22
FLEET MANAGEMENT
The opening plenary, Situation Normal Until
Someone Dies was daring, bold and could’ve been
received either way. It was clear too that it set a
darker tone to the event than was comfortable, this
however, filled the brief perfectly. Fleet management
is a career path that requires agility and endurance,
and catching you unaware was exactly the wake-
up call we all needed and there wasn’t a relaxed
brow in the room. Aptly named, the session opened
with the scenario of one of your workers dying in a
fleet vehicle and Victoria Police detective inspector
for road crime investigation Stuart McGregor was
succinct about what happens next.
“My boys are well versed at establishing how fast
you were going, whether you were distracted, what
was happening. We will seize your phone - and we
have legal power to tap your phone - we gather CCTV
footage for kilometres before an accident and it’s
amazing how much CCTV footage is out there.”
Talking truths, it came on day two where the
scientific big-picture behind emissions and how
we can hope to manage our fleet footprint in the
foreseeable future, was given with a sobering
explanation. Enter John Cadogan, the self-confessed
“jihadist on bullshit” come motoring journalist, who
gave everyone the emissions reality check we all
needed, and delved into what’s keeping Australia
from progressing.
“We have to say to ourselves, ‘What are emissions?’
Because the only thing we can do with carbon dioxide
is make engines more efficient. Unfortunately what
manufacturers do with these gains is erode them
because of middle-age spread – today’s cars are so
much heavier.”
Geoff Thomas from Murcotts Driving Excellence, one
of the top corporate driver training organisations in
Australia, described the driving psychology of most of
us fewer words. “But one of the things holding Australia back is the
way society is giving a voice to uninformed opinion.”
Asking the audience bluntly, ‘Who thinks they’re
entitled to their opinion?’, to at least 15-20 hands
raised he replied, “You’re entitled to your opinion on
things that don’t matter – chocolate vs strawberry,
whether a fat balding middle-aged man should sport
a ‘bad Santa’ beard.
“People who see themselves as below average
drivers, don’t have crashes. This is the truism of
driving skills.” “In other words,” he continued, “your opinion does not
matter on things that can only be argued with facts.
Things like climate change. Things like emissions.”
GOVLINK » ISSUE 2 2017