Driving Safely and Respectfully
Driving a vehicle is actually part of many of GDI’s workers jobs. All of our service staff, delivery trucks and foremen are required to drive a vehicle. We just don’t have “put up drywall” as a job description.
Being in a vehicle 4-6 hours a day exposes the driver to an enormous number of near misses that you may not have thought about. I won’t list any: I’ll let you do the thinking on this one. If it were a typical jobsite event you would report it, so why not driving? We typically view it as a defensive driving event- something that we will remember to avoid the next time. While no crashes may came about, the description of the events would be classified as a solid near miss.
IN the analysis, was the event a result of maybe aggressive driving (on either side)? Aggressive or speedy driving may give the illusion of getting to work on time and improving your productivity but that is really not the case: we have just introduced another hazard to control.
Many studies have been conducted on speeding and sporty driving and they all conclude that you may gain only 2-3 minutes over a 30 minute drive, and the hazards increase greatly. I am sure that we can find the two to three minutes elsewhere in a safer and less disruptive manner.
So:
- Abide by the speed limit, know the speed limit,
- Drive respectfully and behave the way you expect others to behave (sound familiar?),
- Look down the road, WAY DOWN the road, a few blocks, and pay attention to taillights and signals. Lane changes means something is up down the road.
Developers have posted driving codes of conduct at sites. Carry these codes of conduct onto the public roadways as well.
Ihor
