Target the masses with road safety campaigns

I have more than 40 years’ experience in road transport and have always strived to influence improvement in road safety through good maintenance, training and sound operating practice. 

I have sat on many engineering and safety committees over the years and have always supported calls for further improvements in our industry’s safety record. 

It is, therefore, with some surprise that I find I am at odds with the drift of your front page article “No fall in annual roads death tolls” (October 2).

The statistics are terrible and the calls to improve them laudable, but I think we need to look at this from another angle.
Only 12% of the total number of “crashes” occurred while drivers were at work. That means 88% of the “crashes” involved drivers who were not at work. 

Those who drive for a living are generally more careful than those who do not, so we can assume that somewhere in the region of half of the “crashes” involving those at work were caused by a driver who was not at work.

I apologise if I have lost the plot, but should we not be attending to the reduction of accidents of those not at work if we are to safeguard our employees and see a significant reduction in overall accident numbers?

Maybe now is the time for a Health and Safety (not at work) Act in order to protect our drivers. If we put all our resources into further reducing our 12% of accidents we will have little impact on the total. 

Let’s have some government campaigns and try to target the masses. Then we may see a significant reduction in serious injures and fatalities. 

Or are we just focused on minimising corporate manslaughter charges? Am I on my own here, just whistling in the dark?

MICHAEL C. SELBY
Fleet compliance manager

Good to be singing from the same hymn sheet

With reference to last week’s story ‘Network aims to improve broker standards’, it’s good to know that some of us are now singing from the same hymn sheet. 

Network has been at the forefront of establishing the creditable and professional leasing broker for more than 25 years – it’s a testament to this that LeasePlan is putting its weight behind moving it on.

With the help of the BVRLA, the leasing broker committee has been advocating this kind of stance since its inception, so well done to LeasePlan. 

Now we hope that others will take a similarly strong line so that once and for all we can kill the image in some people’s minds that leasing brokers are all wheelers and dealers lurking in the shadows.

Nothing could be further from the truth and it’s about time more within the wider marketplace realised there are friends to be made out there if they bothered to look.

In fact, the very ones who complain most about the ‘back-bedroom brokers’ are those that inadvertently provide them with oxygen – namely some of the manufacturers and their dealer network.

The irony is that they probably aren’t even aware of the part they play in all of this.

ROBERT CHISHOLM
Managing director, Applewood Vehicle Finance