Now in its seventh year, the Australian Road Safety Foundation’s (ARSF) community-based Rural Road Safety Month initiative runs throughout September and aims to raise awareness around the additional risks of rural and remote driving.
Sadly, accidents on rural and remote roads accounted for almost two thirds of the 2023 road toll, indicating that change is needed – and according to ex-police officer and specialist driver safety trainer at Teletrac Navman, Chris L’Ecluse, it all starts with education.
Chris sat down with Fleet HV News to talk about the importance of driver training, as well as sharing his top tips for Australian Rural Road Safety Month.
Across his career, Chris has seen the good, the bad and the ugly. However, it’s the ability to make a positive change through driver training that motivates him and he uses a mix of technology and behavioural change to improve road safety from the ground up.
“I spent 20 years in the WA Police, in the Highway Patrol and then doing crash investigations, but I was also a driver training instructor,” he said.
“In the police, you turn up to the scene of serious and fatal traffic collisions to determine what occurred, but when you become a driver trainer you get an opportunity to scratch the surface and understand why people are driving in certain manners and actually correct those behaviours.”
After training police officers, then workers in the oil and gas industry abroad, Chris joined Teletrac Navman to take his driver training efforts to the next level – using technology and data to educate.
“With my position at Teletrac Navman, I’ve gone to that third tier in using the technology. Not only as a platform to help educate as many people and organisations as possible, but also connecting the dots and using the links between what I know are root causes for road trauma and how technology plays a really major role in helping educate drivers.”
By now, Chirs has learnt that most drivers think they’re better than they are. He uses data to show drivers first-hand what they’re doing wrong or what they could improve, because as he points out – data doesn’t lie.
“All drivers think that they’re good drivers, and I’ve never come across a driver that tells their organisation they’re a bad driver – especially professional drivers,” he said.
“It’s not until they’re faced with data that confirms that they either speed, harsh break, harsh corner, things like this, that demonstrate without comeback that there are areas for improvement within a driver’s skill set from a behavioural perspective.
“There are no such things as perfect drivers, everyone makes mistakes, but you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
For Rural Road Safety Month, and beyond, Chris gave us three basic tips he believes will greatly improve road safety if followed:
- “Planning your journey is number one. Within that planning, understand where you’re starting, where you’re heading, what you’re driving, who’s in the vehicle, what’s in the vehicle and what roads you’re travelling on. Also, when and where you’re going to stop for rest. We call it a journey plan and people need to stick to it.”
- “Two is to ensure the vehicle is optimal. Do you have enough fuel, is it roadworthy, have you checked your tyres and windshield? Checking the condition of the tyres is so important too, because that’s the only contact patch with the road and no amount of technology will ever take the place of a tyre.”
- “Finally, be open to understanding how you can become a better driver. Everyone always talks about the Fatal Five (speeding, drink driving, failing to wear seatbelts and driving while tired or distracted) and of course they’re incredibly important, but driving is so much more dynamic than that. We have to consider so many more data points than just the Fatal Five. The environment in which people drive is so diverse, especially on rural roads.”
Find out more about Rural Road Safety Month here.
