Mike Waters’ Blog: 28 November 2007

Are drivers frosting over winter warnings?

You can always tell when Christmas is around the corner. The supermarkets are full of selection boxes and mince pies, every other advertisement on TV is accompanied by sleigh bells and the annual ‘how to drive in winter’ advice is sent out by every breakdown service in the land.

You can be certain that at a time when the kids are getting excited about opening the first door on their advent calendars, the recovery and breakdown businesses are getting ready for their busiest time of year. Why though, despite the ubiquitous winter warnings about safe driving, are drivers continuing to put themselves at risk by failing to prepare for poor weather conditions?

It seems to me common sense to check the forecast before setting off for a journey at this time of year and prepare for the worst, but the findings from the Highways Agency suggest that I’m on my own on this one.

In a survey of 1300 road users, the Highways Agency found that over half (53%) of respondents would carry on with their journey regardless of a severe weather warning. While there will always be some drivers who have no choice but to venture out in adverse conditions, for over half to say that they would, I find quite staggering. Clearly the message “only travel if your journey is absolutely necessary” holds little meaning for anyone any more.

In the last two weeks we have seen heavy rains leading to flooding, and severe gales batter the south coast causing high tides. The torrential rain of the summer also underlined just how big an impact weather can have on motoring with thousands simply unable to get home and forced spend the night on the M5. While incidents on this level are rare, severe weather does of course increase in the winter so do the incidents of people getting caught out.

Despite the evidence, I’m afraid that when it comes to severe weather in the UK people simply don’t believe that it will bad enough to cause a problem and there’s a general feeling that getting caught out is certainly something that will never happen to them. We live in Kent after all, not Kansas.

While, yes I concede it’s unlikely you’ll see a twister working its way round the M25, a complacent attitude is only ever going to lead to problems. So, if your idea of preparing for wet weather driving is to put an umbrella in the boot, then I’d urge you to have a re-think.

So what is the answer to this ambivalence to safe winter motoring? Businesses can certainly do their part by communicating with their drivers and encouraging safe driving and alongside this, I’m afraid it’s a case of business as usual – when the Christmas crackers hit the shops the advice should hit the headlines.

How long before an insurer decides that undertaking a journey when expressly advised not to is seen not to be fulfilling a duty to mitigate risk and reduces a claim payout?

As a well known politician once said: education, education, education. Until someone comes up with a better answer I will continue to join the ranks of the AA and The Highways Agency in their calls for better preparation for winter weather and will call on my colleagues and clients to do the same. Why not join me?

Until next week,

Mike