Driving for Better Business

Working with the National Highways Commercial Vehicle Incident Prevention Team, we have produced a van driver handbook to assist van drivers and fleet operators in dispelling uncertainty and myth. You can also share the online Van Driver Toolkit with your drivers, or you may prefer to share individual modules whenever you want to check understanding of best practice, or reinforce your driving for work policies. The Van Driver Handbook will help you implement best practice for what is required to reduce costs, improve operating conditions and ensure safe and legal vehicles and wellbeing for your drivers.

This session was recorded at The Health & Safety Event 2021 and features Simon Turner - Campaign Manager, Driving for Better Business

Are you a Safety Manager new to managing driver safety? This session will get you up to speed so you can get maximum value from the rest of our presentations. What are the key areas of managing driver and vehicle risk and who is responsible? This session was recorded at The Health & Safety Event 2022 and features Simon Turner - Campaign Manager, Driving for Better Business and Nick List - VP Business Development, EU, eDriving

This session was recorded at The Health & Safety Event 2021 and features Simon Turner - Campaign Manager, Driving for Better Business

Drivers that don’t exhibit the correct behaviours can present a big risk, both in safety, reputation and financial terms but good drivers can be very effective brand ambassadors. It is imperative that you have a strong safety culture and that this is promoted throughout the whole company. This session was recorded at The Health & Safety Event 2022 and features Alison Moriarty – Fleet Risk Director, DRiiVE Consulting

• 22% at-fault collision reduction for company cars
• 7% reduction in at fault collisions for vans
• Van driver speeding down 20%
• Average driver risk score improved 35%
• 200 hours saved in claims management time
• Driver compliance across all vehicles is 99.2%
• Reduction in driver offences by 18% for all car drivers – including grey fleet

Willmott Dixon Holdings (including Fortem) has circa 2,800 employees, including 2,000 who use their vehicles for work. Grey fleet drivers use their own vehicles daily for meetings or site visits. Company car drivers use their vehicles for work as well as personal use. There are also up to 400 named drivers who are not employees of the company but have been nominated by company-car ‘owning’ employees as potential drivers of their vehicle outside work hours. The van drivers are mainly trade operatives, carrying out property maintenance and refurbishment work at Fortem-managed properties. The company decided to create a safer environment for drivers, and other road users, including vulnerable road users by identifying and managing road risk. This started with creating a consistent and proactive approach to addressing driver risk from the first day of employment.

Willmott Dixon communicates clearly to staff that managing road risk is a mandatory health and safety requirement, both within the organisation, and as part of Willmott Dixon’s statutory responsibility to ensure public and employee safety. The company’s driver policy and handbook are reviewed annually, or when there are changes to regulations. The document is managed by Group fleet compliance manager Sareen Dhillon. This creation of a ‘living document’ is one way in which the company can ensure continuous improvement, as well as compliance. The driver policy and handbook are available to all drivers on the driver compliance portal, meaning drivers can view them at any time. All drivers must confirm that they have read both documents, but it is important that they can consult them whenever they wish. Regular communications to the whole company underline important safety messages, updates and advice, including reminders about seasonal driving conditions and highway code changes.

70% of company cars and 100% of vans have dashcams. The company also has telematics in operation on all company vans. Van driver telematics scores improved with those in the low-risk green band shifting from 91% in 2022 to 97% in 2023. Medium risk drivers also reduced from 8% of drivers to 3%. The overall driver risk score reduced from 1.84 to 1.19. Incidents are being reported more rapidly, with 72% of incidents now reported within 48 hours. ‘Hit while parked’ incidents has reduced by 36%. The reduction in driver-related offences and incidents cut associated administration time by 200 hours per year. The company’s insurers provided a bursary which contributed towards high-risk driver training and collision investigation training. The incident investigation is a very recent development for the company and is initially being piloted in specific areas of the business. Providing post collision or high-risk driver training has significantly improved driver wellbeing, restoring confidence post-collision and reducing anxiety.

Sareen reviewed the recruitment of new starters to include licence-checking either during the selection process, or before the employee’s start date. Regular licence checks are then carried out depending on individual driver risk ratings. Initial licence screening has helped to reduce the number of high-risk new starters, and to manage driver risk through training and behavioural monitoring. For high-risk drivers licences can be checked monthly. As this process starts during recruitment and at the very beginning of an employee’s time with the company, it is essential that human resources personnel understand how and why the company manages driver risk. All the group’s HR teams have received driver-risk manager training. This also ensures that driver performance is recognised as a fundamental part of the employee’s job, whether or not they drive their own or a company asset. All drivers complete online risk assessments, followed by targeted e-learning or on-road training. The content and type of training is dictated by the driver’s risk scores. High-risk drivers are identified through monthly data analysis and required to complete targeted on-road training. The ‘named’ or nominated non-employee drivers of company cars nominees can also participate in on-road training if necessary or they request it. New van drivers are provided with on-road van familiarisation training before they start using the vehicle for work. New EV drivers have on-road EV familiarisation training too, which also covers range and efficiency to support sustainability and reduce range anxiety.

WJ Group is a CLOCS champion, and its fleet is either FORS Silver or Bronze accredited depending upon the application. The UK Champions Awards 2022 – UK Fleet Champions – Fleet Safety Innovation Award 2022 Logistics UK LERS Leadership in Emissions Reduction Award 2020 It has also embraced Driving for Better Business and uses DfBB resources in training and driver communications.

Business Benefits from behavioural change:

• Less speeding and harsh acceleration, and smoother braking and cornering
• Improved community perception

• 40% reduction in accidents
• 45% reduction in associated costs
• 12% increase in mpg
• 7.5% reduction in Scope 1 emissions