A total of 54,935 at-work vehicles were involved in crashes in 2005 – 151 every day of the year – according to government 2005 road casualty figures.

With one in seven (15%) of vehicles involved in crashes being driven for work – a total of 366,236 vehicles were involved in road traffic accidents last year – and a further 9% of vehicles in crashes being driven to or from work, RoadSafe is calling on UK companies to play a more active role in encouraging safe driving among employees.

RoadSafe is working in conjunction with the Department for Transport to mount a major multi-faceted “Driving for Work” campaign – to be launched in early 2007 – aimed at generating an attitudinal shift towards managing occupational road risk among employers and encouraging a behavioural change among employees.

One aspect of the campaign will include the use of corporate road safety champions to promote best practice and the business case for managing occupational road risk nationwide. The “systematic programme of outreach” to raise road safety standards, was one of the key recommendations of the “Improving Work Related Road Safety Report” published by the Motorists’ Forum last year (RoadSafe: summer 2005).

Both RoadSafe and the Motorists’ Forum believe that it is crucial that occupational road risk management best practice is championed by people who have adopted and benefited from programmes in their organisations, and are prepared to spread the word to their business peers about their success in raising road safety standards, and the financial and other benefits to be gained.

The “Driving for Work” campaign is likely to be launched under the Department for Transport’s long-established “Think!” banner and will also include a raft of on-line help and advice that is being compiled by TRL (Transport Research Laboratory) following on-going research with 120 companies (see page 28). A DfT spokeswoman says the campaign remained under development with a number of aspects still to be finalised.

The government has not released figures stating how many deaths and injuries involved at-work driver crashes in 2005. However, with one in four vehicles that crash being driven for work or to or from work, there are demands that the government should publicise these figures to give an accurate picture of the problem to UK businesses and those working in road safety. The journey purpose analysis of road crash figures was published for the first time as part of the 2005 annual report into road casualties in Britain. Previously it had been estimated that at-work drivers were responsible for up to a third of all crashes, resulting in around 1,000 deaths and 100,000 injuries in a 2001 report published by the government’s Work-Related Road Safety Task Group.

However, RoadSafe director Adrian Walsh says it is too early to draw any conclusions from the initial figures and believes they may not be too accurate. “If 15% of crashes do involve at-work drivers then it is 15% too many, so companies cannot forget their responsibilities and must manage occupational road risk,” he says.

“However, we would be surprised if the figures were entirely accurate and as journey purpose is being reported for the first time it is far too early to read anything into the data that might indicate any trends.” He adds: “Police officers are responsible for recording this information and different forces will have different protocols. It may also be very difficult for investigating officers to conclude whether the journey was work-related.”

The DfT says in its report that for almost 75% of drivers and riders involved in crashes, their journey was not related to work or commuting or was undefined. Mr Walsh says: “It is for that reason that I believe there may be a degree of under-reporting and it will take several years of figures to build up an accurate picture of the number of crashes on the UK’s roads involving at-work drivers.

The DfT report does, however, reveal that:

• 75% of drivers of buses/coaches and HGVs involved in a crash were on a journey that was part of their work.
  
  
• More than 40% of light goods vehicle drivers involved in crashes were recorded as working.
  
  
• 10% of car drivers were reported to be at work.
  
  
• 7% of cyclists and motorcycle riders were declared to be on work-related journeys when they were involved in a crash.

In addition, of 33,281 pedestrians killed or injured on the roads last year, 672 (2%) were recorded as being in the course of “on-the-road” work, such as postal and other delivery workers, road maintenance and traffic control workers. People walking to or from work, or between work locations were not included in the figures.

To give a clearer picture of the number of road traffic crashes involving at-work drivers, road safety campaigners continue to call for companies to be required to report all crashes and incidents involving someone driving for work to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Currently, companies must only report at-work incidents that occur on-site to the HSE. On-road incidents are not covered within reporting requirements.

The DfT’s report on road casualties in 2005 records that there were 3,201 fatalities, 1% fewer than in 2004; the number of people seriously injured fell to 28,954, 7% lower than in 2004; and the total number of casualties was 271,017, 3% fewer than in 2004.

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