RoSPA Young Drivers at Work Report

Chapter 3
This response was corroborated by the fact that their
organisation did not undertake any driver assessments or
driver training for staff members. Their managing road risk
policy was limited to checking employees’ driving licences
and insurance cover. The organisation also did not consider
young drivers to be at any greater risk on the road than
more experienced drivers. Consequently, their young
drivers were expected to make the same type of journeys
as their more experienced colleagues.
Nearly adequate
Three respondents (6%) reported that they felt the current
system of training and testing was ‘just about’ adequate.
They only raised one or two areas where they felt the
current system could be improved. It is worth noting that
in two of the three cases, young employees only drove on
work sites with maximum speed limits of 15 or 20mph.
A further two respondents (4%) initially indicated that they
regarded the current system as adequate. They said that
they thought the driving test was ‘OK’ and ‘fairly good’.
However further questions revealed that these companies
conducted routine in-house driver assessments as a result
of which some employees receiving negative reports had
been ‘grounded’ from driving.
The two companies had also bought in advanced driver
training, from external agents, for their regular drivers.
This suggests either:
“Nowhere near good enough, it needs to be a
lot, lot better. ”
(Small business owner)
“Woefully inadequate. If there’s a poor score put it
down at the lowest score and I mean that. ”
(Director, private company)
3.2 How does at-work driving differ from
other driving?
Any variation between the type of driving young drivers
are expected to do for work and ‘non’ work-related driving
may give an insight into why employers think young
drivers are unprepared. It may also give some indication of
what should be addressed in any changes to the learning
to drive and testing regime or what should be included in
any post test training.
Table 2 shows question 2.1 of the questionnaire ‘How
adequately do you feel the current driving test prepares
young drivers for driving for work? cross-tabulated with
question 1.6 ‘What sorts of jobs involving driving do your
younger drivers undertake?’
Table 2: Adequacy of the current test at preparing young
drivers for at-work driving shown by journey
type (N = 407).
Completely Quite Not Not Non- Total
very at all response
●
●
That although they regarded the current system of
learning to drive and testing as ‘adequate’, they did not
rely on it to assure that their drivers were of a safe and
reliable standard
Or they felt the need to raise their drivers’ standards
beyond those required for driving test purposes
Sales visits 10 21 32 19 2 84
Deliveries to and
from customers 10 37 42 42 8 139
Service visits
to customers 14 55 90 37 10 206
Carrying
passengers 8 44 52 19 13 136
Not adequate
The remaining 41 respondents (87%) unreservedly regarded
the current system of training and testing as ‘inadequate’
for at-work driving. There were some very strongly-held
opinions within this group:
“Wholly inadequate for modern driving, a 35
minute test and a video game does not prepare
anyone for driving 30,000 miles a year. ”
(Director, private company)
Other 10 35 55 23 8 131
Total 27 110 163 80 27 407
Out of the 131 ‘other’ responses for Q1.6, 51% of respondents
said the driving job their young colleagues were doing was
driving between work sites. This figure includes travel to
external meetings and training events. 6% of young drivers
within the ‘other’ category were carrying out short ad hoc
trips for work.
“I don’t think that driving instruction or testing in
this country is at all adequate. ”
(Manager, private company)
8 Young Drivers at Work Report