Is your satnav fit for purpose? Traffic Commissioners offers advice on satnav use in commercial vehicles

Linda Rider

highway basic safety

Barbour EHS

The Site visitors Commissioners for Fantastic Britain has made available guidance for satnav people after there had been 1,624 incidences on the Community Rail infrastructure by yourself in 2020/21.

Over the previous two many years, there has been an improve in incidences of business autos working with inappropriate routes, together with not complying with excess weight limits, which results in harm to roads, congestion and threats the basic safety of other street buyers. 

In addition to the perhaps catastrophic street security concerns, there are major economical implications to these incidences, with the influence on drivers and operators also currently being most likely sizeable. Adhering to a bridge strike in St. Helens, the Website traffic Commissioner held a public inquiry and concluded that the principal lead to of the incident was the driver’s failure to have out his obligations in a professional manner. His HGV driver’s licence was revoked, and he was disqualified from keeping an HGV licence for 6 months. 

However, the Targeted visitors Commissioner also observed that the operator could have finished much more to stop the incident and the operator located their licence permanently curtailed. 

One particular of the reasons for these incidences taking place is inadequate route organizing and the reliance on inappropriate satnav devices, which deficiency professional performance to warn the driver of all the important details on routes. Even though satnav technological know-how can be employed proficiently and successfully, the gadgets utilized should be in good shape for a industrial purpose. Very good satnav units will consistently be updated with up-to-day data on the street network, such as height limitations. 

Obtaining ideal satnav devices is not a substitute for successful route preparing, but it may help the driver to keep away from some of these incidences, primarily when routes alter in the course of a journey. 

The traffic commissioners expects operators and drivers to take care of this difficulty very seriously and acquire accountability. Any failure to do so could direct to an operator or driver acquiring to appear ahead of a website traffic commissioner.

Is your satnav fit for purpose?

To minimise the hazard of very poor highway alternatives, the suggestions is to usually:

  • Make positive your satnav is a professional car satnav, not a person built for a car or truck, setting up a route on a system that thinks you are driving a car or truck has way too a lot of risks, make confident your product is up to date, roads and maps are continuously switching – it is your duty to program accurately
  • Make absolutely sure that if satnavs are furnished to drivers, they are experienced to use them and, importantly, the right checks and processes are in place to assure they do! They should know how to set the alarm if they operate shut to an impediment
  • Have a satnav plan inside of your operation, set principles for use of private satnavs and make certain they are in shape for objective
  • Really do not believe you know the constraints on a road, check out initial 
  • Double verify on an up-to-date map, you could use Google Street Views to get a sight of an unfamiliar route or junction, such as supply or select up points, operators ought to create no matter whether there are any localised problems that impression on routes and incorporate this in shopper information and facts notes for motorists
  • Know your motor vehicle height, width and body weight, and make certain your motorists do – give peak conversion charts
  • Even when your auto is ‘not in service’ your route need to still be planned, having unsuitable shortcuts back to the depot or when going for upkeep is a danger. 

For much more information on how to figure out no matter if your satnav is healthy for function, click on below. 

With staff members who travel for enterprise more likely to be killed at function than deep sea divers or coal miners, driver basic safety is a crucial small business thing to consider.

Down load this Book from Driving for Greater Company and SHP to include:

  • The danger of the roads
  • Comparing road basic safety in the UK to the rest of Europe
  • Reducing possibility: Steering clear of incidents
  • Street security finest observe
  • What is fleet chance?
  • Managing get the job done-linked highway safety.
Driver Safety eBook cover

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