Tony Spalding

Good road safety can be defined as a working relationship between people, vehicles and infrastructure. However, in the quest to achieve significant reductions in the number of crashes on Britain’s roads, the relationship between these three facets of the road safety equation is far from equal.

In recent years, vehicle manufacturers have significantly improved occupant crash protection and are now working steadily to improve pedestrian protection too. Meanwhile, most analyses of road crashes still lay the blame firmly at the door of drivers, as if they make endless errors. Historically, the general view held by those involved in road safety has been that there is no such thing as a poor road – crashes are the result of bad drivers. Consequently, with driver error being seen as a major cause of crashes, the traditional approach to road safety and the focus of fleet safety has been to concentrate on driver education to reduce casualties. We, however, believe that the real situation is more complex.

Our belief is that we should accept that drivers, and other road users, are weak links – after all, they are human. Indeed, we believe the average driver makes one potentially fatal error in every 500 driving decisions. These errors increase in poor road conditions, or when the driver is distracted or tired, for example. Worse, employers put commercial pressure on their employees and turn able drivers into negligent ones.

But roads are a potentially hostile environment, and the European Road Assessment Programme (EuroRAP), which has already identified Britain’s most dangerous roads, has highlighted how safety measures are now being engineered into the road infrastructure and the number of crashes on previously designated high-risk roads is reducing. We are beginning to see moves towards integrated road safety as a result of the changing thinking of vehicle manufacturers, road designers and engineers and, indeed, our most safety-conscious fleets. But there remains a long way to go to reduce the 1,000 road deaths and 100,000 crashes a year believed to involve at-work drivers.

So, if new cars are safer, as they undeniably are, roads are also getting safer and there is more focus on driver education, why do accidents continue to occur? We believe that part of the answer lies in the need for companies to manage their people better, not by simply focusing on driver education, but to increasingly look at the time and working environment of those who drive at work. There is a direct correlation between good time management and safe driving.

“Most analyses of road crashes still lay the blame firmly at the door of drivers, as if they make endless errors”"

Nevertheless, the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) and now EuroRAP have each significantly influenced the thinking of both vehicle and road design and these twin measures working with good public education and sensible people management, underpinned by fair and effective criminal law enforcement, will combine to reduce the unnecessarily high rate of crashes.

As Sir Trevor Chinn, chairman of the Motorists' Forum pointed out in his recent report, “Company directors need to play their part, too. We need to see many more companies embrace best practice management of those who drive at work. Every company we speak to that has taken action cannot only demonstrate reduced crash levels, but also substantial cost savings and improved staff moral.”

While there are few definitive studies in this area, anecdotal evidence backed up by many of the RoadSafe case studies suggests that at least 25% of fleet crash costs are saveable and that, in some cases, 75% might be achievable – surely figures company directors and fleet decision-makers cannot ignore.