Ping is a system designed to encourage safer driving from fleet drivers.
In this post we’ll explain what Ping is and how it works and explore its potential for improving driver standards in fleets.
At Anthony Jones we specialise in insurance for the transport and logistics sector. If you have any questions about your legal obligations as a driver or fleet manager, call us on 020 8290 9099 or email commercial.motor@anthonyjones.com.
What is National Highways’ Ping?
Ping is a driver behaviour initiative set up by National Highways to encourage truckers to adopt safer driving practices. If fleet operators sign up to Ping, they can share the registration numbers of all vehicles in their fleet with National Highways.
How Does National Highways’ Ping Work?
A series of sensors and cameras on the strategic road network (SRN) will then monitor their fleet drivers for certain dangerous driving behaviours, including:
- Close following.
- Weigh in-motion sites.
- Mobile phone use.
- Driving without a seatbelt.
- Red-x offences.
If these sensors and cameras detect any reckless or dangerous driving behaviour, it will then “ping” an alert to the fleet operator. The operator can then take appropriate action to address the issue.
As part of the initiative, fleet operators will have to demonstrate that they’ve acted to remedy any issues that have been identified through Ping.
Managing Driver Behaviour
During a recent trial of the Ping initiative, three test fleets shared the steps they had taken following their “pings” to improve driver behaviour in their fleets:
- Identifying problematic drivers, and “blacklisting” certain agency workers from driving in their fleet.
- Company-wide campaigns in driver rest rooms using images caught by Ping network cameras showing dangerous driving behaviour such as mobile phone use. This apparently had a strong deterrent effect.
- New driver coaching, focusing specifically on the behaviour caught by Ping, such as close following.
Who Can Join Ping?
All fleet operators are welcome to join Ping. But National Highways is particularly keen to work with hauliers, especially those who run night-time trunk operations.
The free trial of Ping starts in September 2023, and is set to run for at least three months.
If you’d like to take part, contact Mark Cartwright, National Highways’ head of commercial vehicle incident prevention, with an up-to-date list of the vehicle registration numbers in your fleet. Make sure your list also specifies which vehicles in your fleet are cars, vans, and heavier vehicles.
Is Ping Right For Me?
Monitoring driver behaviour can be an effective means of improving the safety and efficiency of your fleet. Joining Ping could highlight issues among your fleet that might otherwise go unnoticed by tachographs and other monitoring systems.
However, as with driver facing cameras, joining Ping could cause some resentment among your drivers. Some of your drivers may view the Ping initiative as a sign that you don’t trust them. Others may see it as a violation of their privacy.
So if you do sign up for Ping, make sure you inform your fleet drivers, and make it clear just what you hope to achieve with the initiative. It’s not about spying on drivers round the clock, and it’s not about “naming and shaming” problematic drivers. It’s merely an opportunity to identify any possible areas for future training, development, and growth.
You can read our full guide to managing driver behaviour in your fleet.
At Anthony Jones we specialise in insurance for the transport and logistics sector. If you have any questions about your legal obligations as a driver or fleet manager, call us on 020 8290 9099 or email commercial.motor@anthonyjones.com.
