Richard Schooling’s Blog: 18 September 2007

Green meanies and white van men

Officialdom served up two very different approaches to controlling transport emissions this week.

On Wednesday the papers reported a proposal to fit company cars with speed limiters to cut pollution and crashes.

According to the Government’s official transport advisory body, you would only need to hobble a small number of company cars in this way to have a big impact – because they would hold up traffic behind them!

Perhaps the Commission for Integrated Transport was only flying a kite with this particular proposal. It doesn’t take an expert to work out that all it would do is empty fleets of speed-limited company cars as drivers opted for any alternative to the humiliation of heading-up queues of fuming motorists everywhere they went.

What is more worrying is the fact that an influential (or, at least, politically well placed) body like the CfIT still persists in viewing business drivers as, at worst, planet-despoiling green meanies or at best an unpopular minority that’s easy fodder for political point-scoring.

For a refreshingly different approach – ironically from the Government itself – take the case of the DfT’s safe and fuel efficient driving (SAFED) programme for van drivers.

If anyone comes in for more stick than company car drivers, it’s White Van Man. But rather than use LCV drivers’ lowly public image as an excuse for imposing populist restrictions on them and their bosses, the DfT has been investing the odd million or two in positive education.

On Wednesday, Ruth Kelly announced a further £1.2 million of support for the popular one-day SAFED training courses, which have already been taken by nearly 8000 van drivers.

They teach smoother driving techniques and better anticipation: simple enough measures but, says the DfT, they result in an average 16% improvement in miles per gallon.

The estimated savings due to this SAFED scheme run to £3.3 million in fuel and over 9000 tonnes of CO2 a year, not to mention lower wear and tear, fewer incidents and less downtime for vehicles and drivers.

The new funding will support training for up to 6500 more drivers and I will certainly be making sure that our van fleet customers are aware of the scheme. To find out more about it, visit the SAFED website and navigate to the ‘find a trainer’ page, or call 0870 190 8440.