Many of us remember the days when if you got detected speeding by the police, an officer pulled you over. At that point, you might get away with a telling off - the roadside lesson, and convincing them that you'd never do it again, honestly officer... or you might get the telling off and a ticket. And the same still stands if you get pulled over, although officers we know are probably less likely to let you go without some paperwork now. The other big development of course is camera enforcement - over 90% of UK speeding tickets are now issued as a result of detection by automated enforcement rather than being stopped by an officer. This brings its own issues in terms of enforcement (how many drug or drink drivers, bald tyres and shoplifters are not detected who would be if the same volume of tickets were being issued by officers...) but that's a discussion for another time.
If a driver's offence is in the lower band (+10% of the speed limit plus up to 9mph) then they may be offered a Speed Awareness Course - run under the National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme (NDORS) - as long as they haven't completed one in the last three years. Official Evaluation of these courses shows significant reductions in reoffending which is a good thing both for road safety and from a fleet managers perspective. Drivers who accrue points will cost more in insurance premiums and ultimately may be lost to the driving fleet if they pick up a ban.
But what of the drivers who do get a ticket instead of a speed awareness course? These fall into two categories -
High End Speeders, who were too far above the limit to be offered a course, and
Repeat Offenders who have been on a course within the last three years but been caught again (High End Speeders may of course also be repeat offenders!)
In general, using the model of lapses, errors and violations, the High End Speeders are mostly violating, while the Repeat Offenders may be in any one of those categories. The problem is that the High End Speeders aren't getting any of the educational input, simply the enforcement, and the Repeat Offenders aren't getting a second dose of the educational intervention if they either still suffer a lapse/error or were actually deliberately violating. Either way, that's bad news for the fleet manager whose drivers are picking up points. So how do you address drivers who are collecting points and representing risk in your fleet?
Well, some of our clients find our Corporate Speed Awareness Courses valuable. We offer two versions, "Breaking the Habit" for High End Speeders and "Unlucky Twice" for Repeat Offenders - (although we have successfully run courses combining the two groups as well, after appropriate adjustments). The courses look at many of the usual things you'd expect on a normal speed awareness course- reasons for speeding, strategies to prevent the same thing happening again, external pressures etc, but looked at from the point of either violators or those who have made lapses/errors even after having the standard intervention. There is also a section which looks at what the organisation does which makes speeding more likely - this can be used either to get the driver to examine their own behaviour and realise that ultimately it is they who control their speed choices, or to gather information on areas where the organisation may be organising its work in a way which puts pressure on drivers. This can provide useful feedback to policy and procedure development, and the way in which messages are communicated to drivers. These courses are not designed to be a punishment for the driver but an intervention which assists both them and the organisation by preventing them from picking up further points on their licences and potentially getting a ban which means they are lost to the organisation or have to be redeployed to a non-driving role. In cases where a group setting may not be appropriate, we can also run the sessions on a one-to-one basis (useful when the speeder in question is the CEO!). For more information, get in touch: graham.skinner@transafenetwork.com