Welcome back to another episode of Driven by Excellence, where we explore
the journeys of individuals who've made lasting impacts in their fields.
I'm your host Hattie, and today we have a returning guest, Olly Tayler.
If you missed his first appearances, don't worry, we'll be catching
you up in just a moment.
Olly is here today to share some exciting insights into how former
and retired traffic police officers can transition into impactful
careers as road safety trainers.
Olly, welcome back, it's great to have you again.
Hi Hattie, absolutely great to be back again, thank you so much.
No problem, let's get straight into it.
For those who may not have heard our previous episodes, can you give us
a brief overview of your background, especially your time in the police, and
how it led you to where you are today?
Yeah, so I served for 30 years in the police and about half of that was in
roads policing, so traffic department if you like, down in Devon and Cornwall, and
during that time I built a real passion for road safety, particularly young driver
road safety, but road safety in general.
I was going to an awful lot of serious and fatal collisions and when the
investigations unraveled, it was really obvious that actually so many
of these collisions were completely avoidable, totally avoidable, if
only somebody had made a different decision at a moment in time.
So I thought, well, there's road safety and road safety isn't just about
enforcement, it's not just about giving out tickets and it's not just about
engineering, it's not about looking at an issue and engineering the problem
out, but it's also about education.
So I've always been really, really high on the education front and it was something
that I saw as being the key to safer roads for all, was around education.
So I got involved fairly heavily in road safety education, both
four wheels and two wheels as well.
So as part of my motorcycling life and it led me to meet some really
interesting people along the way and some people outside of policing as
well, which was absolutely great.
So, when I came to finish policing, I was looking at what I was going to
do, and I had a number of decisions to make and my final decision led me
back into this world post policing, which is how I've ended up sat here
with you again today, which is amazing.
Perfect, so can you talk us through your decision to leave the police?
Obviously you've just touched on that briefly and it led
you to where you are today.
So why did you choose the commercial road risk sector and
what drew you to this area of work?
So, when I joined policing in 1993, the standard full term
service, if you like, was 30 years.
So I'd always planned on working in the police for 30 years.
Right back at the beginning of my career, I had no idea where my career
was going to lead me, there were so many opportunities and areas in which you could
diversify into and interestingly, during the first couple of years of training
if you like, all officers back in the day used to spend a bit of a time with
different departments to get to learn about the work of different departments.
So I spent a week with the Criminal Investigation Department, CID, learning
what detectives do for a living.
I spent a week with Traffic and learning what the Traffic Department
do and after a week on Traffic, I'd made the decision that whatever else
I wasn't going to do with my career.
It wasn't going to be in traffic.
I had no interest in traffic whatsoever.
Absolutely none whatsoever.
So, no surprise I ended up half my career in traffic, having
been in no interest whatsoever.
So, when I came towards the end of my 30 years, I'm fortunate I'm still relatively
young, I could have carried on, I could have carried on and, worked until I was
60 and potentially beyond, which should have been maybe 40 years in policing.
Mm-hmm
. But I came towards that 30 year point and I made the decision, about 18
months before I finished, that I was going to finish at the 30 year point
because that was my full term career, the first point at which I was eligible
for my police pension and it gave me opportunity, it gave me choices.
So then I thought, right, what am I going to do when I leave policing?
What am I going to do?
And I went one, it was going to go one of two ways.
I was going to look at something completely outside of policing,
something completely disconnected to anything I've done for the last 30
years and what I really wanted to do was I wanted to open high end tea rooms.
I'd love to have opened a properly high end tea room.
Still time.
Yeah, still time and I thought about that, you know, long and hard and thought,
should I do something completely different or should I retrain as a, I don't know,
an electrician or something, I don't know, but just something completely
different, something away from what I've done and then I sat down and thought about
it and I thought, you know something, I've got 30 years of experience, built
up experience and knowledge and all the things that are associated with
policing and my passion in road safety.
I thought if I just stop that now, if I literally, I'm up to the my last day of
service and the next day I don't do any of that, it just seemed like a bit of a
waste to be honest and I thought right, I'm going to carry on and I'm going to do
something associated with the world that I've been involved in for so many years.
So, really fortunately, I'd actually had a couple of people had heard I was retiring
from the police and had approached me and said, Olly, can you come and talk
to us when you've finished policing?
We'd, you know, we'd be really interested to maybe do some work with you.
So I said, absolutely.
So I contacted various people and, as a result, I was offered the opportunity
to go back into the world of road safety in a number of different areas,
not just the young driver road safety, which I'm passionate about, still
am passionate about, but also other areas of road safety, including the
commercial road safety world as well, which is some of the work that I do now.
So I was fortunate in one respect, that I was offered, I was able to sort of
seek out these opportunities from people that I'd met along the way, but also
I'd made the decision and I had a plan.
I think that was the key, was I had a plan and I'd stuck to my plan and I have
still sticking to my plan and actually at the moment, fingers crossed, it's
okay, it's working, it's working well, yeah, you're right, absolutely right.
So obviously when you were working within the police, you had the
law behind you to drive change.
So now in the commercial world, you don't have that same level of authority.
So what would you say are the fundamental differences between influencing change
within the police force versus working to change behaviours in the commercial
sector and the general public?
What a great question, great question, Hattie!
So yeah, having the legal framework behind you when working in something
like policing is, of course, it's useful because it's the stick that you can
use, you know, to enforce legislation.
But like I said, I wasn't all about enforcing legislation.
It's anybody can go out, or any police officer can go out onto a road network
and they can identify offences.
Driving up here today, I've driven up here today, I've been on the motorway
and I have seen countless offences being committed on the motorway.
I could have gone out on the motorway in a traffic car today and probably
given out two, three, four dozen tickets without even thinking about it.
But what you've got to ask yourself is, what is that actually doing?
There is a place for enforcement, don't get me wrong.
Enforcement, yes, of course, it's part of that triangle of road safety,
enforcement engineering, and education.
But all that enforcement will do, often it's not, is it'll leave
a bad taste in somebody's mouth.
points on their license, they could have a potentially hefty fine, they
could even lose their job, depending on what the offense is and what their
job is, they could lose their job and that can have massive impacts.
Whereas the education side, so actually getting people to understand the
risks that they face, the risks that they post of themselves and others
by the behaviour they're undertaking behind the wheel by the actions, their
decisions they're making, if you like.
So I was able to do that in policing and have the discretion to be able to either
issue a ticket or give some education.
So coming out of the policing, into the commercial world is whilst I don't have
that legal framework sat behind me to be able to enforce legislation, what I
can do is I am able to use my experience and the things I've seen and the things
I've dealt with to educate drivers in the commercial sector to say, okay, so
let's talk about using a mobile phone behind the wheel, classic example.
I've seen more than one commercial driver on the motorway today using
the mobile phone whilst driving along at 50, 60 miles an hour.
So actually, let's explore that.
Let's look at what risks are involved, what risk are you
posing to yourselves and others?
Let's look at that behaviour change.
So now, it's much more about encouraging and fostering behavior change through
understanding risk and understanding the risks that people pose to themselves
and others than having the legal framework behind me and I don't miss
having that legal framework behind me.
It's not vitally important to be able to achieve a similar outcome.
Yeah.
And getting people to open up and to talk about why they do something
in particular, why they might engage in a certain behaviour.
Actually, getting them to look at it and look at themselves from the inside
out, can be really impactive and they suddenly have that almost that light
bulb moment where they go, Well, I hadn't thought about it like that.
Because what I'm able to do is sit and talk to them and say, I've been
there, I've been at the rough end.
I have dealt with it when it's all gone wrong, more times
than I care to think about.
I've dealt with the families, I've dealt with the offenders, I've watched
people get sent to prison in court for what they've done on the roads.
Don't think you're immune, you know, this can happen in the blink
of an eye when you least expect it.
By the time that vehicle's out of control, by the time you've been involved
in a serious collision and you're the offending driver, it's far too late
to have regret because actually you shouldn't have been in the position
where you have regret in the first place.
You should have never have made that decision.
You should have known that is wrong, I'm going to stay safe, I'm
not going to make that decision.
Does that make any sort of sense?
Yeah, no, absolutely does and I think it's important to highlight that, especially
having that education behind it is key.
So yes, you're saying, I don't have this legislation, but I have all
of the knowledge to give to these people, which is really important.
With that in mind, I'm interested to know what kind of approach is needed to win the
hearts and the minds of these commercial organisations and how you motivate
them to take road safety seriously.
That's actually quite an easy one when you look at it because you
think about a commercial organisation that has commercial drivers.
One of the biggest things you're looking at is cost.
So if a vehicle is involved in a collision, that vehicle's off the
road, that driver may well be off sick, recovering from injuries,
that's costing an organisation, could be considerable amounts of money.
With a large organisation, with a huge fleet of vehicles, that could
cost an organisation millions if not tens of millions of pounds a
year in vehicle repairs, in lost hours of work, in people being off
sick and all these sorts of things.
So actually when you look at it around not just the safety aspect,
of course we want people to be safe, but a big commercial organisation
is going to look at the bottom line.
How much is this costing me?
This is costing this organisation an absolute fortune.
So if collisions are an everyday part of life, oh yeah collisions happen,
people say, oh accidents happen.
Okay, we don't refer to them as accidents because they're collisions not accidents.
Accidents suggest there's no apportionment of blame and that was
quite a case some years ago where a judge turned around and said, this
was no accident, this was a collision.
Hence, Road Traffic Accidents, RTAs, turn to RTCs, Road Traffic
Collisions and we now refer to them all as collisions, not accidents.
Sorry, I digress slightly.
But, so, as well as looking at how much is this costing us as an organisation,
and the trauma, that it's leaving people with if they suffer injuries,
if passengers in vehicles, things like that, that suffer injuries as well,
you've got to look at reputation.
Yeah.
So you look at a vehicle involved in a collision, a branded
vehicle, any branded vehicle.
In the digital world we live in, Hattie, pictures of that collision with that
vehicle are going to be on the internet.
They're going to be on social media within seconds, potentially and if
it's a well known brand, there is no doubt who that vehicle belongs to.
If then that driver has done wrong, they're then prosecuted, they then
end up in court, the media are in court, that company is then dragged
through the court system, it's dragged through the media, it's trial by media.
You can have a company reputation destroyed in a matter of seconds
through a collision where a driver has undertaken a behaviour behind the
wheel, has made a decision which has resulted in death or serious injury.
That company is involved in that, whether they like it or not, they
are involved because that individual is a representative of that company.
So, with commercial organisations, road risk reduction should be absolutely at
the forefront of any safety strategy, because that's where the biggest risk is
going to be, without a shadow of a doubt.
Absolutely, thank you for sharing that.
Let's talk about your move and moving from such a structured and regimented
environment in the police to a more flexible freelance consultancy type role.
What's been the most significant change for you and how have
you found that transition?
And just to follow on, what are the biggest surprises or challenges
from moving from a highly regulated field to one where you're making
your own work, you're doing your own schedule and making your own projects.
Two very different worlds, Hattie, as you've alluded to in your question,
they are completely different worlds and coming from Blue Light Services and
any public service, if you like, where you do have that regimented lifestyle
for years, or in my case for three decades, is, it's a really odd sensation
to come out of that into a world where you no longer have that regimented
structure, where everything's familiar.
You know, I left a job where everything was familiar to me, I knew hundreds of
people, I was part of a team, it was, the environment was very familiar.
I knew everything, about what I was doing.
it was a very comfortable place to be.
But actually, if we never put ourselves out of our comfort zones,
we're never going to develop, we're never going to grow as individuals.
so about 18 months before I retired, I was looking at what I was going
to do and I decided at that point I didn't want to be employed again.
I didn't want to be an employee, that I was going to take that big, big risk.
I was that huge, and it is a risk, don't get me wrong, and it is a risk that
not everybody's prepared to take, but I was prepared to take the risk and I
was going to strike out on my own and do something associated with what I was
doing, but doing it on terms and there's the key, is I now have choices, okay?
So, I had a choice to come here to see you today or not, okay?
Nobody said to me, you have to come and see Hattie today.
Of course, Hattie, it's an absolute pleasure, and it wasn't a chore
in the slightest, and I was delighted to, of course, I was.
But I had the choice.
I had that flexibility and freedom.
Coming out of something like policing is having the freedom to make my
own decisions about what I do.
I'm the author of my own destiny at the end of the day and the
only person who I have to answer to as a freelancer is myself.
yes, of course, I have projects and of course, I have people who are
relying on me to deliver for them, they've entrusted me to deliver a
project, to deliver an outcome for them and of course, I'm going to do
that to the very best of my abilities.
But if I look at something and go, actually, that's not for me, I've got
the ability to say, that's not for me, and I don't have to, you know,
I'm not beholden to having to do things and that's a really, really
nice feeling and a really nice place to be, but nothing's guaranteed.
So this is where this trade off appears, is that no work I do is guaranteed.
I don't know that I'm going to have work in three, four, five weeks time.
So I've been out 18 months and actually, the last 18 months has
probably been busier than the previous 18 months of policing in that.
But it's great because it's stuff I love doing.
It's great, it's my choices, it's things I really enjoy doing and often
it's not, it doesn't feel like work.
This doesn't feel like work, Hattie, it's just having a chat.
It's just having a chat about, you know, about these things, which is great and
then a lot of the projects I've been involved in since I retired have been
absolutely amazing and I know you're aware of some of them and they've been
so much fun because I have that ability to be able to say no if I want to, or
if I've got nothing specific planned for a day and I wake up and the weather's
stunning and I, you know, want to go and spend a bit of time on the water
or want to, you know, go out on my bike or whatever it might be, I can just
think, I don't have to go to work today.
I'm not gonna go to work today.
I'm gonna have, I'm gonna have a day to myself.
It's a bit feast or famine sometimes, but, you know, if there's a month when
it's been a really good month and I've had loads of work on and the following month
is a little bit quieter, well, it's great.
You know, I have a bit of time to sit back, I'm just waiting
for that quieter month at moment.
So yeah, it's not for everybody, don't get me wrong, and people like
that idea of being an employee and that structure and that, regular
wage coming in and things like that.
But actually, if there are people out there who are thinking, what am I
going to do post public service life?
You could do a lot worse than, you know, what I do.
A lot worse, you really could, it's great!
Absolutely, I think it's important to find things that align with your
true core values as well and what you make and the decisions you take.
So, just to follow on from that, I mean you did touch base with it briefly, but
how has it affected your personal life?
Obviously having control, like you said, you can go to the beach, spend the day
on the water, so would you say that has been the biggest sort of blessing in
coming out of a regulated environment?
Yes, having that flexibility and freedom has been a bit of a blessing.
It really has.
I just need to find that work life balance because I do a piece of work and then I
get another piece of work come off the back of it and, I get offered another
bit of work and I'm like, yeah, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it because
I enjoy doing it and I turn around and 18 months has gone by and, I think, oh,
I could really do some time off at some point, you know, I really need to take
some time out and enjoy the fact that, yeah, I am semi retired, you know, done,
I did 30 years and it's time to kind of enjoy some of that time that I get
to be able to enjoy some of my pastime, some of the things I enjoy doing.
But yeah, personal life, there are elements of the job I miss.
there's a phrase that I hear people say that they say, they miss
the clowns, but not the circus.
You know, yeah, of course I miss the clowns, amazing colleagues in policing
and I do miss that and being a freelancer, you do work alone quite a bit, so you
have to get used to a very different way of working, a very different environment.
You know, I work from home a lot, so it was just me and the ginger cat at home
and you know, the family, I'm around an awful lot more with the family,
and they've had to adjust to me not being on nights, to not going away on
deployments for the different types of work and stuff like that, and being home
24 7 and that was quite a big culture shot for the family, was suddenly dad
was home 24 7 and it was like, who's this strange guy wandering around the
house that we haven't seen for 30 years?
He's suddenly here full time and same for me, to get used to being
in that environment far more than I had been over the previous 30 years.
So changes, real, real changes and it's just about adapting to those changes
in the best way you possibly can.
Really interesting, thank you.
So for any of our listeners who are former officers or those who are due
to retire soon, what advice would you give them if they're considering
a career in commercial road safety?
And what would you say if somebody's a little bit on the fence, not sure whether
this is the right decision for them?
I knew what I did was the right decision and I think when you
make a decision, Hattie, you know if it's the right decision.
You know it, you know it's right for you.
Like, I knew it was right for me to leave policing after 30 years.
Like I said right at the beginning, I could have stayed on for
potentially another 10 years, but I knew it was my time to go.
I'd done everything I wanted to do.
I'd achieved everything I wanted to achieve and much, much more.
So I knew.
So that's the first point is, you know when it's your time to be able
to move on and do something different.
Now, everybody's situation is different and people might be in a situation where
they go, I'm going to have to work.
I'm going to have to work 40 hours a week.
I need that guaranteed income.
Okay, so there's plenty of opportunity out there for that.
There's a lot of opportunity in this particular sector.
It is a huge sector at the end of the day.
Road risk reduction, commercial road risk reduction, is massive.
As you, I don't need to tell you, you know, you work in the industry.
So you have two choices.
You can look for an employed position within the industry, it's guaranteed,
you're an employee, you don't have the flexibility and freedom, but you've got
that certainty or, you can do what I did, come out into the private sector,
set yourself up as a consultant, not difficult at all and then look for those
opportunities and then look for what interests you, where your skill set
lies, so what skill set do you have that would fit within a particular sector.
Now, really interestingly, obviously, yes, I do work for PDT, as you well know.
I'm sure your listeners will probably know as well.
And I wasn't quite sure how my skill set would fit in with that.
But actually, just having a chat with people within the industry, they
go, hang on a minute, your skill set is exactly what we're looking for.
So somebody might look at it and go, well, my skill set or, you know, my
qualifications, they don't really fit.
Well, actually that wasn't my decision, that was somebody else's
decision to go, no, they fit your skill set and your background, your
experience fits us perfectly and would allow you to come and work for us.
So don't dismiss things out of hand just because you don't
think your skill set fits with a particular industry or a particular
business or a particular company.
Let them make that decision because if you go to them and you say, this is what I've
done, this is my experience, this is my background, this is what I can offer you,
often as not you'll find that actually organisations will go, when can you start?
Because, as a former police officer, particularly if you've got a fairly, high
end skill set, particularly coming out of something like road policing, you know,
that's just an example of a specialism.
There are plenty of other specialisms in policing that have equally as
important skill sets surrounding them.
Slightly different in criminal investigation or
training and things like that.
But It's about playing to your strengths.
Identify what your strengths are and then look at the opportunities where
you can build those strengths, where you can encourage others, you can lead
others and you can actually look at using your strengths and abilities
and skills to bring others on as well.
To be able to improve others, others, within an industry and organisation,
which again, is really important, but an employer, whether an employer as you are,
an employee or a freelancer, you will find that business and I've said this is
my experience and I have other colleagues with similar experiences when they've
struck out on their own, former blue light workers, former public service, former
police officers, are in fairly great demand out there because of the skill
sets that they hold and the biggest thing for me is it's not a world to be feared.
Yes, it's an odd sensation stepping outside the wire, if you like, coming
outside of that bubble of the police station that you've been so used to.
There is a huge world of opportunity out here, Hattie, huge world and you know,
I've said to people, I've said, don't tentatively put a toe into it and see what
happens, run into a headlong and enjoy it.
Go literally, go headlong into it and go, this is brilliant, this is absolutely
brilliant for all the right reasons.
There are some people that doesn't suit them because they've...
I was institutionalised, yes I was and people say, you know, you're
institutionalised, anybody who works for decades in public service is going to be
institutionalised to a certain extent.
But actually you can deinstitutionalise yourself quite quickly if you want to.
Some people don't want to.
They like that bubble, they like that safety bubble, they like that comfort
blanket of being part of that organisation and there's no problem with that, that's
absolutely fine and they've, you know, there are opportunities to go back into
organisations as police staff workers, things like that for example, within
the police service, there are those opportunities if that's what they want
to do and I've got colleagues who've done that and they really enjoy it.
They love it, which is brilliant and I'm so pleased for them.
Not for me.
My time was done.
I wanted to do something aligned but different and I, yes, I have been
fortunate in as much as the opportunities I've been offered, but I've also
made a lot of my own luck as well.
You know, fortune favours the brave, very much so.
So actually, be bold, be brave, step outside, and go and reach for
the stars, go and grab the world.
It's yours to be grabbed when you retire.
You've got a huge amount of experience, a huge amount of skill set there
that is in demand, I know it is.
Absolutely, thank you for that.
Since leaving the police, you've mentioned you've worked with a variety
of different organisations and you've made your own luck along the way.
Can you share some examples of the organisations you've been
able to influence and how the COL collaborations with these
organisations improved road safety?
I undertake freelance work for three or four organisations, three or
four different companies, all based around road risk reduction, which
is where I, my skill set lay and my experience lay and people wanted to
capitalise on that, which is great.
I'm really pleased that I was able to do that.
So a couple of the companies that I do work with, First Car Limited, which
is the young driver work that I do.
So, James at First Car, who I know that you know, he knew I was retiring.
He came and spoke to me and said, Olly would love to come do some work with us.
I said, fantastic.
I don't want to be employed.
He went, brilliant.
I don't want to employ you.
So, I head up their young driver project, The Honest Truth,
which is absolutely amazing.
So I've got the ability to be able to support driving instructors to
deliver that essential education right at the beginning of a young and
new driver's career and that's the influence I've now got, is I can now
influence how that project develops.
So I'm able to, as I head the project up on behalf of First Car, I'm able to
develop it and move it forward in a way that I can see, the vision I've got for
it and which is great because the, you know, James allows me to do that and
he's amazing, he's absolutely amazing.
Then, you know, out of that and the work I've done on The Honest
Truth of the First Car, I then get offered work with Co Pilot.
Again, I know you're aware of Co Pilot.
So, you know, I'm then getting doors opening to other opportunities
through work I'm already doing.
So I can then influence in another area.
I know we talked about it just before we started this, Hattie, that the
Highway Code adverts that I got involved in, completely out of the blue.
You know, that was totally out of left field.
Something I never thought in a million years I'd get involved in,
in road safety films and that's the third one this year I've done.
I've done three this year.
Possibly the slightly most unusual one, without a doubt, you know, I never, never
saw myself playing the part of an ice cream vendor in a 1973 ice cream van.
1973 Hattie, that was really in the past.
That's history, that's history, that is.
Driving an ice cream van, pretty much as old as I am.
That's very kind, thank you.
But it's such an important message to be had and to be able to be part
of that and to be able to influence something like that, that is going
to be seen by so many people and hopefully will ultimately save lives.
that's an amazing feeling to have.
So having that influence within organisations to be able to use my
experience and people to come to me to ask my opinion on things, say,
Olly, what's your thoughts on this?
And again, I've been working with PDT since I retired as well and I've had
some amazing opportunities within your organisation to be able to do some
work and I really, really enjoy it.
Again, to be able to bring my background, my experience to this world to be able to
then, whatever it might be, whether it's safe driver inductions, for example, to
be able to then talk to new employees of a company to be able to say, look, this is
my background, this is what I've learned.
All I want to do, I'm not going to turn you into an advanced driver overnight.
Well, in the next four hours.
But what I am going to do is get you to look at your driving in a different
way, get you to think about what you're doing in a different way and if I can
leave somebody, even if I can leave somebody after a session, a four hour
safe driver induction, for example, if I can leave somebody with having
learned one thing from me, Well, that's my job done at the end of the day.
Even if there was some, you know, classic example, there was one I did earlier on
this year, and individual, the delegate, had their driver license for 45, 50
years, and very much was of the opinion, there was nothing I could teach them.
They knew everything there was to know about driving.
Absolutely, this was just a waste of time.
Okay.
Fair enough.
Well, let's, I'll ask you the question again at the end, let's see how we get on.
So I went through the induction and did the programme, the package with them and
then they went, oh, that was amazing.
I had.
No idea what I didn't know and I walk away from something like that
going, I've influenced, I've made a positive influence somewhere there.
I've made that positive influence.
So that's how I'm able to bring my former life into my current life,
to be able to, you know, influence road safety in a positive way,
particularly in the commercial sector.
Incredible.
You've mentioned your connections from your time in the police.
How have you been able to help foster that within the collaborations that
you've taken and what have been the results of those partnerships?
Obviously, you've mentioned Co Pilot.
What other collaborations have you had?
So, I was very fortunate during my career, when I got involved in road safety and
road safety partnership work, I was able to work in partnerships with local
authority, with other blue light services, with the commercial sector, with business.
So I'd already, way, way, way before I finished policing, I already understood
quite a lot about how partnerships work, how business works and things like that.
I never really delved into it in any depth, because I didn't need to,
because that wasn't my core function.
My core function was policing.
It was just sat around the edge of that, was working with some amazing,
incredible people and what I was able to do was, as I sort of came towards
the back end of my career and I was going to various conferences and things,
I was bumping into these people that were going to the same conferences.
So I was moving in the same circles as some of these people of influence who
work in the industry and I'd always stop and have a chat with them and ask
how they were doing and they'd ask how work was and all that sort of thing.
So I kind of kept those lines of communication open, you know.
So when people then heard through those lines of communication that
Olly's coming up to retirement, they then came to me and said, Olly, we'd
love you to come do some work with us and that was really fortunate.
But that's about keeping those relationships alive.
It's about keeping those partnerships just ticking over.
Whilst I may have not done any direct work with anybody for, I don't know,
five, six, seven, eight, ten years.
Actually, by keeping those relationships open, by stopping and giving people
the time of day when you see them, they remember that and then suddenly, when
there's an opportunity to then come back and work with an organisation,
work with individuals, in a far more one to one basis, without the
constraints of being in policing, with the freedom of doing what I'm doing
now, it was a complete no brainer.
It was amazing.
It was brilliant.
But actually, it's about building those foundations, sometimes years earlier and
then looking at how you can maybe work with some of those people, going forwards
and is your skill set useful to them?
And yes, my skill set was useful to PDT Fleet Solutions, useful to Co Pilot, to
First Car, a couple of others not in the road risk reduction, road risk reduction
world, but again, using skills I've built up over many years to support some of
the work that other companies are doing.
So, it's about playing to your strengths, is look at What have
I got to offer that people will go, actually, I really like that.
That's something we can definitely use and there is so much opportunity out there.
There's so much opportunity.
even I've been surprised, and I knew there was, and even I've been
surprised as to doors that open doors.
Like I said, you know, the doors within First Car that open doors into
Co Pilot, doors within PDT that have opened doors into other bits and pieces
and it's yeah, grab opportunities.
Don't wait for them to come and land in your lap, because they probably won't.
See an opportunity, grab it and make the most of it, because the chances
are that'll lead to other opportunities and then you'll find you've got no
work life balance, because you're always working, but it doesn't feel
like work, because it's great fun.
So, yeah.
Finally, looking ahead to some of the key changes or goals you hope to see
in the sector over the next few years, what roles do you think former police
officers have in driving those changes?
So I think former police officers, with sort of the skills they hold,
and the ability they've got often not to communicate with people and
communication is key in so many areas.
So I would love to see in the commercial sector, particularly around
road risk reduction and road safety, I'd like to see far more emphasis
being put on that exact topic.
You know, yes, finance and bottom line is vitally important, of
course it is, people are running a business, I totally get that.
But actually, look at investing time, particularly some time and
if need be, a little bit of finance into your road safety strategy.
As a transport manager in a commercial organisation with a significant fleet, ask
yourself, what is my road safety strategy?
Do I have a road safety strategy?
What is my induction process?
What do I do to support colleagues?
What systems do we have in place if somebody does do something wrong?
Is it a case of a big stick, you're fired?
That's it, end ex, no questions or is it a case of right, why did they do that?
Did they do it because they didn't think they would get caught?
Is it a lack of knowledge?
Is it complacency?
What is it that leads somebody to do something on the roads?
But actually, invest in your people, invest in your people
when it comes to road safety.
That way you can have a much safer workforce and foster an
environment of safety culture.
Health and safety at work is massive.
Safe systems of work for just about everything we do.
If you're gonna climb a ladder, safe system of work.
If you want to change a light bulb, safe system of work.
If you're gonna rewire a plug, safe system of work.
But I see organisations who will put somebody in a commercial vehicle,
who maybe has only ever driven a car, who might have only passed
their test six months earlier, who's had no experience whatsoever on the
road and they're gonna stick him out in a great big commercial van.
I wonder why it all goes bendy on them.
Well, I can tell you why it goes bendy on them because you're not
invested in these people at all.
Invest in them, look at the organisations out there that have got the expertise,
the experience and the people within them that can come and do that for your
organisation, that can come in and provide safe driver inductions, can provide
post incident aftercare type stuff.
There's a load of it out there, but it's too late when something goes wrong and
somebody is killed or seriously injured.
It's too late to then wring your hands and furrow your brow and
go, how do we let this happen?
Look at it now.
Look at it now, look at where your gaps are.
Look at where your threat is.
Is my threat on the road?
Absolutely it is.
That's going to be one of the biggest risk areas in any commercial
organisation is out on the road.
If you've got a fleet of vehicles and you've got people out on
the road all the time, that's where your risk is going to sit.
Minimise that risk, have a road safety strategy, have a
road safety audit if needs be.
Get your staff trained up properly, encourage that ongoing education.
Have a, almost have a calendar, a road safety calendar for your organisation.
Align it with the NPCC, the National Police Chiefs Council calendar that
comes out every year, the break calendar, have monthly thematics.
Yeah.
Encourage people to think about road safety and make
it a part of daily business.
One of the biggest things, the biggest places I've always thought to promote
road safety is the back of a toilet door.
Where does just about every employee go at some point during their working day?
They go to the loo.
So actually, why not have road safety on the back of a toilet door?
When you're sat there, minding your own business and you're staring ahead of
you, you're staring at a blank door.
It's a blank canvas.
You know, that's just one example of a really, really quick win for somebody.
Having messages on emails, having on intranet sites, you
know, it doesn't cost anything.
But actually, by drip feeding messages to employees over a course of time
and fostering that culture of safety within an organisation, not just
workplace safety, but road safety.
That is part of workplace safety.
Just because it's out on the road doesn't mean it's any less important.
In fact, part of it is more important.
But also look at what is going on, what is going wrong on the road with
your organisation, and what can you do to try and reduce and improve that
and if needs be, speak to the experts.
There are plenty of them out there that can help, without a doubt.
I think that's all really important to share.
You've spoken about this quite a lot, is that education piece, making sure
people are on the same page, but in terms of the goals for organisations
or the goals for the sector as a whole, what do you see happening over the
next few years and what roles could you see, like I said, former police
officers having in driving those changes?
So, I think when you look at the sector as a whole, collaboration is probably key.
Is collaborating, is looking around at best practice.
So what are other people doing in the sector that works?
Rather than just working in a silo, look at the sector as a whole, not
as an organisation, because there's some really good stuff going on out
there, without a shadow of a doubt.
Some really good initiatives and some really good work, and not just
around the education, around some CPD training, those kinds of things.
Actually, should the sector be doing that as a whole?
Yeah, absolutely, of course they should.
I know there's legislation around that and there's certain, you know, when you're
talking to some of the larger commercial vehicles, but when you're currently coming
down to what are probably some of the biggest fleets, some of your delivery
fleets, for example, there isn't really any specific legislation that says they
have to do this, they can go out and you know, drive delivery vans, ad infinitum
without really having to do anything.
So look at what is working in the sector, what works in the sector and look at
implementing that and if people then start to implement across the sector,
inter organisation, when you go from one organisation to another, as you
do find, I think, you know, certainly people I've spoken to tend to migrate
between sort of similar roles within different organisations, is if you
fostered a culture of safety across a sector, they're going to have the same
messages regardless of where they are, rather than an organisation that doesn't
really pay as much attention as another one does and they get to an organisation
and go, oh, actually, we don't really worry about that, yeah, it's fine, just
don't worry about that, just don't crash.
Well, that's not good enough, that just isn't good enough.
So when you then look at what roles there are for people like
myself, coming out of policing, for example, you've got numerous roles.
You've got roles, you know, freelance training.
So doing things like safe driver inductions, or CPC training, depending
on what qualifications you may have as a former police officer.
You've got other elements of training, training development, training delivery,
you've got project management potential.
So there's all sorts of things that former police officers with that experience
behind them, can get involved in the sector, whether that's sort of sector
wide, so they can sort of go in at a very strategic level or bring it down
to a more tactical level and look at the sort of the tactics across the
sector, or down to the operational level and actually working in and right on
that front line where a lot of police officers spent a lot of their career,
my career, entire career was front line.
I loved it.
That's where I'm happiest.
I don't mind getting involved in the tactical and strategical side at
all because, you know, you can see an outcome, but actually I'm never
happier than when I'm getting my hands dirty on the front line, that
was where I was always happiest.
So there's an awful lot of opportunity and it's a case of looking into
an organisation and saying, right, what does an organisation do?
What do PDT Fleet Solutions actually do?
What do they do?
And how, potentially, does my skill set fit within that organisation?
Where could I sit within the organisation to then be able to
influence right across the sector?
And you can have influence, you know, in the most unlikely places.
You can suddenly find that your background experience and what you've
done historically is suddenly something that PDT Fleet Solutions really want to
capitalise on because actually there's somebody else coming in with a completely
fresh set of eyes, totally fresh set of ideas that we can use to help us develop
and improve the sector as a whole.
Absolutely, thank you.
Olly, it's always a pleasure to have you and I'm sure our listeners will have found
your insights, as always, very inspiring.
So thank you so much for sharing with us today.
Hattie, you're so welcome.
Thank you so much for having me back again and hopefully see you again sometime.
Absolutely!
Today we have heard some insightful views from Olly about transitioning
into a freelance road career.
This is invaluable advice from a former police officer who's taken
the leap and using his experience and knowledge in driver education.
If you're interested in learning more about transitioning into a
road safety career, or if you're a former officer yourself, please be
sure to reach out to Olly or the team at PDT for advice and guidance.
Thanks for tuning into this episode of Driven by Excellence.
We hope you enjoyed listening and if you did, please don't forget to click
that follow button, leave us a review or share this episode with a colleague.
For more information and to keep up to date with industry news, head to
our website pdtfleettrainingsolutions.
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uk