Safety first…second. Or not at all?

SMALLER business van fleets are putting safety on the back seat and not being proactive to protect themselves from potentially huge claims, according to a survey. Brake and Licence Bureau questioned 228 fleets about driver education and the topics they cover, including mobile phone use and speeding. Around half (49%) operate fewer than 100 vehicles and they found a third are failing to educate or train their drivers in key areas. The most common areas covered were mobile phones and other distractions (63%), hazard awareness (58%) and speed awareness (57%). Two-thirds (68%) don’t tell drivers to slow down to 20mph around schools, homes and shops, and six in 10 (61%) don’t instruct drivers to look twice for bikes at junctions. Although two-thirds (67%) instruct drivers not to use any kind of mobile phone at the wheel, only one in four (26%) tell drivers to switch their phones off. Almost one in four (23%) do not tell drivers to take any simple life-saving measures. It is estimated that up to 95% of crashes are down to driver error.