What is a driver safety training deck?
It is a ready-made deck for the safety briefing a driver attends before driving a company vehicle for the first time, or that the company repeats for current drivers from time to time. A fleet supervisor or safety officer presents it; no outside trainer is needed.
The deck is written for drivers, not management: short sentences and what to do in each situation. Rules that differ between companies, such as the speed limit and the headset rule, are fields you fill from your company policy.
Driver safety briefing slides in order
- Title: company name, site, trainer, date and session length.
- What we cover today: nine topics with suggested minutes, 45 in total.
- Company rules: seat belt, speed, phone, passengers, vehicle use and reporting.
- The pre-trip check: tires, lights, under the vehicle, mirrors and glass, brakes and belts, emergency kit, documents and load.
- Speed and harsh driving: what harsh braking, harsh acceleration and harsh cornering are, how to avoid them, and the 3-second gap.
- Driving alerts in our fleet: a chart of alerts by type for the month, and the team's goal.
- Fatigue and driving hours: signs of drowsiness, what to do, and the company's driving and rest hours.
- Phone use: the distance a vehicle covers in two seconds, and four rules.
- Heat and dust: signs of heat stress, and driving in sandstorms.
- Tracking and cameras: what is recorded, why, who sees it and how long it is kept.
- After an accident: six steps from stopping safely to the accident report.
- Five questions: a quick quiz by show of hands.
- Attendance sheet: eight lines to sign, a driver statement and the trainer's signature.
- How to prepare the briefing: trainer guidance, deleted before the session.
How to prepare a driver safety training session
- Match the rules to your policy. Read the Company Vehicle and Driver Policy and edit slide 3 to match it.
- Write the limits set in your system: the company speed limit and the tracking system's speed alert limit.
- Put your month's alert figures from tracking reports into the slide 6 chart, in place of the example.
- Review the tracking and camera slide against the Driver Tracking and Camera Notice: delete what your system does not record and add the retention period.
- Write the emergency, authority and supervisor numbers on slides 4 and 11.
- Print the attendance sheet and copies of the policy and notice, and delete slide 14.
How to run the safety briefing
- Ask more than you explain. A question such as "What do you do if you feel sleepy with an hour to the delivery?" starts a more useful discussion than reading the slide.
- Ask a driver to show the check on a real vehicle if you can.
- Present tracking data as coaching. Show team figures on slide 6, and do not name individuals in front of everyone.
- Answer privacy questions openly. If you do not know an answer, ask your provider and come back with it.
- End with the five questions, whose answers are in the trainer notes, then the signatures.
The numbers in the deck and where they come from
The deck contains no accident statistics or percentages. It has two numbers only:
- 56 meters in two seconds at 100 km/h: simple arithmetic. 100 km/h = 100,000 ÷ 3,600 = 27.8 meters per second, so two seconds is 55.6 meters, about 56.
- The alerts chart on slide 6: example figures for one month (46 speeding, 31 harsh braking, 22 harsh acceleration, 12 harsh cornering and 8 cases of driving without a break), tagged "Example data". Replace them with your fleet's figures.
The 3-second gap is a common training rule for following distance, increased in dust, rain, at night and with a heavy load. Driving and rest hours and the rules on phones and headsets differ between authorities, so they are fields you fill after checking your authority's current requirement.
What to do after the session
File the attendance sheet in the training record, and log the session date for each driver in the Driver Training Matrix so you know when it is due again. To keep safety in mind between sessions, use the Toolbox Talks Pack: each talk is one page a supervisor reads in a few minutes.
What the deck does not cover
The deck is a general briefing, not defensive driving training or training for a specific vehicle type, and it does not replace a driving license or training an authority requires. It quotes no laws or fines, because they differ between countries and change. Review the tracking and camera slide with your legal adviser before you use it.