1
Occupational road risk
Every week more than 20 people are killed and 250 are seriously injured in at-
work road crashes. The human and financial costs to families, businesses and the
wider community are massive.
Employers have clear duties under health and safety law to
manage occupational road risk in the same way that they
manage other health and safety risks.
(Click here to view the HSE/DfT guidance ‘Driving at Work’).
Drivers too have clear responsibilities.
Taking action to ensure safer driving can:
Help to keep your employees and volunteers safe while at work
Protect other road users
Save money by reducing accidents and incidents
Reduce business interruptions
Avoid adverse publicity associated with accidents
Help staff stay safe while commuting or driving in their leisure time
Promote smoother driving which improves fuel efficiency and reduces
environmental impact
And remember, your drivers are your ambassadors on the road!
The following advice, which is based on ‘plan-do-check-act’ management principles,
is aimed at directors, trustees, owners and managers in small and medium sized
organisations:
STEP 1: Plan
Take an overall look at vehicle use in your business, including not only your
own vehicles or those you hire but employees’ own vehicles driven for work
purposes. Look at annual mileages, incidents, their causes and costs. Also
think about the safety of your staff who may be at work on the road as
pedestrians or riding bicycles
2
Consult all members of staff about road safety. Listen to their views. Look at
what other organisations are doing. Seek information and advice from
outside sources (see list below)
Develop a short statement about your organisation’s approach to road
safety at work and communicate it to all your staff so that they understand
your aims and expectations. Make sure they know their responsibilities. Issue
a short drivers' guide to all drivers which sets out clearly all the 'musts and
must nots'
Carry out a simple risk assessment to see where you may have road safety
problems and if you are taking the right steps to control risk on the road and
promote safer driving. Look at aspects of 1) your vehicles 2) journey tasks
and 3) individual drivers that might tend to increase the overall level of risk.
Identify areas for priority action. Keep a simple record of your findings
STEP 2: Do
Can you reduce road travel; for example, by
teleconferencing or using safer modes of travel
like air or rail for longer journeys? (Remember,
if you travel by plane or by train you may still be
able to work during the journey)
Consider drivers’ attitudes and their driving
competence on recruitment and as necessary
thereafter. You can assess drivers while driving
or by using online tools. Ask them about their
crash histories and penalty points
Consider investing in extra driver training, for example, for those covering
the greatest mileages or with greater development needs such as young
drivers
Ensure drivers and their supervisors always
consider safety before driving, for example by
planning journeys which follow the safest
routes, wherever possible avoiding congestion,
crash sites and night and adverse weather
driving. If a journey is excessively long, staff may
need to travel the night before. Or they may need
to stay overnight rather than driving straight home
after working away. Plan stops of at least 15
minutes every two hours
Make it clear that staff must not speed. Don’t
set impossible schedules and deadlines. Avoid
systems of work (for example, ‘just in time’
delivery, payment by number of calls made, ‘job
and finish’, unrealistic guaranteed call-out or
delivery times etc.) which may encourage
speeding
3
Emphasise that staff must be fit to drive. Make clear that they must meet
DVLA medical fitness requirements and that they must not drive when they
have become excessively tired by work or when they are impaired, for
example by alcohol or drugs. Make sure they are alert to the effects of stress,
medicines which can affect their ability to drive safely, ‘morning after’ drink
driving, and fatigue due to poor work/life balance or sleep deprivation, for
example due to looking after sick children or frail dependants. Remind drivers
about the value of ‘caffeine and napping’ to cope with sleepiness while
driving. Make sure drivers have had eye sight checks
Ensure vehicles are right for the job (for example, load carrying or
accessing off-road locations) and that drivers are familiar with any new
vehicles they are asked to drive (e.g. hire vehicles)
Insist that they are properly maintained and serviced regularly, including
when owned by employees themselves. Consider the value of additional
safety features
Ensure vehicles are taxed, MoT’d where
necessary and that drivers have ‘business use’
insurance when using their own vehicles
Ensure they understand how to manoeuvre
vehicles safely, for example during parking and
reversing and that they know what to do when
visiting clients and other premises
Make sure all staff who drive know what they
should do in an emergency, including on
motorways
4
Ensure they carry mobile phones to call emergency services if necessary
BUT –
Prohibit all use of mobiles (hand held or hands free) while driving. (Set
mobiles to voice mail and retrieve messages during breaks from driving)
And above all, ensure that you and your firm’s supervisors always lead by
example. Set a pattern for others to follow by the way you drive yourself
STEP 3: Check
Check licences to see that drivers are entitled to drive the class or type of
vehicle to be driven. Monitor licences to track penalty points and crash
histories (whether or not they were driving for work)
Require staff to report all road traffic offences (whether at work or not). In
the first instance, always consider help and support rather than disciplinary
action
Ensure all accidents and ‘near-misses’ while driving for work are reported
and investigated
Require drivers to do daily and weekly
vehicle safety checks
Ask for claims data and safety related
information from vehicle providers
(minor damage, cases of excessive
brake/tyre wear etc.)
STEP 4: Act
Make time and space to review progress periodically (asking ‘where are we
now?’) to identify any further worthwhile steps you can take
See to it that any lessons to be learnt from experience are shared and fed
back to promote safer driving
Develop a simple action plan with targets for further improvement
Recognise, celebrate and reward safe driving achievements
Keep the topic live by always focusing on road safety in meetings, internal
memos, briefings, staff appraisals etc.
5
Sources of further information and support:
RoSPA (www.rospa.com/roadsafety/resources/employers.htm)
RoSPA Driver Training (www.rospa.com/drivertraining)
Health and Safety Executive (www.hse.gov.uk/roadsafety)
Department for Transport (www.dft.gov.uk/drivingforwork)
Occupational Road Safety Alliance (www.orsa.org.uk)
Local Authority Road Safety (LARSOA www.larsoa.org.uk)
Benchmarking (www.fleetsafetybenchmarking.net/main)
Driving for Better Business (www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com)
Police forces, insurers and brokers, employers’ associations, trades
unions...
