We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on the Business Car website. However, if you would like to, you can change your cookies at any time
The start point for the best source of fleet information |
Since my blog last year on the subject of road safety in the headlines, not a great deal has changed.
In fact the press these days rarely contains any articles about new road safety initiatives, except the odd new service from a driver training company. The reason for this lack of new initiatives, in my view, is threefold:
. Lack of money - with the spending cuts very little is happening in road safety.
. Lack of political interest in road safety - yes this government say it is committed to road safety but that is about as believable as an MP's expense claim!
. The third reason is public opinion. It could well take decades for this to change.
If we look back just a few years, both the fleet press and the nationals had something about new initiatives, new laws or statistics relating to road safety on a regular basis.
These days if you were to remove those articles about driving tips, there would hardly be a story on road safety from one month to the next. If the public believe those in power are not interested in road safety, why should they be bothered?
During the 1990's and the first few years of the 21st century we witnessed some excellent reduction in our KSI (killed & seriously injured) road crash stats.
Companies were starting to take their duty of care responsibilities seriously and people cared about safety.
The road safety industry had real energy and I remember going to conferences that were packed - in fact if you didn't book your place early you couldn't even get into some venues. These days all I seem to get is emails saying "this or that road safety event is cancelled".
So what has happened to all that energy in the road safety industry? It has diminished along with the hope that new legislation would make a difference, but as we all know it didn't.
How many corporate manslaughter prosecutions for road fatalities involving an 'at work driver' have there been? Answer: none!
So what is the future for road safety? The answer has to be technology. In vehicle technology, such as crash avoidance systems and traffic management systems, plus dynamic on line educational training, such as E-Learning, provide sharp, affordable, informative tools for improvement and give it a fresh, modern edge.
Using technology is not only cheaper than on road defensive driver training and more accessible, it also engages the younger generation better. They live with technology and have far greater acceptance for it.
So if we want to get back to the days when road safety had energy, we need buy in from the young drivers and some of the older road safety advocates that are resisting change must adapt or disappear - because I see a new era ahead, and it's not too far away.
Follow BusinessCar on TWITTER.
BusinessCar magazine ©2019
Business Car Magazine © 2020 | Business Car is part of NS Media Group.
