It is not unusual for a company to decide to send its employees on a safe driving course, only to find after surveying the market that the budget set aside for it is too small. It is then impossible to train all the drivers, and somehow those who will be sent on the course have to be chosen, while at the same time finding a way to explain to the others why they are not going. The company then often hits on the idea of treating the safe driving course either as a reward for those who drive most safely, or as a punishment for those who drive worst.
At first glance this reasoning seems wrong, and indeed it is. Yet it happens surprisingly often, which has to do with a few popular stereotypes about safe driving courses. The specifics of the Polish training market also play their part. All this creates a somewhat tangled mixture, which we will try to unravel in a moment. Let us start by explaining why a company should treat safe driving training neither as a reward nor as a punishment.
1. Treating a safe driving course as a reward or punishment makes no business sense
First, trying to treat a safe driving course as a reward or punishment for drivers for, respectively, good or bad driving will be ineffective in terms of cost versus result. Let us start with the idea of treating such training as a bonus for those who drive most safely. If someone already drives well enough not to have collisions or accidents, from a business point of view investing money in developing their skills makes little sense. If we spend our budget on training for such a person, then apart from, perhaps, their greater satisfaction, this investment will give us nothing. In such a situation there is simply nothing for the training to improve.
Using a safe driving course as a punishment for dangerous behaviour on the road also has little justification. First, if we really want to take action against an employee who drives recklessly, there are methods that are not only more effective but also cost nothing: disciplinary conversations, financial sanctions or, in extreme cases, termination of employment.
Second, training intended to serve as a punishment also has little chance of proving effective. It is hard to expect that an employee forced into it will respond positively to the content the safe driving academy tries to convey.
Third, most drivers who drive recklessly do not behave that way on the road out of a lack of knowledge, so trying to fill that gap will change nothing. Again, the money spent on training will probably turn out to be wasted.
In other words, using training as a reward or punishment for the group of best or worst drivers makes little sense from a business point of view. In each of these cases we will spend money and probably get no result, albeit for different reasons.
2. Safe driving training should be available to all drivers
Another argument against treating training as a reward or punishment for a select few is ethical. If training helps protect the health and lives of the people employed by the company, from a moral point of view every one of them should be able to benefit from it, and the employer should not restrict access to such a course to any chosen group. First aid courses are a good example: it would hardly occur to anyone to treat them as a reward or punishment for anybody, and it is obvious that everyone should take one. Safe driving training should be approached in the same way.
There is one more reason to send all drivers on such a course. Sending only some of them, regardless of how that group is selected, will probably provoke accusations of unequal treatment and have a negative effect on the atmosphere in the team.
In summary, it is worth finding a way for all employees who drive company cars to attend a safe driving course. The condition, of course, is that the training is of indisputable value, and this is precisely where things get complicated.
3. Does safe driving training have to be a skid pan course?
Let us return for a moment to the idea of treating a safe driving course as a reward. The ideas that spring to a fleet manager's mind about treating such training as a reward reserved exclusively for safe drivers often originate in the first of the stereotypes mentioned at the outset: many people, when thinking about training, consider only courses run on a skid pan. At the same time, this kind of training often raises concerns among fleet managers that it might encourage some participants to drive more riskily (a fear that is unfortunately sometimes justified, as we will discuss in more detail shortly). The result is a situation in which the fleet manager is afraid to send on such a course the drivers who are inclined to take risks on the road. Consequently, there is nothing left but to send only those about whom there are no concerns, that is those with a clean record. That in turn, for the reasons mentioned above, by definition cannot bring any benefit. So we end up going round in circles.
Meanwhile, besides skid pan courses there are quite a few other forms of driver education, although they are less popular in Poland. They are worth a closer look, because turning to them can open up possibilities we have not considered before. The most common alternatives to a skid pan course include:
- defensive driving courses, conducted in normal road traffic
- eco-driving training (also conducted in normal traffic on public roads)
- lectures, workshops and group discussions on safe driving topics
- safety days and other educational events
- newsletters, webinars and e-learning courses
- train the trainer programmes (training safe driving trainers recruited from among the company's employees)
- driver coaching and mentoring.
These alternative forms of education carry no risk of an increase in accident rates afterwards, so they free the fleet manager from the dilemma just described. They also have several other advantages:
- they may prove more valuable than a skid pan course at a driving skills centre
- they are also usually cheaper
- some of them the company can run on its own or with only minor help from an external provider.
So let us take an interest in the alternatives to skid pan training. It may then turn out not only that the doubts about whether such a course is suitable for everyone disappear, but also that our budget is sufficient to train the entire staff. We will then not have to deliberate at all over which group to send on the training, or try to force the course into the role of a reward or punishment.
4. Concerns about skid pan courses: are they justified?
We mentioned the concerns that experienced fleet managers sometimes have about training conducted on a skid pan. Unfortunately, these concerns are sometimes justified. In Polish conditions it happens that this kind of training is not so much a safe driving course as an event where participants are driven around in sports cars, dazzled with fast laps of a track, or taught techniques typical of motorsport. There is a great deal of data confirming that such an approach not only fails to reduce accident rates, but can actually increase the appetite for risk and, as a result, the number of accidents among participants. That is precisely why many fleet managers, after negative experiences with such training, regard it at best as entertainment.
This does not mean, however, that every course using a skid pan is pointless. Such training can be valuable, provided it is conducted in a well-thought-out way, by carefully selected and trained instructors. So if we notice the concerns just described in ourselves, it means two things. First, it is a signal that we should change our training provider to one whose courses we are certain encourage only safe behaviour. Second, it is then worth considering the alternative forms of education mentioned above, which will not give rise to such concerns. This approach should free us from worrying that training will encourage any of our employees to take risks on the road.
5. A safe driving course as a reward or punishment: summary
Safe driving training should not be used as a reward or punishment for employees. It is better to approach it the way we approach first aid courses: it should be available and compulsory for every vehicle user in the company, rather than serving as a reward or punishment. In addition, from a purely business point of view, treating training as a reward or punishment is ineffective in terms of cost versus result.
If you are worried that by sending a dangerous driver on a course you will encourage them to behave even more riskily, that is a clear signal to look for a different safe driving academy or a different type of training. Look for a school whose courses you can be sure improve safety. Also find forms of education that you can regard as useful without any reservations.
It will be easier for you to find both a provider and a course that meet these requirements if you consider more options than just skid pan courses. There are many alternatives to such training on the market, and they can often prove more valuable and cheaper at the same time. This approach will make it easier for you to decide on the optimal form of education for the drivers in your company and free you from thinking about safe driving training in terms of rewards and punishments.
