DriveTech is delivering online speed awareness classes, helping to ensure continued driver education and safety after the classroom programme was halted during the outbreak.
UKROEd, which manages the scheme on behalf of the police service, announced last month that it was pausing all classroom-based education courses during the epidemic.
DriveTech is now running an online workshop, which went live within a week of the lockdown and has already been completed by more than 500 drivers who had already opted for a classroom course.
Created using both Microsoft and Ricoh Digital Services, the workshop can be completed in 2.5 hours – compared to four hours for the classroom-based course – and is also intended to achieve behavioural change in order to improve road safety.
Charlie Norman, managing director of DriveTech, said: “We have been delighted with the professionalism and flexibility of our qualified trainers across the country to adapt to this new means of delivery and their willingness to react with speed and enthusiasm. Similarly, the choice of online delivery platform is important as these need to be professional courses, delivered by professional trainers on a professional and secure digital platform such as Microsoft Teams.”
DriveTech is now working through those delegates that are already booked in to ensure those that have an imminent “critical date” (the deadline by which the police authority stipulates the course must be completed to avoid prosecution) can be dealt with first.
The business is proactively contacting existing delegates and getting as many onto the online courses as possible, working hard behind the scenes to ramp up the course capacity quickly over the coming days.
Des Morrison, police director for DriveTech, said: “With our parent company, the AA supporting the London Ambulance Service, we are also preserving a road safety option. The NHS can ill-afford road casualties taking up precious resource when the priority needs to be focused on tackling the virus.”
