Near Misses

A near miss is the same lesson as a collision without the damage. Most fleets collect almost none.

Why they go unreported

No route to report one.

No time — a driver on a schedule is not stopping to fill in a form.

No feedback, so a report disappears and the next one is not made.

And, decisively, a scoring system that penalises the hard brake that avoided the collision.

That last one is the killer: the system punishes the evidence of a near miss at the same moment the organisation asks to hear about them.

Making reporting possible

Thirty seconds, by voice or by two taps, at the end of the journey.

Anonymous where the culture requires it, which is a legitimate transitional arrangement.

With the location captured automatically, because that is the analytically useful part and the hardest to type.

And an acknowledgement, which is what makes a second report happen.

The scoring contradiction

A defensive manoeuvre generates a harsh event.

Which lowers the driver's score.

Which means the fleet's best drivers in the worst situations look worst.

Resolve it explicitly: a reported near miss should cause the associated event to be reviewed and, where the manoeuvre was correct, removed from the score.

Say that this happens. It converts the scoring system from a disincentive into a prompt.

What to do with the reports

Map them. Near misses cluster geographically far more than they cluster by driver.

A junction generating reports from several drivers is a route finding, and it can be engineered around.

Compare them against collisions, which usually occur in the same places.

And report back what changed, because a cluster that produced a route change is the demonstration that reporting works.

The measures

Reports per hundred thousand miles, which should rise when the programme starts working — a rise is good news and needs saying in advance.

Proportion resulting in an identified cause.

And the proportion of reported near misses where an associated score event was removed, which is the direct test of whether the contradiction has been resolved.

Remove the associated event

The change that resolves the contradiction.

A reported near miss should cause the linked harsh event to be reviewed and, where the manoeuvre was correct, removed from the score.

And say publicly that this happens.

It converts the scoring system from a reason not to report into a prompt to report, which is the largest single improvement available to a programme.

A practical configuration prompt

During configuration, use a practical project scenario to prompt questions about purpose, ownership and output. Treat the page as a starting point and document each assumption.

Independent reference

For a thematic point of reference, see the International Labour Organization. Consult the source directly because technical, operational and legal details change.