The duration of entrant driver training does not appear to have a significant impact on safety performance, according to an American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) study released recently.
“As a fleet, we have long believed that the litmus test for commercial driver training should be performance-based and not a derivative of hours spent in training," said Chad England, vice-president, recruiting, training and safe driving for Utah-based C R England. "This research bears out our hypothesis.”
The study found that little variation among driver safety performance can be explained by training program duration between the range of 88 to 272 hours. "However, time duration does become statistically important for one specific training topic within a training regimen once age and days of employment are controlled for," the report states in its conclusions. "The one variable that significantly influenced the probability that a driver does not have a safety event is post-accident procedure instruction duration."
The study's conclusions also indicated "the need for further research on driver training and driver safety, beginning with additional data collection and analysis as part of the present study."
The study is posted online at atri-online.org.