The Mad Dash: Untrained Drivers and the Chaos the Delivery Industry is Fuelling
If you’ve ordered a package or a pizza lately, you’ve seen it: drivers and riders weaving through traffic, engines revving, horns blaring. Vans mount curbs in desperate bids to shave off a minute, while bikes and scooters zigzag through jam-packed streets. Near-misses have become part of the parcel (Pardon the Pun).
The truth is, most of these delivery drivers have never been trained for this job, or even to drive these vehicles as a matter of fact. They’re learning by doing – and the learning curve isn’t just steep, it’s proven deadly.
Every day, untrained couriers are thrown onto busy roads, and we’re all caught in the chaos. It’s a perfect storm fuelled by sky-high demand and a “hire anyone with legs” mentality that’s turned our streets into a free-for-all.
A Grim Equation: More Deliveries, More Drivers, More Crashes
The demand for instant deliveries has exploded, and companies large and small are scrambling to keep up. The onboarding often consists of handing over a uniform and an app login – good luck, don’t crash on your first day!
In the U.S., driving is now the leading cause of work-related death, accounting for nearly 40% of all workplace fatalities.
The National Safety Council warns that as many as 15.5 million work-related drivers in the U.S. – many of them might not be properly trained to operate their vehicles.
In the UK, van traffic has shot up by over 30% in the past decade to meet delivery demand, and fatal collisions involving vans are on the rise as a result. It’s looking grim: more packages = more drivers = more crashes.
Each headline about a delivery driver mishap – a scooter under a truck, a pile-up on a last mile route – drives home the reality that we’ve pushed unprepared drivers into a high-stakes job and hoped for the best.
Why DIY Driver Training Will Get You Sued
Spoiler alert: hoping isn’t a strategy.
The delivery industry’s biggest problem can be summed up in one sobering fact: most delivery drivers are winging it. There is no formal training, no standard safety course, no “delivery driver school” before they strap on a helmet or slide into a van.
A staggering number of last-mile drivers don’t even get a single hour of safety training tailored to their job. They might know how to drive or ride in general – they have a regular license, sure – but navigating a loaded van through narrow streets on a tight schedule is a different beast.
And for the legions of gig-economy bike and scooter riders, many are young and have zero professional riding instruction, which leads to low awareness of road risks. We’ve essentially sent a whole workforce into the field unprepared, and it shows.
Unprepared Drivers Are Playing Russian Roulette with Your Business
Every untrained driver represents a high-stakes risk. The outcome? Accidents—and plenty of them.
Delivery drivers and sales workers now face some of the highest rates of injury and fatality across all industries, even exceeding those in construction and manufacturing.
Without proper training, a driver may not know how to secure a load, manage a skid in the rain, or execute a safe left turn in busy traffic. One study found that over half of gig delivery riders admitted to speeding or breaking traffic laws to meet delivery deadlines. When drivers are pushed to deliver “ASAP” without the tools or training to drive safely, recklessness becomes routine.
The consequences ripple outward: drivers get injured, bystanders and road users face harm, packages are lost or damaged, and companies deal with the costly aftermath—legal action, reputational damage, and surging insurance premiums.
This Is a Leadership Issue: You Can’t Afford to Wait
For Fleet Partners and 3PLs—those small subcontracted firms serving large e-commerce platforms—the risks multiply. These businesses often operate on tight margins and under strict deadlines. Without trained drivers, they face more accidents and higher exposure to legal and financial liability.
Each incident brings with it vehicle repairs, medical costs, legal fees, and ever-rising insurance premiums. Commercial auto insurance rates have climbed by more than 10% annually for over a decade, driven by increased crashes and claims.
This creates a punishing cycle: driver shortages lead to the hiring of less experienced drivers; more inexperienced drivers result in more crashes; rising accidents push insurance premiums up and discourage new drivers from entering the industry.
Caught in this loop, many 3PLs struggle to hold onto their drivers, bear the brunt of mounting costs, and live in constant fear of the next accident call. When an untrained driver causes a major incident, the company can be held liable for negligent hiring or inadequate training.
Put simply, assigning a driver without proper preparation places full responsibility on your business—posing a serious, ongoing risk to your operation’s future.
Solution: Service Club Academy. As Simple as That
Our training programmes reduce accident rates by 60%. That means fewer injuries, fewer claims, and a stronger, more resilient team on the road.
Service Club Academy is a global recruitment and training platform tailored for delivery drivers. We combine microlearning modules, AI-powered driver matching, and immersive VR simulations to equip drivers with the confidence and competence to succeed.
Whether you’re running a local courier service or a multinational logistics firm, our scalable SaaS solution adapts to your needs and grows with you.
What We Deliver
- Recruitment: Access a vetted pool of talented, trained drivers.
- Training: Interactive courses covering safety, compliance, customer care, and vehicle handling.
- Technology: AI matching and churn prediction tools to increase retention and performance.
- Compliance & Support: End-to-end solutions that support your growth and ensure regulatory confidence.
We transform driving into a profession. We build careers. We protect your people, your parcels, and your peace of mind.
Contact us for more information
Email: zeynep@serviceclub.com
