Valt you also sometimes notice, all those vans on the road? You just might, because the number of company vans on Dutch motorways has nowgrown to a whopping 883,000. Quite a number. And all the more worrying when you know that the drivers of these vehicles do not always seem to follow the traffic rules neatly....
Besides the number of commercial vehicles on the road, the number of fines is also increasing. Especially for anti-social driving behaviour, Dutch people are being fined more often. We do not want to say that there is a causal connection between this, but still thought it was worthwhile to find out how this is. And what do you think? Our research shows that company car drivers do not always have a neat driving style.
Drivers of vans appear to be especially often in a hurry. More than half (55.8 per cent) occasionally drive too fast outside built-up areas - inside built-up areas this is thankfully slightly lower, at 'only' two-thirds (37.3 per cent). There is often no good reason for speeding - they simply don't notice (44.1 per cent) or adapt to other traffic (42.2 per cent). Besides speeding, four in 10 (40.8 per cent) pull up fast at traffic lights - that's eight percentage points more than in 2017. Finally, almost three in 10 (28 per cent) do not always use their phones hands-free while driving.
Measures against anti-social driving
A third of drivers (33.3 per cent) have actually been fined once because of their driving or parking behaviour. That is one way to punish anti-social driving behaviour, but fitting the company car with a company imprint can also be a solution. Indeed, almost seven in 10 drivers (68.3 per cent) are then extra aware of their driving behaviour. So you could say that you are more likely to behave on the road when driving a car bearing the company logo. So by stickering company cars, employers not only benefit from driving advertising, but also from safer-driving employees. A win-win situation, in other words.
But employers can do more to encourage safe driving behaviour from their employees. For example, by rewarding 'good' driving behaviour. To do this, they need to know how drivers drive. A tool like a vehicle tracking system provides good insight into this. As yet, employers only use such a system to record the number of kilometres driven (42.4 per cent) or to keep track of fuel used (25.6 per cent). Routes driven can also be tracked via a GPS tracker (30.4 per cent of employers currently do so).
How employees view these measures
Don't employees find that a problem? The majority do not: less than three per cent would take a negative view if the employer were to monitor driving behaviour and/or fuel consumption. In fact, two thirds (66.7 per cent) would be fine with their employer monitoring driving behaviour. Because they themselves would also like to know whether they drive safely, for example (61.4 per cent). Or because they like the idea that irresponsible colleagues can be called to account for their driving (49 per cent). But also to be able to demonstrate that a schedule is unrealistic (33.2 per cent).
Yet a third of employers (32.2 per cent) do not check any of this. While an all-in-one solution automatically tracks this data and gives employers complete insight into their employees' driving behaviour. Also, such a tool is capable of running automatic reports - something that half (48.5 per cent) would be keen to get insight into their own driving behaviour.
One disadvantage of insight into driving behaviour thanks to a vehicle tracking system, is that competition can arise over who has the most economical or safest driving style. A third (33.4 per cent) would be negative to very negative about this. For three in 10 (30.9 per cent), however, this is actually music to their ears. So for fleet managers with competitive teams, it might be interesting to find out whether drivers would be up for this. With the reward for the 'worst' driving driver being a driving skills training course - something that would be welcomed by almost half of employees (45.2 per cent).
