If you are an employer or fleet manager, you probably now subscribe to the notion that driver training works, especially the kind of training that gets people to practice the higher-level driving skills such as looking around them and spotting possible hazards long before they become a risky situation. You are probably now wondering about how best to apply this training, especially if you have limited funds.
Some fleet managers have told us that they plan to make the training available to those who are deemed 'high-risk' road users. While we do not disagree with this attempt at an initial distinction (sometimes it's just not possible to start every driver on the programme right away) we would recommend caution when determining who is 'high-risk'. This is especially so because some employers have chosen to define a high-risk driver as one who has already had an incident.
An incident could be anything from a near-miss, a large number of speeding tickets or a noted bad attitude towards driving, through to having survived a major crash and being at fault.
There are a number of downsides to waiting to introduce training after an incident has already happened:
- The training can be viewed as a punishment, which experts know means that less learning takes place. If the training is seen as neutral, or even a benefit in the workplace, participants are more likely to learn from it, and of course appreciate it.
- This system relies on your drivers being honest with you and reporting their incidents and near misses. You are left in a position where you have to make a judgement call on who needs the training, and have to do so with potentially incomplete information.
- An incident has already happened! This is the most obvious one - the purpose of driver training is to avoid such costly and dangerous events, waiting until afterwards means that what you are trying to prevent has already taken place, and denies the driver the opportunity to have tried to prevent it. You have wasted valuable time to get the training in before it is needed the most.
A better way of deciding who needs the training could be by asking the following questions:
- Who spends the longest hours on the road? Who drives in difficult conditions?
- Is there someone who is a role model, or involved in leading/training others?
- Are there drivers who haven't driven or had much practice in a long time, or are new to driving on NZ roads?
- Has someone expressed particular anxiety at driving or conversely seems overconfident and thinks there is nothing they don't know?
- Has anyone expressed an interest in the training? This will be a person more ready and willing to take on the information presented
Of course, when people are provided with training, a number of them will probably have had an incident already. This isn't an issue and we still recommend the training go ahead, but just recommend against only training once an accident has taken place.
While we understand that driver training can be a costly and time-intensive process, it's also a very important one, and the costs of not doing it could be much much higher.
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