The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) welcomes the initiative of the European Commission to review Directive 2003/59/EC on the initial qualification and periodic training of drivers of certain road vehicles for the carriage of goods or passengers. One of its main objectives is to improve road safety and the safety of drivers. In 2015, 26,300 people lost their lives on EU roads compared to 25,970 in 2014, representing an increase of 1% and the second consecutive poor year for road safety. In 2014, more than 135,000 people were recorded as seriously injured. The most recent data from 2014, show that 3,863 people were killed in collisions involving HGVs of more than 3.5 tons and 751 were killed in those involving buses and coaches. Nearly 4,000 deaths occurred in Europe in 2012 in collisions involving vans. Before the Directive’s implementation in 2008 and 2009 very few EU drivers had followed professional competence training. The Directive includes a syllabus, which covers elements to improve road safety in general. An objective of the Directive is also to make drivers aware of the risks of the road and of accidents at work. Member States issue the driver with a certificate of professional competence (CPC), certifying his or her initial qualification or periodic training. These skills and knowledge are kept up-to-date through periodic training. Periodic training is designed to complement the individual driver’s everyday work. Driver training can be an important tool to reduce work related road risk. But it is only one part of an employer’s road safety program, which should also focus on issues such as management culture, vehicle safety, journey and safety of sites. Simple skills-based training schemes do not suffice and training should always be integrated into a wider employer safety strategy. Formal defensive driver training for professional drivers, taught at the workplace, combined in larger companies with a motivation and incentive system for crash-free driving, has been found to reduce the crash rate by around 20%. In-vehicle skills-based driver training is one type of training. Research suggests that driving is about more than just skills. Health, well-being, lifestyle, attitude, knowledge, hazard perception, attention to detail, hand eye co-ordination, concentration, anticipation and observation, coping with stress and aggressive driving and the reactions of others, are all important and should be reflected in the EU’s CPC Directive. As should new developments in road safety risks such as increased levels of distraction in the driver cabin. Research in the field of driver training underlines four hierarchical levels permeating driving behaviour, and the need to design training to address each level. These levels can be best visualised in the Goals for Driver Education matrix (GDE). The two last and highest levels generally tend to be neglected, but should be an integral part of good training as they are very important for risk awareness as opposed to merely improving driving skills, which is the content of the two first and lowest levels. A fifth level has also been included in the latest version of the matrix, that includes not individual characteristics of the driver but rather the organisational setting within which the driving takes place and covers company awareness, characteristics, safety situation3. GDE-5PRO (PRO for professionals and their organisational environment) that helps describe the different situation of a professional driver and a private driver. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting