Online Road Safety Courses Continue in UK Lockdown

News Article | January 2021

TTC continue to offer online courses for driving offences to help improve road safety during the latest national lockdown.

TTC Group, the UK’s largest provider of UK Road Offender Education (UKROEd) accredited courses is continuing to deliver Police referred driver courses: Speed Awareness, Motorway Awareness, What's Driving Us? And Safe & Considerate Driving using online Virtual Classrooms in an effort to help keep UK road users safe.

Recently published figures by the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) evidenced that despite traffic plummeting by up to 80% during the COVID pandemic lockdown during the first half of 2020, motorists accrued a staggering 1.5million driving licence points.

The trend appears to show that those drivers that continued to use their vehicle once Government restrictions were introduced, made a conscious decision to disregard road speed restrictions whilst overall traffic volumes reduced.

As the country entered 2021, to be placed back into national lockdown conditions, there are concerns that as the UK’s road network once again has fewer vehicles, that the trend of increased instances of excessive speeding and other forms of dangerous driving seen in 2020 could be repeated.

TTC would ask all drivers to spare an extra thought when travelling to drive safely, considerately and to plan enough time to arrive at your destination without exceeding the speed limit, no matter how clear the roads may be. With the cold weather and inclement conditions of ice and snow on the roads, driving carefully and at appropriate speed is even more important.

Speed Camera Driving

For those drivers that have committed a driving offence, TTC offer an alternative to driving licence penalty points, through the completion of an online Virtual Classroom course, specific to the offence, designed to help drivers to change their driving behaviour and prevent further offences in the future.

Conducting these courses in online classrooms not only meets UK Road Offender Education (UKROEd) guidelines, but it is also convenient for attendees. Previously a course could entail booking time off work, travelling, parking, organising childcare and paying for transport.

A remote method of training courses removes many elements of a process that attendees found daunting or inconvenient, encouraging people to attend and take learning from these educational courses. Drivers attending the virtual course can now enjoy greater anonymity, no travel time and smaller class sizes, whilst keeping in line with the current lockdown and social distancing restrictions. The classes have a 20-minute introductory slot at the beginning to become acquainted with the trainer and weed out any technical issues.

TTC Group provides the NDORS course on behalf of 14 Police forces throughout England, Scotland and Wales.

Virtual classrooms have also given rise to specific benefits for special populations – individuals overseas, those in rural areas and, more specifically, TTC Group regularly hosts courses dedicated to the hard of hearing.

Sharon Haynes, TTC Group’s Client Services Director (pictured), said:
“It’s all about making a positive difference, whether that is by creating safer motorists or by addressing key social issues in the areas we operate in.”

Sharon Haynes

Online or in person these rehabilitation programmes can have a positive, life changing influence on people and it is so important to offer as many people as possible convenient access to them. The move to virtual classrooms continues to prove a major success and we look forward to understanding more of the impact of this in the near future.

Sharon Haynes Client Services Director, TTC Group

During the pandemic TTC Group switched to virtual courses and transferred all pre-booked ‘physical’ National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme course attendees to a digital solution.

Sharon Haynes added:
“This really did change the face of the driver offender rehabilitation programme and acts as a great template to consider what we can do in association with UKROEd moving ahead to benefit all key stakeholders from individual drivers, police forces, other road users and employers alike.

“However, there is still much work to be done behind the scenes and we are working alongside UKROEd to ensure the emerging benefits are supported by key data insights.”

Post Course Interview

To find out more about TTC's online Virtual Classroom delivery of NDORS courses, such as the National Speed Awareness Course, please visit our website www.thettcgroup.com