Managing Occupational Road risk
Why Manage Occupational Road Risk?
When considering the human, legal and economic implications, it is clear that managing occupational road risk may be the most significant health & safety issue that companies face.
As an employer you have a duty of care towards those who drive for work purposes. It must be emphasised that simply checking that your drivers hold a current valid driving licence and that the company vehicles have valid MOT certificates does not satisfy your legal responsibilities. Health and Safety legislation including statutes and statuary instruments apply equally to both traditional work place activities and on-road activities.
More people are killed and injured in at work road accidents than in all other occupational accidents put together.
Statistics produced indicate that 9 people a day die in driving-related accidents. Government research indicates that 30% of the deaths are work- related. This equates to approximately 21 employees being killed on a weekly basis. In addition the statistics indicate that a further 250 employees are seriously injured every week while using a vehicle for work purposes.
Employers will, therefore, appreciate that as a consequence, driving is one of the most dangerous work activities in the UK.
Employers Responsibilities: Work-Related Road Safety
The majority of employers are under the misapprehension that they are complying with the relevant legislation by simply ensuring that their company vehicles have a valid MOT certificate. They believe that this is all that is necessary to ensure the safety of their employees when driving on business.
In fact, health and safety law requires employers and the self-employed to ensure, so far as is reasonably practical, the health, safety and welfare of all employees at all times. It should be noted also that employers have a responsibility to ensure that others are not put a risk by the work activities, including driving, of their employees.
It is a significant fact that the driver is ultimately responsible for how a particular vehicle is driven in relation to his conduct on the road. However the employer can have a significant influence on their driver’s conduct, which is now fully recognised by the law.
Examples of the employers influence can be a failure to properly maintain their fleet vehicles, the imposition of unrealistic driving schedules and the failure to address driver training issues.
In line with more recent legislation, in particular The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, the Government’s strategy is aimed to reduce the number of deaths and injuries on Britain’s Roads. Consequently they are pursuing programmes of driving assessment and if necessary re-training the drivers who are potential at higher than normal risk.
Benefits of Managing Work-Related Road Safety
The business case for managing occupational road risk is clear. Please consider the following benefits, in terms of safety and economy, which can be considerable no matter the size of your business:
Case studies and research have shown the benefits from managing work- related road safety and reducing the frequency of road accidents include:
- Fewer days lost due to injury.
- Reduced risk of work related ill-health.
- Reduced stress and improved morale.
- Less lost time due to work rescheduling.
- Fewer vehicles off the road for repair.
- Reduced running cost through better driving standards.
- Fewer missed orders and business opportunities so reduced risk of losing customer good will.
- Less chance of key employees being banned from driving as a result of points on their licences.
- Accidents also lead to working days lost through increased administration and investigations into personal injury.
- The business will suffer negative publicity and there will be damage to your reputation.
- Reduced work productivity due to stress and low employee morale.
- It allows you to exercise better control over costs, such as wear and tear and fuel, insurance premiums and legal fees together with claims from employees and third party claimants. The effects of accidents include increased costs, including vehicle repairs and time lost with vehicles off the road.
- It also allows you to make informed decisions about matters such as driver training and helps you identify where health and safety improvements can be made.
- Containing potentially significant increases in insurance premiums.
Employers should also note that promoting sound health and safety driving practices and a good safety culture at work may well influence employees whilst private driving. This could reduce the chances of employees being injured in a driving related accident outside work.
 How to Manage Occupational Road Risk
Work-related road safety can only be effectively managed if it is integrated into your
arrangements for managing health and safety at work. You should look at your health and safety systems and consider whether they adequately cover this area of work. The main areas you need to address are policy, responsibility, organisation, systems and monitoring.
Does your health and safety policy statement cover work-related road safety? Your policy should be written down if you employ five or more people.
Example: A small firm with four cars and two vans set down its policy and addressed issues which it considered significant to their particular circumstances. These included management duties, journey organisation, driver training and vehicle maintenance.
Is there top-level commitment to work-related road safety in your organisation and is
responsibility clearly defined? Does the person who is responsible for it have sufficient
authority to exert influence and does everyone understands what is expected of them?
- Organisation and structure
In larger organisations, your aim is to ensure that you have an integrated organisational structure that allows cooperation across departments with different responsibilities for work-related road safety. In smaller businesses, your aim is to ensure you consider the links between driving activities.
Example: A council brought together expertise from its training, occupational health and safety and fleet management sections to develop and implement a work-related road safety policy.
Do you have adequate systems to allow you to manage work-related road safety effectively?
For example, are you confident that your vehicles are regularly inspected and serviced in accordance with manufacturers’ recommendations?
Do you monitor performance to ensure that your work-related road safety policy is effective? Are your employees encouraged to report all work-related road incidents without fear that punitive action will be taken against them? Do you collect sufficient information to allow you to make informed decisions about the effectiveness of existing policy and the need for changes?
Example: A company, with 330 people driving on business, quantified employee driving in terms of distance and time. The results revealed that there were 70 people significantly exposed to risk and they were targeted first.
To begin the process with Travelsafe-UK:
A reminder of how current legislation affects your business
- The Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 requires you to ensure, so far as is reasonably practical, the health and safety of all employees while at work. You also have a responsibility to ensure that others are not put at risk by your work-related activities. This applies to every size of business, including the self-employed.
- Under the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999, you have responsibility to manage health and safety effectively. You need to carry out an assessment of the risks to the health and safety of your employees, while they are at work, and to other people who may be affected by their work activities.
- The Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007 (effective from April 2008) further reinforces the above legislation. Under the new Act, employers have a Duty of Care to ensure the safety of employees driving for work purposes. The revised legislation makes it easier to prosecute companies for manslaughter following a work related death.
- A company with inadequate Road Risk Management faces severe penalties in the event of a serious road accident. The Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007 allows an unlimited fine to be imposed on the company. Where gross negligence is evident, the Health & Safety Executive frequently work with the police to prosecute company directors responsible for Health & Safety. This can result in a custodial sentence.
What Can you do to protect your employees and your business?
- As with other areas of your work activity, you need to have a comprehensive road safety policy specific to your business needs.
- You need to risk assess your drivers and the driving they are required to do.
- Training should be provided to drivers deemed at high or medium risk, with priority given to those at highest risk (e.g. those with high annual mileage, poor accident records or who were classified as high risk through driver risk profiling).
- Information on safe practices should be provided to all drivers, designed to eliminate or minimise the driving risks identified.
- Regularly review your risk assessments, taking in to account accident statistics within your business
Ideally to establish risk, drivers should initially complete our online risk profile (Link to) This provides a quick, simple and low-cost method of accurately identifying which of your drivers are at the highest risk and determines possible training requirements.
How does it work?
Our risk profiling system is designed specifically for drivers, taking in to account common causes of accidents and built around daily driving tasks. As such, we believe that it offers more realistic results than is often achieved by psychometric testing. Furthermore, those profiled are better able to understand and accept their results.
What happens next?
You can download and store the risk profiles for all your drivers, forming an important record as part of your driving at work safety policy. The results should be used to identify which of your drivers require training, and to what extent.
If it is determined training is required this can take many forms, for example classroom training or on road training, sometimes even online training.
Travelsafe-UK offer a varied and broad range of courses for workplace drivers, we offer standard courses and can also tailor courses to suit your needs as follows:
Highway code/Theory courses
Standard Defensive driving courses (On road)
Speed awareness courses
Assessors course (Including Safed)
Eco friendly driving courses
Lgv/Pcv courses
Safed for Vans
Tachograph courses
Blue light courses
4 x 4/Off road courses
Advanced driving courses
Fleet Diploma
HSE policy review
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