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 What Works?
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Managing driver safety is a terrifically complex task. Knowing what doesn’t work, is just as important as knowing what does.
There are a number of things that you can do to manage your fleet, or yourself. Firstly, think about safety as a ‘numbers game’. The more things you do to be ‘safer’ the better off you will be. The second thing, is to remember you’re in this for the long-haul. You will probably be driving for years to come. So, safety needs to be a something that needs continuous improvement. Nobody can say they are a ‘safe driver’ and switch off.
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Behaviour is Doing
The only way you, or your fleet can be safer, is if you behave differently. Behaviour based safety programs include focus on the ‘doing’. Because everybody has there own idea about what ‘safe’ is, it’s important to be specific about how to identify, measure, record & communicate safe behaviours.
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At Corporate Driver Training Australia, we have designed the Low Risk Teaching Model. A key element of the model is a concept we describe as ‘Objective Risk’. Objective Risk works because it can be used to provide immediate & real feedback on safety performance. If you know you are ‘at-risk’, you know you have to change your behaviour.
Cognition is Thinking
You probably already know how to drive more cautiously than you generally do. As we have seen in the section Training Doesn’t Prevent Crashes, skill is not the answer. People & organisations need to choose to be safer. Making this choice, like any choice, means thinking about your options. Road safety programs need to influence the way people think in such a way that ‘safer choices’ become habitual.
That’s why Corporate Driver Training Australia is very careful not to deliver any experience that can make you think you are better off than you really are. In fact, we use scientifically proven thinking skills that help you think in more realistic ways. In addition to thinking realistically, Low Risk Driving means taking ownership of the safety challenge. Low Risk Drivers use known thinking strategies to positively influence their choices.
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Emotion is Feeling
How do you feel when somebody cuts you off, or you’re running late for an appointment? Emerging brain & mind science is revealing how important managing our emotions really is. Just think about it for a moment, if something feels good we might do it, even if we know it might be bad for us in the long run. When you think about it, emotion is the energy in our fuel tank. Our emotions definitely ‘fuel’ our behaviour. On the flip side of negative emotions, like how you might feel if you’re running late, is how you might feel if you let someone into a gap (on purpose!).
The potential benefits from harnessing our emotional energy is so great, we decided to dedicate an entire one day program to emotions. We call it Low Risk Plus. However, just telling people about emotions is not enough. People need to develop specific mental skills to manage emotions in a positive way. Then, you need to learn how to apply those mental skills to Low Risk Driving. That’s Low Risk Plus!
If you would like to know more about Low Risk Driving or how we can introduce safety strategies that work to your fleet, contact a consultant.
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