High mileage doesn’t have to mean high risk

Companies that categorise their drivers as being high risk, simply due to the number of miles they cover each year, the type of car they drive or the number of points on their licence should think again, according to E-Training World.

Graham Hurdle (pictured), managing director of E-Training World, believes that all too often drivers are placed into a high risk category based on just a few questions about their driving activity.

A true assessment should focus on their knowledge, attitude, concentration and observation, and their hazard perception skills.

Hurdle said: “I speak to a lot of companies who tell me that certain high mileage drivers are automatically classed as high risk – almost removing the need to conduct any further assessment of their abilities.

“Yet the reality is that a high mileage driver can often be a lot safer than a low mileage driver, and to categorise risk in such a basic way means either you allocate far too many people into a high risk category, and this can become expensive if they are all expected to carry out on-road driver training. Or, the wrong drivers are classed as high risk which means your training budget is wasted all together.”

E-Training World has always promoted the fact that it never categorises risk based on the number of miles a driver covers, the type of car they drive or any other ‘assumptive’ factor.

Instead, the risk rating is purely based on the outcome of the driver’s online assessment with average results showing 9% of company car, van and HGV drivers are high risk, 68% are medium risk and 23% low risk.

“We sometimes find companies with 30% or more high risk drivers who are spending way over the odds for training,” said Hurdle.

“They are often bemused to how so many drivers could be deemed so dangerous that they fall into a high risk category.”

Do you automatically class high mileage drivers as high risk? Let us know by voting in our poll here.