How’s My Driving? - Safe Driving Blog Tips

Road haulage operators, estimated to have directly contributed approximately £13.1 billion to the UK economy in 2016, face several challenges, in particular the recruitment and retention of LGV drivers to meet the current and future demand. This long-standing shortage of talent has driven operators to look towards temporary staffing solutions, causing insurance companies to increase their premiums, making this short-term solution unaffordable for many.

With a combination of factors affecting the shortage: lack of investment, poor roadside facilities, image perception, long and unsociable working hours, the cost of license acquisition and poor recruitment initiatives, the road freight industry must work together across the industry to develop robust permanent recruitment strategies, in order to recruit and retain the drivers it so desperately needs. There are notable advantages to having a higher percentage of permanent staff in the driving seat.

Typically, permanent members of staff show a greater emotional investment in the vehicle they drive and the company due to feelings of job security and satisfaction, reducing bent metal costs as well as providing a consistently reliable service for customers. Claims experience has a considerable effect on insurance premiums, having reliable, regular good drivers behind the wheel, alongside other risk reduction tools can help to manage your claims experience and reduce overall risk.

Jelf, one of the largest UK insurance brokers have been looking at measures they can take to encourage fleets to reduce their level of risk, taking the bold step of forming a relationship with the UK’s best known safety service, How’s My Driving? Darren Jay the Branch Director at Jelf’s Newmarket office says “At Jelf, we believe that auditable data capture on fleet performance, supported by a larger proportion of permanent staff contribute enormously to reducing risk, which will be more attractive to the insurance industry as a whole”. He went on to say “Data captured by a service like How’s My Driving? together with the staff platform provided by National Recruitment Line will certainly help contribute to driving down claims over time”.

Share your thoughts on the driver shortage, how it affects you, your business and any solutions you have for how we can tackle the shortage...

* Statistics and information taken from ONS Annual Business Survey 2017 and the House of Commons Transport Committee Fourth Report of Session 2016-17.