TTC Group is launching a campaign to try and reduce the number of people killed while driving for work.
TTC says that more than 30 people die every week on UK roads, a third of whom are driving for work. These include bus, coach and truck drivers, and motorists travelling to and from meetings and appointments.
Most of these deaths and injuries are “entirely preventable,” according to Des Morrison, managing director of the TTC Group, which educates 300,000 road users nationwide every year.
TTC is launching a national campaign as part of 2014 Road Safety Week (17-23 Nov) urging everyone to “work together” to cut the tragic toll.
Des Morrison says “educating motorists is the answer to curb the devastating road death and injury toll”, and is calling on employers to “do more” to train employees to reduce the “unacceptable” accident rate.
He is also urging motorists to adopt the “COAST” road safety principles: Concentrate, Observe, Anticipate, Space and Time.
Des Morrison said: “Road Safety Week should encourage us all to concentrate and improve our driving skills. If we can learn to adopt the COAST strategy, it may save some lives. Virtually all road crashes involve human error and are avoidable.”
It isn’t a matter of either we focus on those driving for work or we focus on everyone at once. It is concurrent activity. Where there is an identifiable group of road users, in this case those driving as part of their work, then we should look at what journeys they make, how the demands of their work affect their driving and help them and their employers understand the issues. Employers have specific legal responsibilities towards employees who are driving on their behalf – including those using their own vehicles. How an employer manages his staff and the demands placed on them has a direct influence on their driving behaviour and their risk of being involved in a crash e.g. what is company policy about mobile phone use? Many responsible employers now completely ban the use of mobile phones whilst driving, others set impossible delivery schedules and targets that force drivers to rush between drops, presenting a significant and avoidable risk of collision to them and other road users.
Honor Byford, Chair, Road Safety GB
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The content of this campaign is great as far as it goes, but why is there no mention of the first rule of accident prevention namely: Elimination. I perceive that the vast majority of car related work journeys could be via train (and short walk or taxi trip). My employer recognises that this is better for my safety and well-being (and also I can work on most trains).
pete, liverpool
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Or… two thirds (the majority) of motoring deaths occured when people were not driving for work, but for social, domestic and pleasure (to use the insurers term). The first line of the article suggests only those killed whilst driving for work are important. I’m sure they don’t mean that, so why highlight one particular group? The causation factors don’t change, so if they’re promoting COAST can we include everyone please?
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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