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Summertime Driving Trends – Do Endorsements Cool Down?

Comparing the number of endorsements, for every type of offence, in December, July and August, demonstrates the necessity of ensuring that drivers remain entitled to drive. The July and August statistics show that endorsement numbers are similar and higher during the summer holiday period to those recorded in December. Is there a need to increase driver licence checking during this holiday season?

The summertime is often the time to take a holiday, relax and regenerate. Warmer weather, lighter and longer days with schools closed and some factories still closing down for the July and August two week break, one would conclude that the roads would be less busy and therefore the knock on effect would be fewer road accidents and fewer driving offences. With no national celebrations like Christmas or Easter during this period, the temptation to over indulge should also be less.

But the statistics from the DVLA show a different trend. The graph below proves the point. December 2015 endorsement numbers show 96328. Similarly, August 2016 registers 95310 and July 2016 registers a greater number of 103110 endorsements. Speeding and drink driving offences heavily influence the numbers.

Concurring with the first two trend articles; “Speeding Trends, Finding the Frequency” and “Drink Driving Trends – Checking Levels”, and comparing the charts, clearly demonstrates an escalation of offences for all holiday seasons, including the non-celebratory types. The median month of May shows an escalation from the winter to a decline through late summer and autumn, where there are significantly less common holiday periods.

The correlation between holidays and endorsements has to be considered when setting up driver profile groups within a licence checking service. With licence checking decreasing in price, increasing the frequency of checks for high-risk profile groups can be set to Monthly checking during the year when the risk to a business or organisation is at its greatest, without impacting the budget set aside for this process.

Licence Link has an easy to use Manage Groups section. Within this section, multiple groups can be set up with checking frequencies for risk profiled drivers. A driver can then be allocated to a specific Group. In this way the HR or Fleet Manager can manage the risk licence checking process automatically, using the Alerts to highlight drivers most at risk. Summertime does not cool down the number of endorsements allotted, but with proper profiled frequency driver licence checking, the risk to businesses and organisations can be reduced.

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