There are certain cognitive tricks and thinking fallacies that can be used to motivate your staff - and in the fleet manager’s case, driver behaviour.
Here are several mental tricks you can use to encourage the correct behaviour in your drivers. This article addresses what behaviours need to be encouraged in drivers and any “cognitive behaviour” you can use subtly to direct them to do the behaviours you want.
Driver behaviour is of paramount importance not only to stem the rising tide of unnecessary crashes and deaths, but also to assist companies in containing fleet operating costs – in other words a holistic approach to a career as a driver.
However, how does a fleet manager influence or change driver behaviour?
In his book ‘Traffic Safety’, author Leonard Evans states: “It is crucial to distinguish between driver performance and driver behaviour. Not differentiating between them has caused, and continues to cause, confusion. The two concepts are:
- Driver performance - what the driver CAN do.
- Driver behaviour - what the driver DOES do.
“Driver performance relates to the driver's knowledge, skill, perceptual and cognitive abilities. Driver behaviour is what the driver chooses to do with these attributes.”
Good driver behaviour boils down to using enhanced judgement to avoid situations requiring superior driving skills. However, while performance can be monitored and tested using telematics and tracking systems, behaviour cannot be monitored in the same way as it is a mental function.
Influencing and changing behaviour is a pro-active two-way process between the fleet owner and the driver and is an ongoing process at both a mental and physical level.
As technology advances, the physical process of driving also undergoes changes – statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NTHSA) in the USA showed anti lock braking systems (ABS) associated with a large increase in rollover risk and did not enhance safety in the way a naïve interpretation of impressive test track results indicated. In the same way, an increase in driving skill may not increase safety because it can be used for such purposes as increasing speed, overtaking in tighter situations, or performing more secondary tasks, such as talking on cell phones.
Similar data has shown ABS did not reduce crash rates because drivers with ABS have traded off the improved safety for forward mobility by adapting their behaviour in ways that reduced or eliminated the safety cushion with the result the emergency stopping distance was no different than with standard brakes.
Many drivers believe they are good drivers and are reluctant to review their behaviour.
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Gary Clackworthy, Projects Director for MasterDrive says,: “Driving requires 85% mental skills to remain safe and only 15% physical skills. Sadly, most drivers rely only on their physical skills when driving and they let their mind wander off the driving task.
“Safe driving requires you to be mentally aware at all times and avoid thinking of other things not related to driving as well as avoiding common distractions such as mobile phones, listening to the radio, eating, drinking, smoking, changing radio channels and looking at pedestrians and not the road.”
He suggests drivers learn to refocus by doing commentary driving and report aloud to themselves – like a commentator on a sports game - exactly what is happening ahead, behind and on the sides of the vehicle.”
Managing the fleet of vehicles is a daunting task and fleet managers have to cope up with a variety of challenges. Drivers are the lifeline of a fleet and improving driver behaviour is the key to managing a fleet effectively.
Today, data is the king. To improve the driver behaviour, first you need to analyse it. So, invest in data collection and analysis of the driving pattern data.
There are some tricks to changing the mindset of drivers:
- Make it a game! Promote healthy competition among the drivers and watch them try to outperform each other.
- Money talks – offer financial incentives for good driving behaviour.
- A constructive dialogue among the drivers and fleet managers will improve the driver behaviour to a great extent.
- Demonstrate the importance of time to your drivers so they are never late.
- Set realistic goals and targets. You do not want your driver to drive with a mind full of stress.
- Sharing is caring. Do not just lock up the data obtained through fleet management software in your personal folders; share it with your drivers.
- There is a reason businesses go through continuous evaluations on a quarterly basis. Emulate this novel practice and evaluate your drivers regularly.
- Coach, advise and discuss. These three steps will improve the driving behaviour.
- Improve fuel efficiency of your fleet by monitoring the fuel consumption of the vehicles on a real-time basis through fleet tracking systems. Identify fuel saving areas and share the insights with your drivers to improve their driving behaviour.
- Practice what you preach. Maintain your fleet well and in time, your drivers will do their part in maintaining their respective vehicles.
- Rather than going for disciplinary actions for mistakes, communication is a better alternative.
An enormous body of evidence consistently supports that the risk of crashing, being injured, or being killed, increases with increasing speed. However, lower speed limits reduce the efficiency of travel.
The safest traffic system consists of vehicles all of which are nearly stationary. Setting speed limits involves trade-offs and reducing speed limits is almost certain to increase the number of law violators.
Try out this approach with your drivers, and let us know in the comments if you’ve seen any changes in your driver’s behaviour
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