Chris Floyd from Evri, was the expert keynote speaker for the University of West London express manager degree apprentices in the Sept term, delivering for our next generation. Chris delivered an engaging masterclass, ranging from the first-ever UK pedestrian road traffic death, Bridget Driscoll at 4mph, to the mindset of Moral, Legal and Financial as it impacts on road safety.
Chris opened with music, ‘My first journey on the motorway, sound of the engine, winding down the window, listening to the radio, it was the music that brought calm to that first journey on the blue one-way street motorway.’
Let's talk about our mindset, ‘In our industry our teams will find a way to carry on whatever is happening around us.’ Road and Safety, what is a road, ‘a wide way leading to another place.’
Remember roads are getting more and more crowded.
Moral Legal and Financial are the keywords at the heart of Road Safety
A look at the history of road safety, Chris focused on the first-ever road traffic accident,
Moral - Bridget Driscoll, run down by a motor vehicle travelling at 4mph.
Legal - 1903, John Netley, a Carmen livery man driving a horse car in North London, clipped an obelisk, thrown from cart and trampled to death by the horses. The coroner in 1903 advised there should be a strap fitted for safety, eighty years before the seat belt law was formalised.
Financial – Big money win, First use of a rear-view mirror. Ray Haroon, Indianapolis Five hundred winner, at a time when there were two seats and two folk on the race car, Ray replaced the co-driver mechanic with a mirror to see what was around him, half the passenger weight and took first place in the race.
Chris then turned to statistics, age interaction to road safety, road distance in UK. ‘In twenty years, road length increased 1,800 miles to a total of 245,100 miles, we have not built a long road in a decade! Still 1700 deaths on the UK roads last year.
2002 decade to 2022, fatalities on the road have dropped by a half - from 25 million cars on the road 2002 to 32 million cars in 2022.
Chris spoke of Carlton Reid, strong online presence, ‘World Car-free Day’
Back to the statistics, everything heading to safety, but it’s the light goods vehicle numbers, LGV that are the least improving statistic.
Transport Law masterclass focus.
Chris moved to UK-wide transport, English, Welsh and Scottish law. Dept for Environment runs transport law in NI. EU law and driver transport layers. Moving to common, state and contract law.
- Common law means we are all judged against previous cases. ‘To stand by things decided’
- Statute law, the law of realm, ‘Subordinate legislation’ Driver hours are specified by DVSA, it’s a subordinate, from an ACOP, code of practice, most common code of practice is Highway Code. Speeding lies soundly in statute.
- Contract law, agreements and obligations, law between you and I.
Chris delivered a magical case study of drink-drive issue to highlight the crossover of common, statute and contract law in a mix of responsibility and impact of the incident that engaged the next generation students on express logistics, students interacted with red cards and input to review the wide legal impact of road safety incidents.
The writing of policy, it's place in law. ‘How often do policy laws in your organisation get updated, are you just re-writing the law or creating policy about the law?’ Chris used the case study of phone while driving. Do you have a company policy on phone use at wheel? Is that policy just a repeat of the law?
Policy! Why would you read it? Day one, read all the policy before going on the road. Challenges led to a very interactive discussion of students and expert that focused vision for future steps of our next generation.
Foundation of negligence, Donoghue v Stevenson 1932, a snail in the ginger ale. Where negligence law comes from in the UK. Chris focused on self-employed drivers in final mile to challenge control, worker status and responsibility.
Always have a choice.
Looking at events during delivery, Case study on dented vans, investigate the facts, photos. Chris gave vision via a bow-tie analogy, knowledge and facts from the sides, into the knot at the centre of the bow tie. Perception and choice, then add reality. When collecting the road accident facts, take a view of which lens the person has while reporting, from them to them looking in.
Biggest risk to our industry today is we have removed our option to be different.
Exceptional masterclass delivered by industry expert to Univ West London Express manager students!
Chris Floyd, heart of the students to deliver masterclass lecture at Univ West London on road safety
