Fleet Owners Info

Dear sir or Madam,

My name is Ken Perham and I am attempting to reduce accidents injuries and loss of life in the hours of darkness.

I am very positive if you take on board my suggestions you will find your drivers that I regularly see at night will be better received than thought of as white van man which is a slang term for drivers with company vans who are probably a little aggressive in their approach to driving and in getting to and from their current job.

I am actually not sure how big your fleet is but I feel sure it is quite comprehensive and as you say you are a progressive company you could be the first to take on board what I am trying to achieve.

I have found that the lack of knowledge of not the younger driver’s but those with 20 or more years driving experience who actually quite often have a reasonable record of competence have no idea that on the Van or Car that they are driving has a headlamp scroll switch that will probably lower the dip beam when carrying heavy loads if set correctly in the first place.

I could go on for hours on this lights subject but what I would appreciate if this letter gets to your department that deals with your vehicles that get involved in accidents in the hours of darkness and you find a common denominator with your vehicles being involved in accidents because the drivers had fully laden vehicles and had not lowered their lights I am sure we could discuss this further.

I have a letter from Rosie Winterton our Minister of Transport actually stating most drivers with these Headlamp switches do not use them.

Here are a couple of stories that back up my claims. I spoke to a Police officer who was driving a Renault Trafic at the time and I asked him about hid headlamp adjustment switch and gave him some of my paperwork on the subject of safer night driving and being blinded by drivers with lack of knowledge of driving with heavy loads. The officer asked me to show him his switch.

A Gas engineer from Onstream gas came to my house to change my outdated gas meter driving a Vauxhall Vivarro which is very similar to the Renault and the driver of this van had actually had an altercation with a driver the night before he came to me. The driver of the other vehicle complained to my engineer that he was being blinded but my man had no idea or knowledge of his headlight adjustment switch and was so amazed when I showed him he was eager to sign the petition I had started trying to raise awareness’ and improve the roads for the benefit of us all.

Look up my website blindedbixenon.co.uk and as a driver myself that has worked solely at night for the last 36 years in central London I feel many problems out there at night could be dealt with in a more organised way.

Yours sincerely Ken Perham