Nigel Grainger brings together a related set of skills that all fleets require, to greater or lesser
degrees, but which may not have the staffing or the skills to fulfil those needs.
Bringing his wealth of experience in all areas of fleet management he offers a bespoke service through his company Fleet Risk Consultants, providing you with a cost effective fleet that complies fully with your 'duty of care' requirements.Who is to blame for this?
I have had a driver on the telephone today asking me about a speeding prosecution he had received. The driver was annoyed because he had been photographed doing 77mph on a dual-carriageway and on first examination he might have a reasonable point.
BUT and it is a big BUT I then found out what type of vehicle he was driving at the time. It turns out he was driving a Ford Transit Van at the time which throws a whole new set of different rules into play. The driver was very surprised to learn that at 77 mph he was 28% or 17 mph over the legal limit for his vehicle on that type of road.
This driver found out to his cost something that all drivers should know, but most don’t. There are different speed limits for different types of vehicles. In this case a Ford Transit can only travel at 70 mph legally on a Motorway, 60 mph on a dual-carriageway and 50 mph on a national speed limit single carriageway road. The most disturbing part is that this driver works with another 20 van drivers and none of them knew these speed limits either, their employer had not given them the information either and this could lead to a prosecution for the employer too.
The speed limits are freely available at the website for the Highway Code, but if you or your staff are still not certain which rules apply you can give our team a call on 01623 675833.
I advise that you always make sure that you know exactly which rules apply to you and your vehicle because it is your responsibility to know these rules. As an employer you also have a duty to ensure your staff know any rules that may be different to the normal vehicle they drive when not at work.
Nigel Grainger
Senior Consultant
Fleet Risk Consultants
July 29th, 2009 at 8:13 am
Wow, I didn’t know that and I used to drive a Transit a lot! Thanks!
July 29th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Well said Nigel, someone who drives for a living is treated as a professional driver. They are expected to know these things and the penalties for them not knowing can be higher.
We constantly educate our van drivers about this and Sarah has her due diligence in place.
Van drivers need to understand they have a duty to drive safely and what they ‘think’ the limit is, isn’t a defence.
Rgds
Kevin
July 29th, 2009 at 10:01 am
I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.
July 30th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
This does not surprise me at all, I conducted a driver safety presentation to about 20 company staff this week, quite a few did not know the speed limit for their own cars let alone vans. Most were surprised when I mentioned the different limits for light vans. All were issued with the highway code and given a driving assessment to try to improve the standard, I just hope they listened!
August 17th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I had no idea this was the case! I’ve owned 3 transits in my time, and used to love thrashing them round the pennine hills (can be a lot of fun) – bloody glad no-one caught me.
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:47 pm
I commented before on the driver from Onstream gas who had no idea about lighting and the scroll switch. The van if it belongs to the driver is usually looked after and treated with some respect [Most of the time]. If it is part of a Fleet many drivers sadly do not know all the rules and treat them like go carts. From my understanding you at Fleet Risk are attemping like me to make drivers much more aware leading to better Road Safety.
Keep up the good work Ken Perham
PS:- When I was much younger I had a personal friend who worked for British Gas and a similar van stopped at lights on his nearside in a manner that was to probably get through the light change first. Sadly my friend decided to take the other van on and be first away. To my friends surprise it was a police van. The scenarios for traffic violations are endless.