Driver Safety Training

If you are a fleet manager thinking about how to improve driver safety you may feel you are faced with an overwhelming array of choices.  Finding the right solution to satisfy real training needs that will deliver ROI is essential.  Here are three aspects for you to consider:  

1.  What Results Will “Good” Training Give You?  

Often, training is viewed as directly relating to the task an employee performs.  For your drivers, this would be training to improve driving skills.  

However, when considering how to improve driver safety, we see far-reaching training needs.  Potentially there are different skills enhancements required by different people.  

To ensure your drivers receive a blend of training and a mix of solutions that enhance driver safety it is important to be aware of the different challenges every driver faces on a day to day basis, or on specific routes, or perhaps the daily stresses and strains they bring to work that may be causing distracted driving.  

Good training is the blend of training that improves the range of skills needed to improve driving skills.  

2.  The Most Effective Training Needs Analysis  

There is a wealth of traditional Training Needs Analysis tools to identify what training is required for improving driving skills.  

Perhaps you already review and analyse your fleet collision data and insurance claims.  

Your vehicle maintenance records may hold vital information about the volume of tyres certain drivers use.  

And, HR may hold regular licence checks and review the number of points on drivers licences.  

The true value of an effective Training Needs Analysis tool is seen when you understand human behaviour when people are driving and how the cognitive behaviour and life’s stresses and strains causes collisions, contributes to higher tyre usage or why some drivers receive more points on their licence.  The analysis and correlation of seemingly disparate data becomes the most effective training needs analysis.  

3.  Know Your Destination  

As a company, how do you want your drivers to be seen?  What do you want members of the public to say about your drivers?  How do you want your drivers to act every day?  What do you want your drivers to feel at the end of a shift?  

The questions relating to your fleet performance and driver safety may need thought.  Spending time now and identifying your driver destination will help inform which aspects of driver safety training have the highest priority.  

In Summary  

All too often driver safety training focuses directly on safety training, the vehicle and journey software training.  Having a real time behaviour monitoring system provides you with the most valuable information about how your drivers are really feeling and what driver safety training will be the most relevant.