With an estimated third of all road traffic collisions involving someone who is at work at the time, the Devon and Cornwall Police road traffic team is staging a free workshop to offer employers expert advice on how to manage road safety issues.
The Better Business Breakfast Workshop (23 July) will enable employers to share experiences and best practice in order to understand how their business can take action to address road safety issues and protect the welfare of employees.
The workshop is designed to help delegates to: implement effective risk management policies and procedures; examine and manage road safety issues; comply with legal responsibilities; share best practice; gain access to Devon and Cornwall’s road safety experts; and learn about the financial implications road safety can have on business.
The workshop will include a presentation by Tracey Scarr, corporate social responisbility manager at Arval, Europe’s leading fleet and fuel management company.
Click here for more information or contact Ryan Pengelly at Devon & Cornwall Police.
Looks like a great initiative. We’ve done similar things with our COSTS project (www.costsproject.co.uk) which includes training elements. Businesses engage proactively with us to get hold of this package. Great to see Devon and Cornwall getting in to the business groups as well.
Neil Hopkins, Sussex Safer Roads Partnership
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Based on the summary in the article, the emphasis seems to be on the management, legal and financial implications for the employers rather than improving the driving skills of their individual employees. However, assuming somewhere along the line some improvement in actual driving does result, then this would hopefully have a knock-on effect on the remaining two-thirds of RTCs which involve people not ‘at work’. When we see a commercial vehicle or some other ‘work’ vehicle being driven recklessly or carelessly, does the driver also drive in that fashion in their own car with their families when not at work? Unfortunately, probably yes…. so any driver training they get for work purposes will probably have a wider benefit.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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I’d like to thank Peter Slater for such an excellent reply. I can think of many more reasons why “at work” drivers should have fewer collisions than others, than reasons they might have more. Therefore, if around 30% of collisions involve around 8% of drivers, it may be possible to find the risk factors that “at work” drivers are more exposed to than others.
If those factors can be addressed without undue cost to society, real improvements to road safety could be possible. It would be even more convincing if it were possible to measure the effect of any intervention such that cost/benefit could be assessed. In the current financial situation, VFM needs to be demonstrated.
This looks to be a promising intervention.
Dave Finney, Slough
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Dave does make a good point, however figures from the Department for Transport’s National Travel Survey from 2011 estimate that only around 8% of the total mileage covered in Britain was for ‘business’ (this is across all modes of transport – 11.7% of total mileage covered by car and van drivers was for business). Whilst this is taken from a sample of the population (316,000 trips covering 6,826,000 miles), the sample is fairly large and it is probably the best indication that we can get at a national level of the percentage share by trip purpose. Of course with all statistics this can be open to interpretation – are people making a journey as part of work more at risk of becoming involved in a collision due to the time of day that they are travelling (more people on the road can be seen to make for an increased chance of being involved in a collision)? Possibly, however, this does not absolve employers of all responsibility for their employees whilst on the road, which is why schemes like this are a welcome step reducing risk and aiding businesses in complying with the Health and Safety at Work etc Act of 1974.
Peter Slater, North East Regional Road Safety Resource
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I’m sure this is a very good scheme but the 1st sentence is interesting. If a “third of all road traffic collisions” involve “someone who is at work at the time”, might that not just be because people who are “at work” are covering a third of all mileage driven?
Dave Finney, Slough
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