Issue 9 – Target the Speed Limit

Safety Meeting Planner & Agenda

Target the Speed Limit!

Meeting Leader:
  • Prepare in advance to make this meeting effective.
  • Print and read over this entire agenda.
  • Think about how you want to lead the meeting.
  • Is there anything that is specific to your company or operation that you can include to personalize the information?
  • Review the video for this session.
  • Save the link to the video in your ‘Favourites’ folder on your browser for easy access.
  • Open and then minimize the viewer just before the meeting to make the video introduction smooth.
Start Your Meeting!

Opening Statement:

Everybody speeds. Everybody at some point feels rushed and pushes up over the limit. It’s even socially accepted to speed; everyone does it and the police always give a bit of latitude before ticketing. But what’s the big hurry?

The Questions for this Meeting:

Q: Do you speed? Why?

Answers could be:

  • I go with the flow and everyone is speeding.
  • Police don’t ticket until at least 10 km/h over.
  • I’m in a hurry.
  • I don’t like to be passed.
  • There are lots of excuses or explanations or justifications.

Q: So everyone speeds and has their reasons, but can you think of any reasons to NOT speed?

Tailgate Tips:
  • It saves money to keep the speed down.  Higher speeds result in higher fuel consumption.
  • It’s the guaranteed way to never get a speeding ticket.
  • If you get used to going the speed limit and it feels normal, when you are in a hurry, you may go a bit faster, but if you are already speeding, you will go MUCH faster if you are in a hurry.
  • Going just a bit faster won’t make any real difference in your arrival time.  You have to go WAY faster to really save time, and that’s just too risky.
Introduce the Video
Practical Challenge:

Can you drive the speed limit? For the next week, target the speed limit and if there is no real reason (like fast flowing traffic) to go over, just drive the limit (or slower if conditions are poor).

Driving at the speed limit will feel REALLY SLOW at first, if you are normally 10 or 15 over, because you have become accustomed to these higher speeds as normal. Once you drive the limit for a while though, this resets your internal speedometer and the limits start to feel just fine. If you go over a bit when you are in a hurry, this will now satisfy the need to feel like you are going faster.

Can you do it? Drive the speed limit for a week. I dare you!

Follow Up Meeting:

Get everyone together in a week or so and talk about how this challenge was?

  • When was it difficult?
  • Easy?
  • What did you discover about yourself?

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