Managing driver risk is often seen as a necessary investment to comply with health and safety laws, improve driver safety and demonstrate a duty of care to employees.
Yet, one of the main benefits of an effective driver risk management programme is the delivery of significant cost savings.
According to Steve Beadle, who heads up The Grosvenor Group’s Drive Care solution, there are important financial benefits to be gained from improving overall road safety and compliance as long as it is done consistently and as part of long-term cultural change.
“We see risk management as being an extremely important area for our customers to drive down their fleet operating costs, however it needs to become part of the culture of their business” said Steve.
“There are occasions when companies implement driver profiling or training programmes as a one-off and then decry it’s lack of effectiveness, however those that seek a permanent cultural shift will see the rewards.
“A good example of where a cultural shift has seen long-term benefits is in the construction industry. Those of us old enough to remember, will recall the days of building sites with workers hanging off scaffolding, not wearing the right safety equipment and rarely following any procedures.
“In fact, in 1974 when the UK Government passed the Health and Safety at Work Act, there were 800 fatalities for every 100,000 workers in construction, making this industry four times as deadly as the average UK job.
“Now, the industry is experiencing 1.84 deaths for every 100,000 workers, all thanks to the long-term cultural shift that has changed the face of construction.
“Nevertheless, according to the HSE, across all industries in the UK the total cost of workplace self-reported injuries and ill health is still incredibly high. In 2018/19 the total cost was £16.2 billion, with ill health causing the biggest proportion of total costs at around 66% (£10.6 billion), with injury resulting in around 34% of total costs (£5.6 billion).
“Now apply that to the activity of driving, and on top of the safety angle and the cost of sickness and injury, we also have the vehicle off road costs, damage repairs, hire vehicles, lost business and increased insurance premiums , making the cost of collisions a very hefty amount indeed.
“By pro-actively investing in risk management will begin to reduce that, as well as creating a cultural transformation that will make at-fault collisions through poor driving as taboo as not wearing a hard hat or hi vis jacket on a building site.”
Through its new partnership with leading risk management and compliance specialists, Fleet Service GB, Grosvenor Group customers can benefit from a complete online solution for driver compliance, licence checks, driver profiling and e-learning – all cleverly linked by a driver scoring system that provides invaluable data that can be used to reduce risk.
This is all combined with Grosvenor Leasing and Interactive Fleet Management’s expertise, reporting and fleet management systems, resulting in a complete ‘Drive Care’ solution that can deliver year on year savings.
“We need to move away from this opinion that risk management can be a on-off, quick fix for collision-prone drivers,” concluded Steve.
“Realistically, it needs to underpin everything a fleet manager does, because by creating that long-term, safe driving culture will result in less vehicle off road time, lower repair bills, a fully functioning fleet to keep employees mobile and meet customer demand, and importantly a happier workforce who know that their employer is doing everything it can to ensure that when they leave home in the morning for work, they will return safely in the evening.”
For more information about Drive Care, please contact Steve Beadle on 01536 536 536