How’s My Driving? - Safe Driving Blog Tips

As a social enterprise company, How’s My Driving? reinvests any profit from our road safety sticker service directly back into projects which further promote road safety. This year one of the projects we have been working with is 5asideCHESS. Our team has been working with them to support their innovative initiative, which aims to improve the mental health of haulage drivers.

Improving the mental health of professional drivers is one of the most pressing and yet widely ignored issues in Britain today. We all rely on this group of workers to provide us with our needs and wants in both our personal and professional lives. According to the Road Haulage Association, haulage drivers provide us with ninety-eight per cent of all food and agriculture products. Without these drivers, our supermarkets would be empty, and our farmers struggle to operate.

These drivers also transport the same percentage of all consumer goods and machinery around the UK. Again, without them, our homes would be empty, and our online orders gathering dust undelivered!

Ninety-eight per cent of these drivers are men — a group which is three times more likely to commit suicide than their female equivalents.

As we are all aware, road transport is a highly competitive and often, a low-margin business. It is a service-driven industry which responds to fluctuating customer demand and is supported by staff who are often working under challenging conditions including unplanned delays, increasing congestion and fluctuating weather. Drivers can live a sedentary lifestyle with irregular eating patterns. They can spend long hours on their own and are often working to high pressured schedules.

On top of these conditions, they can often spend days away from their home and families.

None of these conditions or statics are conducive to employers consistently being able to offer a stable working environment which can nurture and support employees.

5asideCHESS provides a simple but incredibly effective way to help people connect. 5asideCHESS is a short form game of chess. The pieces come within a wipe-clean chessboard and simple instructions, so are usable by novice and expert players. The game is played in the same way as the longer-form game, but being a shorter, quicker version, it allows players to engage with another player quickly, have a game and chat and then get on their way again. Just by taking the time to play and talk starts the journey away from isolation.

The 5asideCHESS team joined us at The CV and MultiModal Shows this year to showcase the 5aside chess game and invite those attending to play.

Bright Hygiene also supports the team. Bright Hygiene is a commercial kitchen cleaning company who like us, are keen to get people talking and taking the first step towards reconnecting in the real world.

5asideCHESS Website