Runner-up for EIGA’s Safety Innovation Award

The positive impact of self–assessment (by Loreto Díaz Barrera, Air Liquide Iberia)

In a business where driving is a big part of the job, dealing with driver’s fatigue is of the utmost importance if you want to ensure safe performance. At Air Liquide Iberia, back in april 2022, we conducted a practical session that aimed to improve our driver’s safety behavior and it was a huge success. The key to this initiative being useful is taking advantage of the impact of self- assessment: we made our team look at themselves, have our driver’s notice how they behave, what they do, how much attention and focus is missed when you are tired and the great importance of only driving when you are fully rested.

The session was focused on NIGHT DRIVING and FATIGUE MANAGEMENT, which is an important hazard we face in our business, or even in our personal lives. There was a combination of theory and hands-on simulation in which every driver went through different scenarios and in different circumstances.

On the first day, with drivers relaxed and rested, they had to drive in several simulators, with some indicators being monitored and the whole session being recorded. On the second day, same simulators, same drivers, and same condition… except for the “provoked” fatigue: after a short night’s sleep and having performed a heavy physical activity the previous day.

After those 2 driving practices, in which driver’s expression and face was being recorded and reaction time was being monitored, each driver watched their own video and different reaction times between the first and second day. All of them being fully experienced in the job, most of them were very surprised by the results of the effect of fatigue in safe driving, even for a senior hazardous goods driver.

Looking at yourself and being self conscious of what’s going on is very impactful and a powerful tool to help changing mindset and own behaviours.

Results were really eye-opening, both for master drivers and for our teams, because there was a huge difference between behaviours and timings to react to the same unsafe circumstance when tired vs when not tired. The whole team realized how much less attention is paid while driving or performing any task under fatigue conditions, they saw themselves in that situation and understood in a very clear way.

Give it a try in your activities, you will see how much we can improve behavior by self assessing our ways of working. Technology is in the world to help us mitigate risks and improve driving conditions, but still behaviour is there and human nature is a big factor to influence safe performance. Let’s work together on human factor and deal with it to ensure ZERO ACCIDENTS on the road.