Look to safety or your business will suffer

Companies that fail to heed the managing occupational road risk message when their competitors are focusing on improving the safety of their at-work drivers will be viewed in a bad light and will potentially end up at a commercial disadvantage.

That's the view of Prince Michael of Kent, a cousin to both the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, who learned to drive in a 1928 Rolls-Royce and by the time he was 15-year sold had driven more than 100 different vehicles.

Driven by a life-long interest in motor cars and in the past 30 years by a passion for motorbikes, the Prince's interest in promoting road safety and reducing death and injury on roads both in the UK and now globally has blossomed.

The Prince Michael Road Safety Awards celebrate their 20th anniversary this year and they went international in 2000. Over the last two decades hundreds of road safety initiatives have won awards ranging from local schemes such as Hull's 'Safe and Liveable Streets for Children' to technical developments by manufacturers such as Jaguar's 'pop-up' pedestrian-friendly bonnet on the XK.

Recognised

More recently fleet initiatives have been recognised such as BP's 'Safer Driving Programme' and schemes in the developing world such as the Delhi-based Institute of Road Traffic Education in India for its Student Traffic Volunteer Scheme, which won the first international award.

Key to improving road safety both in the UK and globally is education and awareness, said Prince Michael, who was born eighth in line to the throne but lost his right of succession, under the 1701 Act of Settlement, following his 1978 marriage to Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz, a Roman Catholic.

Speaking exclusively to RoadSafe in his apartment at Kensington Palace in London, Prince Michael, who is now chairman of his own private company offering specialist consultancy advice to a number of businesses in sectors in which he has an interest including automotive, said: "Company car drivers, professional drivers and, indeed, all drivers need to understand the risks they face.

"Many companies, large and small, have some excellent road safety initiatives in place which are having an impact on crash reduction and that is a positive move."

Promoting these companies and their safedriving initiatives to the world at large would, said Prince Michael, have a knock-on effect across business.

"You cannot run an organisation that pays no heed to road safety when your competitors are taking action in this area because it will show the business up in a very bad light," said Prince Michael, who has seen at first hand BP's occupational road safety programme in operation in Azerbaijan and more recently visited Pickfords, which won an award last year.

Figurehead

As a figurehead within the road safety movement and with the presentation of his annual awards, Prince Michael believes that new programmes such as the Government backed Driving for Better Business, which is being managed by RoadSafe, have crucial roles to play in cutting the carnage on the UK's roads that daily sees more than 150 vehicles involved in a crash on a work-related journey.

"One simple step would be for fleet managers to require all new vehicles to be fitted with stability control. Others would involve tough rules on mobile phones and driving while tired," said Prince Michael, who is president of the Royal Automobile Club, the Motor Sports Association and the Brooklands Museum Trust and a fellow of the Institute of the Motor Industry.

"Companies that are seen to be socially responsible will become more successful and would find their employees, whose livelihood is driving, would be safer and their productivity will increase."

Moves are afoot to encourage fleets to only operate company cars fitted with electronic stability controls and the European Commission is looking to legislate for compulsory f tment from 2012.

However, Prince Michael, who has experienced the benefits of ESC at first hand and as RoadSafe went to press was due to support the Driving for Better Business campaign and stability control developers Robert Bosch at a safe driving event at the Rockingham circuit in Northamptonshire, said: "Driving cars with and without stability control is chalk and cheese.

"Stability control should be standard on all new cars because the benefits are so obvious. The technology is available and quite why it appears to be taking so long to become a standard feature I don't know. If you can have a device which is so obviously going to reduce accidents I don't see how it can't be fitted to all vehicles."

Twenty years ago when Prince Michael launched his own awards programme a number of organisations ran their own similar road safety schemes. "What they were doing was laudable but I didn't believe they carried as much weight as they should have done," he said.

Interest

"I believed that if I could get the motor industry as a whole to take an interest - vehicle manufacturers and suppliers - and then also involve the police and other organisations, such as the RAC and AA, then they would carry more weight. I think the awards mean a lot to the winning companies and organisations." That is what happened and today more than 60 different organisations, who are all road users, are involved in the Prince Michael Road Safety Awards.

"We plan to use this year's 20th anniversary to celebrate the achievements of some key leading agencies who have made a real difference and also to make a further push to raise awareness in the developing world," said Prince Michael, who has yet to finalise celebration plans.

The safety awards expanded internationally because Prince Michael 'wondered what else was going on in other parts of the world'. "We have given awards to a wide range of organisations in a wide number of countries," he explained.

"Some are more obvious than others such as Volvo in Sweden for a variety of safety initiatives. Others are less obvious such as in Costa Rice where a campaign was fought for the wearing of seatbelts, which is terribly important in developing countries." Prince Michael is conscious that road safety is a difficult concept to 'sell' and accepts that there is an element of complacency among many drivers whose attitude is based around the fact that 'road accidents happen to other people'.

Involved

“Until someone 'close to home' is involved in a road accident there is no personal involvement so we must change attitudes," said Prince Michael, who learned to drive in the 1960s when 'driving was fun' and represented Great Britain as a bobsleigh driver for many years including being a reserve for the 1972 Olympic Games. "Company drivers and young motorists need to understand the risks they face."

Such is Prince Michael's passion for motorcycles that two years ago he took part in a ride from Vladivostok to St Petersburg on an 1100cc BMW cross-country motorcycle to raise money for children's charities in Russia.

In preparation for the ride and the rough terrain he joined other riders on a training course in Wales. "I have driven many vehicles and ridden many motorbikes, but we needed to undergo special training because of the terrain we would be crossing. We needed to prepare for the risks we would face."

Over the years Prince Michael has driven in a number of car rallies and has a passion for vintage Bentleys. He has owned more than one Aston Martin but now has a BMW 5-Series and a 3-Series drophead in his garage.

Those vehicles may soon be joined by an electric car, the acquisition of which he is currently investigating as he seeks to link the benefits of safe driving with environmentally friendly motoring.

"In the 1930s the idea was to get from A to B as fast as possible in beautiful Bentleys and Bugattis. The whole profile of motoring is changing and that is a personal sadness but from a public spirited point of view it makes sense," said Prince Michael.

"People want to travel and you can't stop demand for mobility. But we must always think about safety, promote safety and keep safety at the forefront of people's minds."

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