Transport Business

Northgate Vehicle Hire offers fantastic rates on a wide range of vehicles from small cars to large vans. The company is the market leading commercial vehicle hire company with over 60 hire branches and supporting workshops nationwide.

Q What is your core business and your role within this sector?
From the 1 May 2010, M&G Vehicle Hire has become Northgate Vehicle Hire (Yorkshire & Humber) an operating subsidiary of Northgate plc. The areas in which Northgate Vehicle Hire (Yorkshire & Humber) operates from as it names suggests are Yorkshire and Humberside, with branches in Hull, Scunthorpe, Grimsby, Sheffield, Doncaster, Leeds and Wakefield.
    
Northgate Vehicle Hire operates a fleet of over 60,000 vehicles from more than 60 locations throughout the UK and Ireland. The company has a network of service and repair centres across the UK and Ireland, with fully trained BVRLA approved technicians. Northgate offers commercial vehicles for hire, fleet management, vehicle monitoring and other associated fleet services.

Q Do you engage with road safety organisations e.g. Roadsafe and other stakeholders to share information/ develop road safety policy?
The company has been a Business Champion for Driving for Better Business since June 2008. The training programme for company drivers sits well within the DfBB philosophies on Road Safety and crash prevention. It also supports the local Safer Roads Humber initiative in conjunction with local councils and emergency services. Humberside Fire and Rescue campaign tirelessly for safer roads, we support their initiative to educate vulnerable young drivers (17-24 year olds) by providing support vehicles for their schools and colleges roadshow. We are also a signatory to the European Road Safety Charter.

Q What involvement have you had in the European Transport Safety Council PRAISE awards – and why did you become involved in the event?
Adrian Kilvington, Northgate Yorkshire & Humber area manager said: “One of my first involvements with ETSC came as invitation to present an outline of our Driver training programme to a group of Polish business leaders in Warsaw last year. We in the UK are aware there is a great deal of essential work needed to reduce the 2,600 annual death tolls here. “What became apparent on that day was, others have much greater problems to address. Sharing the best practice developed by significant UK companies can only help reduce the burden on others.”

Q PRAISE awards entrants were asked to highlight what they have achieved through their efforts to reduce road collisions at work. How have you contributed to reducing employee’s road risk in recent years?
The driver training Northgate provide was established five years ago. It encompasses all staff disciplines with mechanics, sales, accountants, administrators and of course drivers involved in the programme. Though some of our employees do not drive in their daily role, most drive to work and therefore must be included. Initial assessment is a two day exercise during which their skills and habits are observed and analysed by a RoSPA qualified instructor/examiner. Northgate previously used an external instructor/examiner but we subsequently employed an instructor. Employees are subject to annual re-assessment or more training where deemed appropriate.
    
The introductin of training was not driven out of necessity. We did not have a poor crash history or huge cost for damage repairs. The programme was, and still is powered by a responsibility and duty of care to our employees and the people they come into contact with daily on the roads. The ‘payback’ to us, apart from employee welfare, is staff morale and staff retention. Northgate do not have a high turnover of staff thus saving high recruitment costs.

Q As the UK and EU set out new priorities for the 2020 casualty reduction targets, what would you like to see on the agenda?
As we move towards 2020 two things need to happen:

• Zero tolerance for drinking or taking drugs and then driving, accompanied by the introduction of alco-locks
• The elimination of in car distractions whilst driving. The use of mobile telephones including hands-free is the obvious of these.
• Northgate are distributing a Driver Safety Guide that is packed full of safety advice, with an aim to helping drivers be safer on the roads. The guide can be downloaded from their website.