Ashley Martin

The European Commission and the UK government have each made it their goal to reduce the number of people killed and injured in road crashes.

Legislation from both Brussels and London; agreements with manufacturers to incorporate more safety features within vehicle design and tougher European New Car Assessment Programme crash tests are all coming to the fore.

It is estimated that there are about 1,000 deaths on UK roads each year involving people who were at work at the time, with a further 13,000 seriously injured. In other words, between one-quarter and one-third of all road accidents involve someone who was working.

However, evidence continues to emerge on an all-tooregular basis that many companies – particularly small and medium fleets – are failing to take their occupational road risk responsibilities seriously. Indeed, many surveys conducted this year, some of which are reported in the following pages, highlight the continuing lack of occupational road risk management by businesses. The real risk to those who drive for work is about eight times higher than those who remain in the office.

Companies seeking to reduce this figure should follow the examples set by organisations – both national and international – which have introduced innovative risk management schemes, which have not only resulted in significant reductions in the number of crashes involving their vehicles and improved employee safety, but significant financial savings have accrued.

Improving a company’s bottom line should be the objective of everyone in business and while many benefits of risk management are obvious, many are not – a smoother driving style, for example, brings not only safety improvements, but also environmental benefits through fuel savings and vehicle emission reductions.

“The real risk to those who drive for work is about eight times higher than those who remain in the office”

Education of company employees who drive for work is vital to reducing the number of crashes involving at-work drivers – including drink and drug awareness, which we highlight in this issue – but for those companies who fail to take this route the long arm of the law awaits. Police investigations into serious road crashes can take years. This issue of RoadSafe reports on the work of Hampshire Police’s Road Death Investigation Team – the first of its kind in the country.

Too often financial directors have used cost as an excuse for not introducing at-work driving policies. However, the majority of initiatives are relatively cheap to introduce. What is vital is that companies have documented duty-of-care procedures in place and drivers clearly know their rights and responsibilities. The initial administration task may seem burdensome, but the benefits to business and staff will be huge.