Posted By Alexander Falconer Believe it or not, this week, Road Safety week our fleet has now been reduced by 3 vehicles (2 off involved in accidents, and 1 stolen, later found burnt out) despite our systems in place. Our transport/procurement coordinator (has since left the company around 2 weeks ago) was originally responsible for controlling the whole fleet, however I have now been handed the remit to "sort it out" before handing ownership to the relevant area/contract managers. The systems in place were (in my opinion) fairly reasonable and robust up to a point, however having reviewed the entire fleet transport policies I have identified one key issue - Training or rather the lack of it. My plan is to go back to basics, and introduce a formal training programme in defensive/advanced driving (with the assistance of a provider) - Can anyone recommend a driver training course in the Central Belt of Scotland? I am aware of the RoSPA courses but want to use a comparison with others. In addition, I also plan to introduce a driver assessment programme, whereby drivers are assessed at the start of their employment, and 6 monthly intervals thereafter - What training do I require to be able to conduct such assessments? Regards Alex

Posted By Robert K Lewis The RAC also provide Defensive Driver Training and I am sure they are nationwide. Bob

Posted By Dave West Hi John, Would you be able to give me more details on the BSM course you did please? This sounds like a good idea. Many thanks Dave

Posted By David Bruce To be honest I'm not sure how successful defensive driving really is. Would be interesting to compare stats of companies that do use it and those that don't. Most people are aware of how to drive safely from sitting their test and changes to highway law i.e. don't drive too close, don't speed, never undertake, no mobiles when driving etc... Therefore when sitting the test people will drive the way they should rather than the way they actually do. I think a major cause of accidents is generally people not allowing enough time / running late / getting lost. These could be reduced by employer's supplying sat nav, allowing sufficient time for trips, not promising unfeasibly timescales to clients etc... But I suppose this is not what employers want to hear. These would require a culture change with a cost. I'm sure at the end of the day a £45 course that ticks a training box is much more appealling.

Posted By Dan Malone I too would encourage the IAM. The offer reductions on insurance if you are IAM certified. I was looking at them for a club that I am involved with. Very approachable Regards Dan

Posted By Marcus74 Alexander Not sure if they cover your area but our organisation have used Peak Performance for a large amount of driver training. Their web address is: http://www.peakperformance.net/ May be worth having a look at. Regards,

Posted By J Knight hi Alexander, I was talking about driver assessment tools, rather than MORR tools. RoSPA have an on-line profiling tool which assesses individual drivers; DriveTech have a similar thing. I had a go at the DriveTech one and I came out as needing some furter training (which I haven't done yet) but nothing too serious; one of our managers who has done IAM came out as needing no further work, so the tool seemed to work fairly well, John

Posted By GARRY WIZZ to answer a point raised in this topic. I used to work for a significantly large logistics company that did driver assessments and driver training. the cost was very expensive, but it lowered overall costs to the company so it was funded. We sent a couple of drivers on an assessment / teach course and they would be employed to bolster the training company efforts to raise standards. Also, our assessors could evaluate agency drivers who might be 'weak' and then they could be weeded out before the traffic accident. Theroy training sessions did no harm but they do rely on the quality of the instructors teaching methods so as not to be boring or rated as time wasting by the drivers. I added to this training by training on none driving duties. The company was not keen as it was going to cost £12k approx. However when a driver froze a £20k load of produce the training took place. By very careful planning of the training, drivers of 20/30 years experience said it was not a waste of time. Which made my day