By R. Bruce Wright, CPCU

Of all our regular safety topics, safe driving may be the one that is most often taken for granted. But, when you stop to think about it, vehicles are among the most dangerous tools utilities provide to their workers. 

Energized lines can be the source of very serious injuries and death for unwary employees or members of the public, but despite the attention paid to line contact events, it is everyday vehicle operations that rank at or near the top of the list in terms of frequency and severity of injuries to utility workers (Workers’ Compensation claims) and members of the public (Liability claims). At most electric utilities, the energized lines and other system components get appropriate attention, with detailed training and constant supervisor monitoring & feedback. Ask a lineman to recount the last time he had a supervisor pay attention to and be familiar with his performance doing actual line work and he’ll quickly give details. (Most utilities have formal, documented job site monitoring and inspection programs.) Ask the same lineman to recount the last time he had a supervisor pay close attention to and be familiar with his driving performance and he’ll probably fumble around trying to think of a time. Unlike performance doing line work, performance in driving is almost always taken for granted. It’s expected by management and generally viewed as something that may require training but does not require close monitoring and feedback.

So, despite the fact that according to electric utility insurance statistics, vehicle accidents are the leading cause of claims, injuries, and costs, the fleet risk is often treated as a secondary concern. In a logical world we would have the most training, most monitoring, most specific rules & reviews, and most careful follow up focused on the most risk, I.E. driving! But do you? 

Background

Safe driving is the result of many elements, but each of them falls into one of three main categories. 

Drivers’ basic physical attributes: eyesight, reflexes, time and distance judgment, etc. These are tested in pre-employment physicals, periodic eye tests, and bi-annual DOT physical examinations. 

Drivers’ technical knowledge: rules of the road, proper turning and following, using mirrors, vehicle maintenance, about vehicle handling, company policies, etc. These aspects are generally and appropriately covered during group training sessions. 

Drivers’ attitude: things like courtesy to others, adjusting to traffic conditions, respecting traffic laws and rules, caution in danger zones, smooth technique while operating the vehicle, driving well within the driver’s and vehicle’s capabilities, and the driver’s conscious decision to exhibit these characteristics. 

After making sure a driver has the physical attributes and the technical training, both fairly easy to measure and teach, the drivers’ attitudes are the largest influencer of drivers’ actual performances. Attitudes are the most important to safety and yet commonly the least attended to in most safety programs. 

The most important element of attitude is attentiveness. “Driver inattention is the leading factor in most crashes and near-crashes," according to research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI). Nearly 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes involved some form of driver inattention within three seconds before the event.” So says the report summary from a recent and detailed study of driver behavior conducted by these organizations. One important finding of the study was that in 13 of 14 cases (93%) of the observed “lead vehicle” crashes (the first car to strike something in front of it), inattention to the road ahead was a factor, and was also a factor in 68% of the near crashes of this type. And, the primary causes of driver inattention are distracting activities, such as cell phone use, and drowsiness. “This important research illustrates the potentially dire consequences that can occur while driving distracted or drowsy. It’s crucial that drivers always be alert when on the road.” 

Key findings of the study included:

1. Drowsiness increases a driver’s risk of a crash or near-crash by at least a factor of four, and perhaps more since drowsy driving may be significantly under-reported in police crash investigations.
2. The most common distraction for drivers is the use of cell phones. Although the number of crashes and near-crashes attributable to dialing is nearly identical to the number associated with talking or listening, dialing is clearly more dangerous since the time devoted to it is much less than that devoted to talking/listening.
3. Reaching for a moving object increased the risk of a crash or near-crash by 9 times; looking at an external object by 3.7 times; reading by 3 times; dialing a hand-held device by almost 3 times; and talking or listening on a hand-held device by 1.3 times. 
4. Drivers who engage frequently in distracting activities are more likely to be involved in an inattention-related crash or near-crash. Additionally, drivers are often unable to predict when it is safe to look away from the road to multi-task because the situation can change abruptly leaving the driver no time to react even when looking away from the forward roadway for only a brief time.

What distractions? If your drivers are typical, they may be asked to handle a radio, a cell phone, carry one or more passengers, and refer to paper work while they drive. They may also be smoking, drinking canned or bottled beverages, and even eating while doing so. If they are “on-call” responders they may be expected to do all this in the middle of the night, long after most of us are sound asleep. No wonder fleet losses are high!

A Thought Experiment

Think back to your first driving attempts. Concentrate on casting your mind back to your teens and your first driving lessons. Remember how nervous you were, how focused, with all senses at high alert, eyes scanning, ears attuned to any unexpected sound, muscles ready to hit the brakes, slew the wheel, whatever might be needed. Talk about paying attention!

Now think back to your commute to work this morning. Can you remember any of the details? Ever find yourself driving along a usual route and suddenly realize you don’t recall how you got there? Or start out on an errand that begins with a common route you often take to another destination and find yourself turning the opposite direction out of habit? Familiarity does breed contempt. 

Add to that the use of your radio, pod casts, cell phone, navigation system, other devices. Now that’s distracted driving!

An Underlying Issue

If you put all your drivers in a room and asked them, “How many of you are good drivers?” odds are that most of them, maybe even all of them, will confidently raise a hand. But if you read the loss descriptions on our claims reports, you’d probably wonder if they understood the question! Unfortunately, as the adage says, familiarity breeds contempt. Everyone has a license, many utility workers have CDLs, nearly all have been driving since their teens, and everyone thinks they know how to drive safely. It seems that nobody thinks that they are “below average” drivers.

Solutions

Safety behind the wheel is, indeed, a performance issue. Like all performance issues, people build on what they believe they are good at. Regular positive feedback to individual employees about their driving performance is not going to take place in group training sessions. To provide meaningful feedback to individual employees about their driving, supervisors and managers need to know how these employees are doing. To know, the supervisors and managers need to monitor the employees’ driving skills just as they monitor other aspects of performance. If you want to know how well your employees drive you have to find out first hand. The most common approaches used are check rides, end-of-day interviews, and direct field observations. Some companies actually use all three, although the most commonly used approach is direct field observations. Let’s take a look at each of these approaches.

Check Riding requires a designated observer with specifically learned skills. It should also include some type of reminder list of things to observe during the check ride, although the items on the list should be so well known to the observer that the list need be checked only occasionally. The observer should look to see where the driver’s eyes are moving and looking under differing situations. Does he check his mirrors regularly? Does he check his gauges? Does he look down in front of the vehicle as he’s driving along or does he (more appropriately) look several hundred feet in front. Does he react early to other vehicles and their possible actions? Does he lift his foot from the accelerator early when it is clear he may need to slow or stop or does he go directly from pressing the accelerator to pressing the brake pedal? When coming to a full stop, does it end with a very noticeable jolt or is the final stop smooth? These are just a small sampling of the driver’s habits and techniques that the observer should be noting that require more of the observer than just noticing how courteous the driver is or how well he abides by traffic laws. Of course, the first time or two this is done the driver will be self-conscious and extra careful in this “artificial” situation. But do it often enough and the comfort level increases (Remember the thought experiment above?) and real habits will emerge. 

End Of Day Interviews can be fairly free-form and brief and are intended to find out what the driver, himself, thought about his performance behind the wheel. There may be some specific questions the interviewer should prepare in advance, but the goal here is to get the driver talking about his driving experiences for the day and, in so doing, make it clear that the manager or supervisor doing the interview really is interested in the driver’s driving ability and habits. A driver that is attentive during his time behind the wheel will have plenty to say. One that is not so attentive will fumble around trying to think of things to say. If such a driver discovers he will be interviewed almost every day, he’ll begin paying more attention and, little by little, will increase his attentiveness to his driving. 

Field Observations are just that – getting out to watch employees actually driving. This activity almost always requires at least some degree of unannounced observation, but it does not need to and should not take on an air of sneaking around to catch drivers without their knowledge. Compare this activity to normal supervision on a job site. The supervisor is there, the employees expect him/her to be there. The observations are expected and those being observed don’t begrudge supervisor doing so. The same level of accepted, normal supervisory observation should apply to driving. Of course, one essential way to bring this about is for the supervisor or manager that makes the field observations to approach the driver (or drivers) he observed and provide thorough, well-balanced feedback, and to do so without the slightest hint that the observer was sneaking around. And, balanced feedback means giving lots of attention to the things done well, not just the things that could be done better. 

Doing field observations requires a bit of training, too. While any supervisor could probably do a reasonable job without any special training, he should receive at least some training to help him understand what he is looking for – all the subtleties in the driver’s actions that are indicators of skill or lack of skill. Plus, he should be carefully instructed on the concept that his goal is to tell the drivers he observes what they did well, not try to catch them doing things wrong.

Conclusion

At most of the electric utilities we work with, the primary feedback an employee gets on driving skills is based on negative information – accidents, vehicle damages, moving violations, and complaints from people outside the company. Even normal accident and violation histories such as DMV reports are not a good basis for meaningful feedback because they are very old data, are a listing of failures rather than successes, and often can be misleading. (We all know good drivers that occasionally get tickets, and bad drivers that somehow avoid getting caught.) Even if there is no negative information on a DMV report, supervisors and managers rarely say anything – which does nothing to reinforce good performance.

Taking the time to monitor actual driving performance and providing positive, reinforcing feedback to drivers is a much more effective way to inspire excellent driving performance than doing 10 safe driving sessions in the office. I’m not suggesting there is no need for formal driving sessions – there are important driving techniques that everyone should have a chance to learn. But, group training sessions alone are unlikely to translate into the positive self-image and professionalism one needs in order to exhibit excellence behind the wheel. 

In all areas of worker performance, “What gets measured gets done.” and “People build on what they believe they are good at.” It’s the same with driving motor vehicles. 

There is much more that could be said on this topic, for example this article hasn’t even mentioned the need for clear and concise written vehicle policies covering rules and expectations for common vehicle usage situations. It is important for you to make choices, set rules and enforce them, rather than leaving your drivers to figure it out themselves. If you are inclined to research this further, our archive has lots of previous articles to read or reread. Here’s a sampling:

Fleet Guidelines and Safe Driving Revisited - Hurtado & Associates A requirement for the employee to obey all driver safety laws and traffic.

Securing Materials On Vehicles - Hurtado & Associates The extent of the damage was a broken windshield and a very startled driver. But …

So you think texting while driving is just a problem for kids? - Hurtado... Studies have concluded that drivers using their phones while driving … 

Adjust Your Mirrors To Eliminate Blind Spots - Hurtado & Associates Lean your head against the driver's side door window.

Looking Forward to Backing Safely - Hurtado & Associates Claimant driver pulled up, insured driver reversed and backed over the claimant

Vehicle Backing Incidents: How do Some Utilities Seem to Avoid Them? Sometimes loss runs show no backing incidents. What explains this?

An Rx for Medication Worries - Hurtado & Associates Synebar Consultants visit you, we often ask about your CDL drivers

Vehicle Use Policies & Learning from Experience - Hurtado & Associates Regularly revisit and review these policies...here's a lesson.

Distracted Drivers are Dangerous Drivers - Hurtado & Associates Per the most recent and most detailed study of driver behavior ever …

Check Rides Reinforce Safe Driving Skills - Hurtado & Associates A closer look at an alternative program to develop good habits among your drivers.

Managing Vehicle Accident Scenes - Hurtado & Associates The most effective approach, I believe, is to give all drivers the tools and ...

Safe Driving Depends on Feedback, Not Just Group Training - Hurtado & Associates Meaningful feedback to individual employees must be specific.

Effective Use of MVRs (Driving Records) - Hurtado & Associates To establish which employees must participate in remedial driver training…

Cell Phone Use While Driving Revisited - Hurtado & Associates Why shouldn’t the passengers handle communications-

Cellular Phones and Drivers- The Latest News - Hurtado & Associates Cell phone use restrictions should apply to all drivers ...