Ford’s safety initiative for company car drivers

Ford is pioneering a new road safety measure by offering a fully integrated, online, driver risk management programme to its fleet customers.

A dedicated, Ford-branded website, allows business drivers to complete user-friendly online risk assessments and e-learning modules. On-road defensive driver training courses are offered to drivers assessed to be high risk, based on individual responses to questions.

Drive & Survive, a leading driver risk management provider and a long-standing Ford supplier, will manage the administration of the programme. The process is easy for customers to manage as it includes monthly detail and summary report updates covering on-line registrations, assessment results and risk weightings. Customers know how far each of its employees has progressed within the assessment process and there is an audit trail of all activity that is a critical part of a company's duty of care obligation.

Director of Ford Fleet, Kevin Griffin, said: "We are keen to assist our clients in complying with their duty of care obligations but there is an associated benefit in the form of cost savings. More aware, better-informed and more confident drivers tend to avoid damaging incidents, use less fuel, and take more care with company assets. Effectively it’s another way of contributing to a reduction in whole life costs.”
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Based on industry data, it is estimated that annually 65 per cent of company-owned vehicles will be involved in some form of road incident resulting in cost and business disruption to the owner.

Drive & Survive’s driver risk management interventions have been proven to reduce road incident rates by at least 20 per cent in the first year. In addition reduced fleet fuel consumption, lower component wear and the potential improvement in insurance costs means that this innovative Ford-sponsored scheme could lead to substantial cost savings for participating companies.