What Drivers DON'T Know

I was reading about a pilot project conducted by Ontario's Ministry of Transport. Through this pilot they surveyed 300 drivers across about a dozen different carriers. In this survey drivers were asked about their knowledge of current laws. In the initial replies, 75% of the drivers thought they understood the laws "very well". However, subsequent testing of those drivers found that only 25% were consistently able to answer questions in this area correctly.

That floored me.

A full 50% of the drivers in that survey thought they understood the laws "very well" but didn't. I don't know about you, but if those were my drivers that would scare the hell out of me! As many as half of the drivers think they know stuff that they don't. I'd sure be losing sleep wondering which drivers in my fleet were the ones that didn't really understand.

You can't blame the drivers, though. Probably all of us have areas where we think we're pretty knowledgeable but aren't. The drivers are out there doing their best, trying to keep the freight moving, and trying to keep up with the alphabet soup of new regulations that are dumped on them every 6 months or so.

I'd be interested in seeing the results for the rest of the surveyed drivers. If 75% thought they understood the laws, then 25% acknowledged that they didn't. Were those drivers correct in their assumptions? How did they do on the subsequent testing?

Understanding what drivers know and what they don't know is a critical part of an effective training and development program. After all, you can't fix something if you don't know it's broken. The trick, of course, is figuring out where the gaps are before it's too late.

How do you know when a driver needs extra help?