Safety first to keep bosses out of jail

Keeping company bosses out of jail was the prime driver behind CGG Veritas introducing far-reaching and comprehensive managing occupational road risk measures to its possibly unique fleet operation, which covers just 28,000 business miles a year.

From licence checks on each of the 136 registered drivers employed by the UK operation of the world's leading international geophysical company to fully documented vehicle safety checks, and recording crash history and driving convictions to tracking insurance, vehicle service and MoT details on privately-owned cars, the organisation has compiled a comprehensive 'live' audit of drivers and vehicles.

Champions

Due to the measures taken, CGG Veritas has become one of the fi rst champions under the new Driving for Better Business programme, which is being managed by RoadSafe on behalf of the Department for Transport.

But it was not plain sailing for Peter Young, facilities manager, at West Sussex-based CGG Veritas, who brought in Saul Jeavons, principal technical specialist at global corporate road safety consultants The Transafe Network Limited and formerly of TRL (Transport Research Laboratory) to convince company bosses that they had a legal duty to manage their occupational road risk.

"The company has a very strong health and safety culture working in the oil industry and the business will not deal with contractors unless they also have high quality health and safety systems in place," explained Mr Young.

With 60 staff eligible for company cars and about half of those opting for cash in lieu of a car and other staff driving their own vehicles on business, Mr Young said their was a reluctance by employees to divulge information which they believed was private about themselves, their vehicles and their spouses who drove company cars.

He says that was due to a lack of understanding and subsequently invited Mr Jeavons, who has investigated the causes behind numerous road crashes and has advised companies worldwide about vehicle safety, to talk to business chiefs.

"When I brought someone in from outside to explain the legal issues to the company president and audit our system it won senior management over. They heard some frightening stories about how in the event of an accident the company could become a crime scene," Mr Young explained. "Many company bosses don't realise that the vehicle on the road being driven on business is work equipment and that if one of those cars is involved in a serious incident the business could effectively be closed down while investigations are carried out.

"We now have a high level of senior management awareness of their at-work driving health and safety responsibilities; a high level of awareness among staff and through the measures we have in place I hope to keep our bosses out of jail."

Now, with 'safer drivers and safer vehicles' since the occupational road risk programme was started in 2003, CGG Veritas has seen incident levels - which include broken windscreens - reduce from 15 in April 2002-April 2003 to seven in the 12 months to April 2007. Simultaneously the cost of those incidents has reduced from almost £15,000 to £4,500.

Measures taken by the company include:

• Re-writing the car drivers' handbook to include all critical duty of care information and what to do in an emergency
• Undertaking a driver, vehicle and journey risk assessment analysis. Online driver risk assessments are provided by Drive & Survive with on-the-road training provided by the RAC if required.
• All drivers being issued with a document giving them authority to drive on business, which includes crash history, driving convictions, medical information and is signed by the employee as a true record
• Similar authorisation forms being applied to all company and private vehicles driven on business so the company has an audit that tracks service schedules, insurance and MoT renewals
• Fully documented vehicle safety checks carried out once a month which if not completed within seven days of notifi cation disqualifies the driver from work-related driving. The checks cover tyres, glass, fluid levels, bodywork, windscreen washers and company-provided safety kits
• Twice-yearly DVLA driving licence checks, which initially resulted in the company discovering that two employees had been driving illegally for a number of years on United States' licences. That problem was immediately resolved

Risk assessment

Partners and spouses of employers also complete online risk assessments and other documentation if they want to drive company cars so the organisation has a complete audit of all vehicles and drivers.

Additionally, all vehicles must have driver and passenger airbags, be equipped with ABS brakes and have a European New Car Assessment Programme crash test rating of four stars or above. Meanwhile, as all company cars are renewed, electronic stability control (ESC) will become a standard feature.

With 15,000 staff worldwide, CGG Veritas operates in all regions of the world and, says Mr Young, the company's pioneering stance over at-work driving safety in the UK could become a model for action globally.

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