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Shaun Sadlier's blog: Why speeding may become a thing of the past
Date: 02 January 2019
My belief is that fleet drivers have always tended to be among the safest on the road. They are nearly always covered by health and safety policies, are often assessed and trained, and simply don't want to to endanger their licence.
However, it is also fair to say that - like all other motorists - they regulalrly face the temptation to break the speed limit.
But now, largely thanks to a raft of technological improvements and enforcement changes, this temptation is in decline, and may soon disappear altogether. The tools used by the police and by fleets themselves mean that a speeding driver is much more likely to be caught and it is increasingly viewed as a risk not worth taking.
Recent developments influencing this include the testing of long-distance speed cameras in Manchester that work to up to a kilometre away, the increasing use of average speed cameras along motorways and dual carriageways, and the rise in use of telematics by fleets.
With previous types of speed camera, simply slowing down around them meant you were unlikely to be caught, but long-distance and average speed cameras cannot be avoided in such a simplistic manner. You simply have to slow down.
Even if the police don't catch you speeding, there is now every chance that your employer will be able to see that you have been exceeding the limit through telematics data and take managerial action to make you slow down.
This trend is very much to be welcomed, with the link between excessive speed and accidents very well proven. If we have reached a point where drivers feel that the option of occasionally speeding has effectively been removed, then it is very much as a positive in terms of fleet road safety. Fleet drivers who stick to the speed limit are safer fleet drivers.
Shaun Sadlier is head of consultancy at Arval
