The Freight Transport Association (FTA) represents the transport interests of over 11,000 companies throughout the whole of the UK industry - FTA members move goods by road, rail, sea and air.
Those 11,000 members operate over 200,000 good vehicles - close to half the whole UK fleet. Not surprisingly then, FTA has a keen interest in the safe running of lorries. Such an interest extends beyond the personal care of lorry drivers, other road users and pedestrians and extends to more commercial matters.
So road safety is a must and much of FTA's time and energy is spent endeavouring to achieve a better performance out of both the vehicle and the driver, and to relationships with other road users.
In 2002, there are five key areas where the association is making a major contribution: a campaign on the problems of driver fatigue and sleepiness at the wheel; a programme of enhanced driver training after the obtaining of a licence qualification; an awareness campaign in London designed to make both lorry drivers and cyclists more aware of the problems each encounters with the other; the Good Lorry Code and the Well Driven? sign that now appears on tens of thousands of vehicles; and FTA's Vehicle Inspection Service
and the 100,000 such inspections that the association engineers carry out each year.
Founded in 1967, FTA's Vehicle Inspection Service provides an independent audit of the condition of each vehicle. Some vehicles are inspected as often as every six weeks - for others perhaps just once or twice a year.
In this way FTA members enjoy the benefit of an entirely unbiased look at the vehicle with no commercial benefit to be accrued out of finding fault - or even not finding fault! The scheme has been sufficiently well thought of to have won a Prince Michael road safety award in 1997. Of course, the safest vehicle on the road can constitute a danger if it is not driven properly. Drivers are clearly the most important ingredient in road safety.
Fortunately, the road safety record of heavy goods vehicles is a good one. Its involvement in accidents, on a mile for mile basis, is far lower than that of the private car. But the bad news is that when a truck is in an accident then it does tend to be a more serious one.

The learning process does not finish when the lorry driver passes the test - there is much more they must know

Lorry drivers are among the most skilled craftspeople of UK industry. As well as manipulating a very large vehicle in cramped road space, they also have to be an engineer, a navigator and a lawyer with a knowledge of all of the special regulations that apply to goods vehicle operations.
FTA has joined with TDG to produce the 5-Star Driver Development programme. Such enhanced driver training anticipates a reduction in accidents of at least 10% and, besides accident costs, a regular fuel saving of up to 10%. Safe driving is clearly economic driving!
FTA's now familiar Well Driven? stickers began to appear on lorries in 1995. Since then tens of thousands of calls reporting both good and bad driver behaviour have been made - all of them investigated with both the company and the individual driver. The sign is part of the Good Lorry Code, which itself is an obligation on operators to train drivers above and beyond legal requirements. Users of the scheme have benefited from the public scrutiny of their operations and, again, reap benefits in both road safety and operating costs. In September 2002, FTA joined with mayor Livingstone and the Greater London Authority, and with the London Cycling Campaign in a programme designed to make cyclists and lorry drivers more aware of the dangers they pose to each other. Posters and leaflets have been distributed all over the capital.
Also in September, a new campaign entitled Driver Sleepiness Kills was launched by UK Transport Minister David Jamieson. This chilling headline to a new poster and leaflet from FTA was a key message to lorry drivers, showing how they must manage their working life to be ever alert and what to do if they do feel sleepy. Posters appeared in motorway service areas and truckstops with advice leaflets handed out to drivers. In addition, FTA has put together an advice book for operators and managers detailing their role in how to avoid potential problems. As many as one in four accidents on major UK roads stem from sleepiness and it is vital to overcome this problem.
The Freight Transport Association exists to support and advise UK industry in its transport operations. Efficient transport is safe transport - everybody wins and lives are saved.

By Geoff Dossetter, Head of External Affairs at the Freight
Transport Association