Ensuring your staff adopt a safe driving style and use eco-driving techniques that help cut fuel costs is certainly something worth investing your time in, day to day, as well as devoting time to effectively improve driver behaviour. If you run a fleet of commercial vehicles you might be aware of the problem with aggressive driving among van drivers; something which might well be attributed to fatigue and stress due to vehicles being compromised by such things as reduced visibility, or severe loading etc.
But what do van drivers really think about their own driving style compared to other road users?
A recent post by Business Vans, focusses on a survey by Intelligent Car Leasing, which had the task of discovering the most annoying driving habits according to light commercial vehicle drivers, and 4 items cropped up repeatedly. Have a look at this list and you should more readily understand your drivers’ day-to-day frustrations… and perhaps can help ensure they adopt appropriate behaviour behind the wheel!
Here are the top 4 habits of car drivers, guaranteed to infuriate commercial vehicle drivers like nothing else—some of which are quite dangerous:
#1 - Overtaking and then slowing down in front: this generally happens when drivers want to avoid the restricted visibility caused by the van in front. Besides the fact that overtaking and then slowing down is dangerous for both vehicles, the car driver will now likely have the van driving close behind them which is just as stressful.
#2 - Tailgating vans on roads with no overtaking lane: this is quite dangerous and is unlikely to coerce van drivers into speeding up, especially if they are transporting fragile items, or are already right on the speed limit.
#3 - Thinking their vehicle is much wider than it is: van drivers assume that because they are able to navigate a large vehicle through tight areas, car drivers shouldn’t have a problem either, even though a lot of cars these days are not much smaller than vans.
#4 - Parking a car over two spaces (especially if this means a van is forced to find a space further away from a drop off point): this is also something van drivers admit to doing, although they feel more justified in trying to avoid unnecessary damage by squeezing into too tight a space.
While some of these points may apply for both van and car drivers, it seems car drivers’ habits are certainly considered a source of frustration and fatigue for van drivers.
What do you think? How could some of these behaviours be minimised?
