Revealed: 20% Think White Van Men Are Worst Drivers On The Road

Commercial insurance broker and fleet specialist, McCarron Coates, is engineering change in the van fleet market, by delivering insight into how the public perceive ‘white van man’.

To help its corporate insurance partner client, the Freight Transport Association (FTA), recruit more members for its Van Excellence scheme, McCarron Coates has embarked on a mission to help convert white van man into wise van man, utilising the results of a consumer research survey.

The survey was conducted to help van fleet operators and individual van drivers improve their risk and ultimately reduce their insurance premiums.  It is just one of a variety of innovative approaches McCarron Coates has taken, to better understand its customers and help them gain greater self-awareness.

It also demonstrates the commitment that McCarron Coates makes to partner organisations and their networks.  The methodology is in keeping with the Leeds-based commercial broker’s proactive approach to insurance provision and its ethos of thinking differently.

McCarron Coates’s research analysed the interaction between members of the public and van drivers and couriers in 22 different respects, to assess the average consumer’s attitude or emotions towards van drivers. It discovered that a third of consumers (37%) believe van drivers have “lots of bad and inconsiderate driving habits”.  Nearly one-in-five (19%) said they believed van drivers to be the worst on the road, whilst a further 16% felt only HGV drivers are worse than van drivers.  23% believe van drivers often exhibit bullying behaviour such as tailgating.

The survey also discovered that the average consumer has more trust in a van driver at the wheel of an owned vehicle, rather than hired van, and similarly in drivers with signed vans.  Notably, more than one in 20 interviewees are more wary of van drivers since vehicles started to be used in terror attacks, with this rising to 13% of those living in Greater London.

These and many more findings are now being used to make van fleet operators think about their operation and act on the topics covered.  To make the findings easy to assimilate, McCarron Coates has created a cartoon, which puts everything into context in a dynamic way.