speeding - but also explain the dangers of speeding as well.

 

Simon: How closely do you work with your insurers, for instance, on understanding the incident data and claims data?

 

Gareth: Very well, so we work really well with our insurer and it is through our insurer that we initially put our Post-Accident Review Group together. That includes myself – the Road Risk Manager, Aaron Powell – the Fleet Director, our Claims Manager… but it also includes somebody from HR, and somebody from Health and Safety, so there’s a clear, unbiased decision of which direction we should take the person involved in the accident in. That’s held monthly, and like I say, we get buy-in from our insurer because we actively look at each incident.

 

Every accident is an invitation to an incident or an accident. It’s up to you whether you turn up to it.

 

Simon: Very good. Some great lessons there for fleet managers and driver safety managers. Thanks for your time today, Gareth.

 

I’ll put links to both Speedy’s website and Gareth’s LinkedIn profile in the show notes, and also links to the case study we’ve just published.

 

Thanks everyone for listening.

 

-------------------------

 

Simon: If you manage drivers and their vehicles, and you face similar issues to those discussed in this podcast, there are links in the show notes to some useful resources on the Driving for Better Business website. And these are all free to access. If you enjoyed the conversation, please don't forget to hit subscribe - so you know when the next episode is released - and please also give us a 5 star review as this helps us to get up the podcast rankings and makes it more visible to others who might also find it useful. You can follow us - that's @DrivingforBetterBusiness on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and most importantly, please help us to spread the word. All our resources are free for those who manage fleets, and their employees who drive for work. Thank you for listening to Let's Talk Fleet Risk, and I look forward to welcoming you to the next episode.

 

 

Weblinks

https://www.speedyservices.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gareth-jones-62aab551/

 

Managing drivers & employer risk - how’s your fleet confidence?

 

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

 

Hi everyone, and welcome to Let’s Talk Fleet Risk. My guest for this episode of the podcast is Peter Golding, who is the Founder and Managing Director of fleet management software specialists FleetCheck. Peter, welcome to the podcast.

 

Peter: Thank you Simon.

 

Simon: Now, a little-known fact is that FleetCheck was actually the first commercial organisation that partnered with Driving for Better Business. When I started as campaign manager way back in 2016, I wanted to create a useful online resource that would help engage our audience of Fleet Safety Managers. I’d already known Peter for a few years by then and the new FleetCheck had created an online Fleet Management questionnaire some years previously – but it wasn’t being heavily promoted, and needed updating.

 

Peter and I rewrote the questions, FleetCheck’s IT team did the programming for us and we relaunched it as the Driving for Better Business Gap Analysis, in partnership with FleetCheck. It’s now been through a couple of major updates since then, but our current Gap Analysis still has that original work at its core.

 

So, Peter, you’ve always put helping Fleet Managers in this type of way at the forefront of the FleetCheck ethos. So where does that come from?

 

Peter: Well, Simon, thank you – and I appreciate the opportunity of being on this podcast. For me, I suppose it sort of started with the 10 years at the beginning of my career working within the main dealer network, and experiencing the service sector. But really predominantly from the 15 years’ experience of running my own garages. During that time I’d come across hundreds and hundreds of businesses who we supported – it was obvious we were very essential to them maintaining their fleet. What I identified from that is there are literally tens of thousands of businesses out there who really are unaware of the challenges they have. In my industry, there are some very good software solutions out there – they were very much geared around the larger fleet operators.

 

At the heart of what we wanted to do with FleetCheck is be the voice of the SME. To build something really designed for the small to medium sized fleet operator. We focussed massively on the commercial vehicle fleet – so we look at the van and truck side, but especially the van side because it’s the area that is most often ignored. I wanted to create something that was intuitive and easy to use, and really help the sector that were ignored, in my opinion. And now I’m delighted to say we are the leading provider of support to the SME of fleet operators in the UK.

 

Simon: Yeah, and I can vouch for that because prior to DfBB I ran two small fleets; one with just a handful and then a second company which had about 10-12 cars. And this information just wasn’t available to me at the time. I wasn’t aware of the responsibilities. And it was very difficult to find that help and support. And what you’ve just been outlining would have been hugely helpful to me in both of those roles.

 

But another project we worked together on more recently – probably a couple of years ago now, when we originally launched it – is the Fleet Confidence Challenge, a free online course containing over 30 short videos in 3 modules. I think it takes just under a couple of hours to get through all of them.

 

The first module tells the story of a van driver involved in a serious accident with a car driver and a cyclist. And it goes on to examine where both the driver and the employer were at fault. And we use this scenario as the basis for a mock trial presentation that we did just last month – a mock trial prosecution of a company. Why did you want to create the challenge, and why did you ask us to get involved?

 

Peter: Well, I think one of the biggest issues is that the individuals that often operate fleets… some of them are in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they have an interest in vehicles and they’ve been given the job of fleet or vehicles – management of the drivers – alongside their other roles. So what we have there is a challenge, where often the businesses that rely very much on these vehicles are being managed by somebody who hasn’t necessarily been given the formal training required or hasn’t got the time available to be able to properly and fully understand the implications.

 

What I wanted to do was created something intuitive and easy to engage with, and something relevant to the sector we were talking to. There’s been some fantastic work that’s been done previously, and I’ve seen information that can be associated with some very serious situations – the corporate manslaughter situations were, and still are, very prevalent – but it doesn’t apply necessarily to everyday events. And the challenge we wanted to create was something that every single business could easily experience.

 

Why with DfBB? Well, as you’ve already said Simon, I’m delighted with the work we’ve already done with you over so many years. And it seemed a really good fit working with you and creating something free-of-charge that was really a help to educate fleet operators – who, as I say, may not necessarily be trained. And maybe look at the sort of scenarios they might experience and identify perhaps the areas that they may not have initially thought about. So that was really at the heart of it – to provide an education tool that was free-of-charge and easily accessible to anyone who wanted it.

 

Simon: And it’s an interesting point, about the distinction between fatalities and injuries – obviously with the very big fleets in the country there is a statistical likelihood that they will have to deal with fatalities at some point, often more than one a year. But with the majority of companies with a small or medium-sized fleet, that’s possibly something they’ll never experience. The scenario we picked was about an injury collision with a cyclist, and we used that to our advantage with the mock trial, because there was a recent introduction of a new offence which is Causing Serious Injury by either Careless or Dangerous Driving, depending on the severity of the offence. And that makes it much more realistic to fleets, doesn’t it? Because according to government statistics, there’s about 40,000 a year of those.

 

Peter: Yeah, and I think that’s one of the important parts of it. When you look at the very small number of prosecutions for very, very serious accidents which escalate to the courts, if you look at serious injuries – I think, as you say, it’s in its thousands – but almost every business you talk to, even the smallest one, will have a driver running into the back of somebody at some stage, or reversing into a post, or maybe having a complaint from the general public. So we wanted to make it real, and as you say, I think the headline interests really were large corporate events and activities. But this is really designed to make it relevant to anyone, regardless of the size of the fleet they’re operating.

 

Simon: Obviously I’ve mentioned this mock trial presentation a couple of times now. It was at a 3-day Health and Safety Conference and we’ve got a video of that now available on the DfBB website, under the Events tab at the top – look for ‘Health and Safety Event 2023’ and you’ll find that there. But the purpose of that session, Peter, was to highlight the importance of accurate record keeping. So, why is that so important in your view?

 

Peter: What you have to be able to recognise is that you need to be able to demonstrate to the authorities that you are running a safe and legal fleet. So many of the businesses we talk to, and now almost a majority of those we support and help, are really reliant on spreadsheets, fragmented data that may be on whiteboards… a lot of what we try to do is to give companies that confidence that they can rely very much on remote access to data that’s a holistic view of what they’re trying to do, rather than looking at it in this fragmented way.

 

Often businesses we talk to have got leased vehicles with maintenance, and there’s a misconception within a lot of fleet operators that we talk to that because they lease these vehicles and maintenance is provided as part of the lease, that the leasing company themselves are responsible for record keeping. That they’re responsible for these vehicles being maintained correctly. And what we reinforce with them is that if something were to happen and they have a serious event with a vehicle that wasn’t properly maintained then it would be them in court, not the lease company. So, having records and having accurate information so that you can be confident you know what needs be done and when – you can only do that with a robust audit trail. And it should stand up. And if companies are investing in spreadsheets, and investment in time is where we’re looking at it, then you are massively exposed. Data could be deleted or easily corrected within that format.

 

Simon: Yeah, there are a couple of really important points to reinforce there. While you can delegate the management of that risk, i.e. the maintenance of the leased vehicles to the leasing company, you cannot delegate the ownership of the risk. The company always has the ownership and the responsibility to make sure that risk is managed. And it doesn’t matter what you did to manage that risk, what matters is that you can prove you did it, which is why record keeping is so important. So what are the key things that records need to be kept for? Those responsible for driver and vehicle safety, what should they be making sure that they accurately record?

 

Peter: Okay, really good question Simon. In fairness, the basis we start off with is get the essentials done first. It can sometimes feel like there is so much to do and they don’t know where to start. Our recommendation is exactly as you said – drivers and vehicles. Let’s focus on the fundamental requirements first. You should be confident that both the vehicles and their drivers are legal, and you can demonstrate that by appropriate record keeping.

 

So the areas that are prerequisite for drivers, for example, would be licence checking, medical records, training information – are they competent to drive the vehicle you’re putting them in? Incidents are something that happen so often that businesses are not recording information on. For example – a complaint from the general public. We had a scenario – I won’t say who – but it was a driver who was going the wrong way around a mini-roundabout in Swindon. And if anyone’s been to Swindon you will understand it is an experimental town with roundabouts. But this particular driver was going the wrong way and the general public sort of shouted at the driver and the driver and the driver flicked the v’s back in a sign written vehicle. To give you an example on that one, the pedestrian reported it and wrote to the directors, but he also copied Wiltshire Police in. Wiltshire Police arrived and wanted to know what the event was, if they had recorded it, and what actions had they taken on it.

 

And I think something as innocent as a complaint from the general public, or a speeding event, or a parking event, or reversing into a post… these things should be recorded. And looking at trends, a lot of businesses invest in telematics, and there can be frequent occurrences when you get speeding and things like that again. So, driver incidents and high-risk drivers are a key issue. Fitness to drive – are your drivers showing up to work fit to drive? This should be confirmed every time they’re in the vehicle.

 

The vehicle side – this is a big subject, and I’m only going to skirt over some of the areas, but you’ve got all the fundamental stuff. The road tax, the MOTs, the servicing. Probably the area that, as an engineer in my previous life… defect management is quite close to my heart. And if companies are – and a lot of businesses sadly aren’t – making sure the drivers are doing regular safety checks, it’s not just the inspections that the driver has done and defects there, the other area we do need to look at is advisory notifications coming through. So if you’re talking about recording information, it could be MOT records coming through, advisory notifications coming through from the garages letting you know the vehicle will need maintenance – maybe in 6 months’ time. But you combine that with some of the equipment fitted to vehicles, LOLER inspections, there’s a myriad of things across the board. So start off gently – get the basics first, but this really does illustrate what I said earlier about spreadsheets being an inadequate method of recording such an enormous range of data that’s required.

 

Simon: I’ve brought this up in a couple of conversations recently but an example that illustrates that very well is the Glasgow bin lorry incident where the driver had heart trouble while driving and crashed, killing a number of people. But Glasgow Council were exonerated of any blame because they were able to prove they’d done all the relevant checks and they had done everything reasonably practicable to ensure the driver and the vehicle were safe, so the driver was held fully responsible for that and his employer, by dint of their exceptional record keeping and procedures, were in the clear over that, which I think is what all of our audience would be hoping for.

 

Peter: Yes, but I think I said earlier, a smaller enterprise which doesn’t have the same level of infrastructure could easily have fallen foul and failed to have asked the appropriate questions or have the audit trail to prove that that’s being done. Fitness to drive, within our walkaround inspection app, is the very first thing that drivers have got to say before they actually drive the vehicle in the morning. Are you under the influence of alcohol or drugs? Are there any medical conditions that could impair you? So it’s not something they do once. They do it every single time they get in the vehicle.

 

Simon: When we did our mock trial presentation, the fictional company we presented in the court got a lot of things wrong. Where do you commonly see fleets make mistakes with record keeping?

 

Peter: Well as I said earlier, it is to do with defect management and how often there is a lot of focus on making sure the drivers are completing inspections on vehicles to prove there are nil defects on vehicles. This is so important – not to prove there’s nothing wrong with the vehicle, it’s so that when there is something wrong, it’s being identified and tracked through. We’ve unfortunately heard many cases before we get involved where drivers complained that they are regularly letting the office know that there is something wrong with the vehicle, but nobody actually takes any action on it. So it is a matter of getting this data and doing something with it. And ensuring that they can prove beyond any doubt that the vehicle is not only being maintained in accordance with the manufacturers service intervals, but also that the vehicle – especially now, because gone are the days when we could inspect a vehicle and be fairly confident that it would be maintained properly – now the onus and responsibility is very much on the operator of the vehicle, not the garage. With the extended service intervals of 2 years, 40,000 miles, it is the company’s responsibility to make sure the vehicle is legal.

 

The other area we do see companies fall foul on is licence checking. Often, they’ll be quite vigilant at the beginning when drivers first start, with the appropriate documentation to prove they can drive. This should be risk-based, and done on a regular basis – minimum once a year. If they have more points, then it should be done more frequently. But we do see companies often just assuming that they can just look at the plastic part of the licence and think they’re fit to drive. Or even just use their national insurance details and their driving licence number to go in and get the data from the DVLA. That is something no company should do. It’s a breach of the data protection and security areas on that so every company should be really careful to properly risk manage their drivers. It’s a criminal offence to drive a vehicle without a licence so it’s a fundamental requirement. That and managing defects are just two of the areas that I would highlight.

 

Simon: And managing defects – if you don’t deal with them, small defects can turn into larger defects quite quickly. We’ve obviously got the cost of living crisis and everything from vehicle repairs to fuel and insurance costs are going through the roof. So surely keeping proper track of fleet activity can make quite a significant contribution to cost control?

 

Peter: Absolutely. If you’re talking about a very common advisory – it would be that when brake pads themselves are getting low, failure to replace those on time means you’re going to have to buy new discs, new pads… the cost could be 3 or 4 times the amount, not taking into consideration the down time that brings. And the last forecast of that I saw averaged between £700-800, and I’ve seen many companies where there are multiple drivers and the cost of vehicles being off the road for a day can be much higher than that.

 

As far as the maintenance and management of that side is concerned… it’s preventative maintenance. I’m always going to be an advocate of this as an engineer. We are seeing vehicles being kept on fleet longer now than ever. There are critical events that need to be done – for example a cam belt is something that if you’ve only had a vehicle for 3 or 4 years and you’ve run it up to 80,000 or 100,000 miles this might be something that you’ve never experienced needing replacing but a cam belt failure, in a lot of cases you could write the vehicle off. So these are preventative maintenance issues but being proactive rather than reactive can substantially reduce the downtime, and if you are relying on vehicles staying on fleet now longer than in the past, you really do need to look at this very carefully. It’s really important.

 

Simon: Now, we often talk about fleet safety, and historically we’ve been talking to fleet managers – and a lot of them are responsible for driver safety, but a lot of them really only have responsibility for fleet as more of a procurement and maintenance role. And we’ve recently realised that a huge part of our audience are safety managers. Not fleet managers, but safety managers, and driver safety comes under their remit. And research shows that driver safety is consistently in the top 3 concerns for safety professionals at all levels. So, they understand the relevant legislation – the Health and Safety at Work Act – but they don’t always understand how driver safety fits into that. So, what would you think was the most important thing for them to focus on? They’re not fleet professionals but safety professionals with a responsibility for vehicles and drivers.

 

Peter: It’s a good question. And one that across all organisations we talk to is one of the biggest challenges. But it is communicating with drivers – that’s the number 1 thing businesses have got to do. If you look at the first step, it’s creating, communicating and monitoring your policy and making sure it is in circulation, that all of the drivers are confirming they’ve got it, receipts that they’ve got it. And any updates that are required to go through. So the focus on fleet is around what fleet managers are dealing with. And the single biggest challenge they’ve got is the drivers and what they’re doing. Telematics can play a part, but only one part. It doesn’t actually eliminate the responsibility – if anything it heightens that requirement to look at the data and act on it. It can be very useful to prove where people are at certain times – for example when then are events, an accident or something, it can exonerate the driver and prove that they weren’t responsible.

 

We talked already about safety checks, as far as the fundamental requirements – we’ve seen this a lot – because it’s difficult to do, a lot of businesses have a policy to say that vehicles should be inspected, but they don’t adhere to it, and the drivers don’t get chased, so they really condone it in that type of attitude. And if something awful happened, the drivers would say ‘I know I’ve agreed to this, but nobody asked me for it’, so it’s important to be constant. And if there are problems and people aren’t doing what they need to… and let’s be fair, everything to do with fleet management is common sense. The vehicles need to be legal – you cannot have a vehicle with tyres less than 1.6mm. We’d recommend less than 2mm. 3mm is a far safer option. These are common sense areas companies should look at. Can they all with confidence go out into a car park and look at every vehicle they’ve got – and often the tyre companies come and do an audit for you – and to prove whether or not the vehicles have got legal tyres on them. And I think about 60% of the tyres in tyre depots are replaced while they’re illegal. How many of those could affect organisations that you’re talking to now?

 

But I would finish it with one of the biggest problems we see – although communication is absolutely imperative – you have to have senior management buy in and recognise the importance so there is that authority, that push. So when there are drivers not adhering to what they should be doing because it’s getting the job done rather than making sure the vehicle is safe, senior management should be supporting fleet managers or safety managers to give that strength there to make sure there is adherence to it.

 

Simon: My final question Peter is this – at the top of the discussion, in the first question, we were talking about how common it is for people to manage fleet activity and safety on spreadsheets and paper bases and filing systems. What are the main benefits that come from using a proper integrated fleet management software solution over those traditional paper-based systems?

 

Peter: I often refer to what’s happened in the world of accountancy. If you look 15 or 20 years ago, they were bookkeepers. They were manually keeping records, and this was very labour intensive. Nowadays, HMRC have mandated that you have got to submit returns electronically, and we’re seeing a trend now towards this in the fleet industry. And really, we would expect to see within 5 or 10 years that this will be the norm. If you are submitting defects, or operating HGVs and on the Earned Recognition Scheme… as a prerequisite for that from the DVSA, you have to submit electronic record keeping and prove that the vehicles are being inspected correctly, MOTs are being carried out correctly, and the failure rates are appropriate. And you have to make sure that the vehicles themselves are checked for safety.

 

So I think it’s an inevitability. We’ve seen it in some respects where the road tax has been removed from screens many years ago now. Driving licence paper mandates and MOT records being computerised. So I think it’s an inevitability, digitalising data. Why? Well, you can look at, for example, fuel analysis – an area we often work with businesses on that maybe spend two days a month pulling all the data across to try and prove what the consumption figures are – which we would definitely recommend everyone does. We can do that for them in a 5-minute report. So we can save two days’ work.

 

So there are massive benefits in time saving. I’ve not yet met anyone who’s operating fleets who wouldn’t agree that time is one of the single biggest challenges they have. Also, we’ve talked about this, the cost of fleet – it’s the second largest overhead outside of payroll, often. Putting controls into that… accurate record keeping means you can start running meaningful reports and look at where savings can be made. We’ve talked about vehicles running for a longer period of time nowadays – so even more time and effort needs to be put in to look at which of those vehicles should stay on fleet, which ones shouldn’t.

 

But at the heart of what we’re talking about today is the awareness and duty of care and Health and Safety implications. And what we do see in the hundreds of companies and thousands of vehicles we manage is this peace of mind that you have when all of your information is in a central database, accessible remotely. And assurance that if anything happens, that you can very, very quickly verify what’s been done and when it’s been done. So peace of mind, time saving, and cost savings are the three main benefits that you get from the investment. And the return on that investment is very, very easy to show. But fundamentally there is a legal requirement to manage your vehicles correctly. And I think from my side, often vehicles now are equipped with very high standards of equipment – cameras, telematics… so the vehicles themselves are with all the right safety measures.

 

Really, you should be giving the person whose job it is to manage those vehicles the tools to do it. And that’s really what we do.

 

Simon: Fantastic. I would agree whole-heartedly with all of that. I’ll put some links to resources in the show notes for this episode. FleetCheck and Driving for Better Business collaborated on the Gap Analysis which you can find on the DfBB website – I’ll put a link to that. I’ll also put a link to the Fleet Confidence Course, FleetCheck’s free online introductory course. And as part of that, Peter you mentioned that one of the first key points was getting your Driving for Work policy written and communicated to drivers, and there’s a free, fully editable Driving for Work policy as part of that Fleet Confidence Course, so that could be interesting there. But Peter, thank you very much for your time today.

 

Peter: Thank you very much for inviting me.

 

___________________________________________________________________

 

Simon: If you manage drivers and their vehicles, and you face similar issues to those discussed in this podcast, there are links in the show notes to some useful resources on the Driving for Better Business website. And these are all free to access. If you enjoyed the conversation, please don't forget to hit subscribe - so you know when the next episode is released - and please also give us a 5 star review as this helps us to get up the podcast rankings and makes it more visible to others who might also find it useful. You can follow us - that's @DrivingforBetterBusiness on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and most importantly, please help us to spread the word. All our resources are free for those who manage fleets, and their employees who drive for work. Thank you for listening to Let's Talk Fleet Risk, and I look forward to welcoming you to the next episode.