I want to be a truck driver. I’ve just spent 2 weeks on the road getting amongst it, seeing the trucks going about their daily work in action, not from my seat in the office gazing at GPS reports. I spent 14 hours a day on the road for 10 consecutive days, keeping truck drivers’ hours and taking similar breaks.

I’ve been a truck driver before and whilst I enjoyed the driving, the job itself wasn’t particularly challenging. My frustration during that year was that I thought I gave great customer service, practiced defensive driving, conscientiously tried to use the gear box well (a Pom and a road ranger gear box never was a good combination…) but if I was judged, it was only ever on the number of deliveries I made, although there may have been a few unofficial measures too as I was a girl employed via a driving agency…

So on this trip, whilst I covered 10,000kms on my motorbike, I spent some of my time thinking about how I was riding. I’ve got a good trip computer on the bike so I could see in real time what effect my riding style was having on my fuel consumption; a quick way to learn how best to manage that particular bike for fuel efficiency.

I think one of the easiest costs you can tackle is your fuel bill, so that is where I concentrated my efforts on my ride. With a bit of knowledge and a lot of discipline, I made a huge impact on my fuel consumption. I got plenty of chances to validate this – a 240 km tank range needs replenishing 4-5 times per day on a trip like this – and at best I used 8.4 litres on a 240km run, at worst 14.6 litres; nearly a 40% saving.

But it isn’t the improvements I want to talk about specifically – It is the amount of concentration which it took to make that big leap in fuel economy and the pride when I got to the petrol pump and I could see a real saving.

As a truck driver, it’s a different story – it’s not my fuel bill and the boss isn’t interested in how I do the job, just whether the freight is delivered in one piece or not – right? But YOU are the boss, and you want him to care.

How do we get the message out to the kids out there that trucks are like a career outside and a career in IT all rolled into one? I really enjoyed the challenge of beating the stats my trip computer fed back to me, and with professional drivers, your GPS / telematics system means you can now give them this type of information. You can offer your drivers the bragging rights about improved fuel efficiency, tyre wear, bodywork damage, wear and tear on their engine and drivetrain – all whilst reducing your costs. You can give drivers feedback about the job that they took on (driving a truck), not the job that you thought you offered them (getting the deliveries done on time) and both of you end up winning.

Imagine a driver turning up to a job interview with his latest GPS performance reports in place of his CV? Having these measures and the challenge to show that I could be the best of the best on the fleet would certainly tempt me back behind the wheel. Using your systems to give your drivers that feedback and to create healthy competition will also have the knock on effects of increased teamwork amongst your drivers and supervisors, improved productivity and reduced costs.

Make a start now – attract the best and retain the best by working smarter.