I can hear many say it depends! But what does it depend upon?  It could be said that it’s on the value of what it costs to do the training, or it could be said it’s calculated on those unseen, intangible things that if “the wheel comes off”, it might end up costing the company.

Ask yourself how you value your staff, in whatever they do within the company and, in particular, if they are drivers.  Are they just drivers, or are they company representatives or are they sales people or are they a combination of all of these things?

With well trained personnel, all the above can benefit a company which has taken the time to educate personnel on the front line, which is exactly what your drivers are, front line staff members.  Their appearance, their attitude to the task, their manner of speaking to the customers or their manner of handling the product with care or not!  All of these things are very important to the prosperity of any company, given someone who has been educated on how to promote the company, or deal with queries efficiently and effectively in a polite and courteous manner will be an absolute asset to the company.

On the other hand, a staff member who has a totally negative vibe to their  approach to the tasks, to the clients and to the products will soon be costing the company money with damaged goods, poor attitude and subsequently lost orders.

If they then take that negativity to their driving, it could mean that they ignore rules and regulations; that they fail to check their vehicles diligently, they disobey traffic signs, commit offences which, with so much negativity rattling around, could so easily result in being involved in a crash, of which all will inevitably be costing the company money for repairs and more.

If the company has an Operators (‘O’) Licence to look after, those penalty points a driver gets on their driving licence, can also end up being points put on your ‘O’ licence for which different offences the driver is convicted for will equate to a different level of points on your ‘O’ Licence. It is also a legal requirement to report those driver convictions to the Traffic Commissioners as it is connected to your Good Repute/Fitness to operate under ‘O’ Licence requirements.

Drivers and companies who abrogate their duty of care towards another, can under certain criterion fall foul of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 or Health and Safety Offences Act 2008 3 which could be because of poor driver education. It’s very possible if drivers are not following the requirements of the regulations or, indeed, internal standard operating procedures. The better informed a company can make a driver, across all aspects of the regulations, rules and duties, the more valuable they become!

 

References:

Logistics UK (New name for FTA) – Road – Prosecutions – Accessed on line 281120.      https://logistics.org.uk/compliance-and-advice/road/prosecutions-and-court/notifying-the-licensing-authority-of-any-convictions

  Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.  The National Archives – Accessed on line 281120  –    https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/19/contents

3 Health and Safety Offences Act 2008  https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/20/contents