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30 MPH Speed Limits A Bit Far-Fetched, But There Are Easier Ways to Help Save the Planet

Sir,
I am writing in response to your letter from Glen Lowcock of The Secular Franciscan Order, entitled “30MPH Limit on all roads will save oil” (Fleet News 30 August 2007).

Due to the extreme nature of Mr Lowcock’s suggestion, I suspect most readers will have read his letter and thought to themselves, ‘Well that isn’t going to happen is it’, and will have moved swiftly on to read other articles.

But whilst his viewpoint is pretty radical, his letter should challenge us all to consider if we are doing enough to reduce the use of oil, petrol, diesel and the level of emissions our fleets are producing.

In many cases, the harsh reality as to why fleet operators find it difficult to commit to green policies is because it can often be very expensive, or restrictive to their business success, to do so.

We live in a competitive world and if a company decides to convert all of its fleet to LPG, or limit the amount of mileage each driver covers each year, or forces its drivers to have smaller cars these all have a commercial impact. Either in terms of up front investment, a negative impact on a company’s ability to successfully conduct its business or in attracting the highest calibre people by offering them a better car to drive. It’s not something that company directors readily admit to but saving the planet in the long-term does not always make short-term commercial sense, which is why the sentiment is often there but not the financial ability to commit to change.

However, with the advent of an increasing number of online driver training and assessment solutions for fleet operators, we do have an opportunity to make a tangible impact on the environment as well as have a positive commercial impact on our businesses.

I have worked in the fleet driver training sector for 20 years, and a key resistance of companies committing to a programme of driver risk assessments and driver training was always that it was seen as a significant investment, and it removed people from their day to day activities for ½ a day to 1 day. A cost and loss of resource that many companies found hard to swallow – even when they knew it was vital to their Duty of Care obligations.

On the environmental theme, every in-vehicle driver assessment and training day used additional fuel, oil and carbon emissions. As a simple example, 100,000 drivers being trained leads to approximately 5 million miles being driven.

I accept that many people will read this and may think, ‘This is just a letter of blatant promotion of online services’. Bu my point is a genuine one and is valid.

Online driver risk assessments and online driver training are now becoming very much part of fleet culture, and adoption rates by major fleets are growing all the time.

To assess and train online is not only far less expensive it also has significant environmental and commercial benefits, making this a genuine case of companies being able to create a positive commercial impact on their business, and do their bit for our planet.

30 August 2007

Source: E-Training World