As part of a focus on helping fleets improve safety on the road, Masternaut surveyed 2,000 UK employees that drive as part of their job to highlight the progress in road safety education and the work that is still required for further improvement.
The company says that the research shows that despite 86 per cent of fleets experiencing collision in the last 12-months, a number of drivers still drive without due consideration for their safety.
Van and LCV drivers are the least likely to feel invincible, the research shows, with only 10 per cent saying that they don’t consider their safety while driving. This contrasts to 26 per cent of public transport drivers, who said they feel invincible on the road at all times, and 17 per cent of business fleet car drivers and HGV and lorry drivers who say they never think about their personal safety on the road.
In contrast, 15 per cent of business drivers said that they feel vulnerable all of the time when they are on the road. HGV and lorry drivers feel the most unsafe with 21% of drivers feeling vulnerable all of the time when they are driving.
Steve Towe, Chief Commercial Officer and UK Managing Director, commented, “Our research shows that a high percentage of business drivers don’t consider their safety to be at risk – despite driving being amongst the most dangerous profession. Research from The Institute of Advanced Motorists’ Drive & Survive shows that 86% of fleets have experienced an accident in the past 12 months, so it’s alarming to see so many drivers still not considering their safety when driving.”
Motorways were cited as the most unsafe type of road to drive on with 27 per cent of drivers concerned about their safety. This is despite just 3.9 pre cent of all 2013 UK road accidents* taking place on motorways, showing that motorways are comparatively the safest type of road to drive on.
Drivers also felt unsafe on rural roads, with a quarter (25 per cent) saying they feel vulnerable. This rises to 42 per cent amongst HGV and lorry drivers and 36 per cent of LCV and van drivers.
“The tools and technology exist to help educate drivers on safe driving practises, which can be driven by the intelligent application of telematics,” continues Towe. “Telematics has broader social benefits that it can offer to protect our drivers, not just in terms of notifying us of a collision, but in preventive and proactive driver-centric applications designed to improve behaviour”.
“Driver training programmes should be one of the critical tools for fleets to ensure that their drivers feel safe when driving and most importantly, avoid causing unnecessary risks to other road users. We, as an industry, are great at articulating fuel savings but we also want to see the debate widen to include safety. We believe we can do so much more” added Towe.
Towe explained that Masternaut has developed a programme to improve driver behaviour and reduce instances of speeding, harsh breaking, acceleration and cornering, which it says helps to reduce the amount of invincible and vulnerable drivers on the roads.
For more information on Masternaut please visit www.masternaut.com.
This eBook will guide you through some of the key understandings you need to be able to manage driver safety effectively and, at the end, provide a series of free resources you can access to help you ensure your own driver safety management system is robust, legally compliant and in line with industry-accepted good practice.
Download this eBook from Driving for Better Business and SHP to cover:
- Why do we need to manage driver safety?
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- Safe journeys and fitness to drive;
- Record keeping;
- Reporting;
- The business benefits of good practice;
- Additional resources
