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There is never a right time for some things. One moment we hear that MPs intend to set an example to fleets. The next, we read that two honourable members have been banned for speeding in the space of a couple of days.
How untimely for the Institute of Advanced Motorists, which went to a lot of trouble to bring together a cross party selection of (presumably careful) drivers from the House of Commons, last month, to try out its Driver Risk Management programme for fleets.
"MPs will be setting an example for businesses of all sizes to manage the risks associated with their employees who drive for work," reported the IAM, understandably omitting to add that doing 101mph in a 60mph limit or 99mph on the M4 were not the sort of example-setting by MPs that they had had in mind.
I assume that a propensity to not notice that you're breaking the speed limit by 30mph or 40mph is one of the things that the DRM assessment is designed to pick up. Unfortunately for the speeding MPs (who weren't at the IAM launch), the event would have been too late for them anyway, as they'd already been clocked by then.
According to the IAM, around 25,000 business drivers go through the DRM programme each year. That's a laudable number but merely a drop in the ocean compared with the millions of drivers who should by rights be offered such risk assessments by their employers.
As employers themselves, IAM's guest MPs took something of a lead in demonstrating their duty of care by putting their constituency office staff through the assessments.
Sadly, since then they seem rather reluctant about telling the country how they got on. They might have better luck persuading businesses to step up to the plate on fleet safety if they themselves divulged what their assessments revealed. Moreover, if the verdict is "your driving needs some 'development' sir", will they go through with it?
IAM Fleet's managing director Seb Goldin points out that financial savings should make driver training a self-funding investment. So there's really no reason for road safety minister Jim Fitzpatrick and the other MPs who took the assessment to worry about training costs, even in these straitened times.
Come to think of it, their two colleagues, the ones caught speeding, paid more than £1000 in fines and costs between them. Not to mention the extra expense of getting about the country without their cars while banned. A spot of hands-on training in hazard perception and speed awareness might easily have saved them all that money and hassle.
There you go. Self funding, just like the man said.
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