Winter checks are vital
More people are killed and injured on Britain’s roads in the final months of each year than at any other time making it imperative that vehicles are maintained in tip-top condition in the winter months...
With the onset of freezing driving conditions, fog and wet roads, Kwik-Fit Fleet has once again launched its annual free fivepoint vehicle check.
The free winter safety checks are available at Kwik-Fit centres nationwide and they cover:
Tyre check - pressures, tread depth and general condition (including spare)
Battery check - using electronic test equipment
Exhaust check - condition and fi tment including hangers and brackets
Tracking check – visual check to determine if the tyres show related wear
Glass/wipers check – condition of vehicle glass and wipers Road casualty figures from the Department for Transport reveal that last year a total of 303 people were killed on the UK’s roads in October, 279 people in November and 310 people in December – the worst month for road deaths in 2006. Together with road deaths in January and February last year – 242 and 250 respectively – the five months accounted for 43% of all fatalities.
In addition, the last three months of the year traditionally account for more people being injured in road traffic accidents than in any other three-month period. In 2006, a total of 68,225 people were injured in the last three months of the year – 27% of the total number of people injured on Britain’s roads last year.
Mike Wise, head of Kwik-Fit Fleet, said: “The importance of companies managing occupational road risk has continued to increase in recent years.
“The on-set of winter invariably means driving conditions worsen with visibility often poor and roads frequently icy. It is therefore vital that vehicles are in tip-top condition. A failure by drivers to ensure their vehicle’s safetyrelated equipment is in a first-class condition could be the difference between life and death.”
Fleet operators who want drivers to put their vehicle through the free winter safety check should call Kwik-Fit Fleet on 01727 840206 to obtain specially prepared literature to give to employees enabling them to call into any of Kwik- Fit’s 670 centres nationwide. No appointment is required.
Familiarity breeds danger warns Norwich Union
Fleet drivers who are familiar with their regular routes are more likely to be involved in a road accident, according to fleet insurer Norwich Union...
Familiarity breeds contempt in terms of fleet drivers falling into a ‘comfort trap’ and underestimating the dangers associated with driving on familiar roads.
Bill Pownall, motor risk manager for Norwich Union, said: “This may be because the journey has been completed so many times that the fl eet driver becomes an ‘automatic driver’, with the percentage of attention normally devoted to the driving task, being seriously reduced.
“As a consequence, if an intervention occurs, such as something happening out of the ordinary, the driver takes longer to recognise hazards and consequently longer to react.” Mr Pownall recalls completing a risk consultation for a large distribution fleet located in East Sussex, where the number of insurance claims had deteriorated to a level leaving the company’s management ‘highly concerned’. Although the fleet was adequately risk managed, it was noted that there was a clear upwards trend in their claims.
Over 80% of the road crashes were occurring in the fi rst and last hours of the working day and mainly within a 20-mile radius of the depot - when the drivers were on familiar roads.
Mr Pownall said: “While recent research suggests that lack of concentration at the start of the day and tiredness towards the end are also factors in road crashes, occurrences show that driving on familiar roads makes the situation even worse, where drivers may be tempted to take more risks.”
Working with the company, Mr Pownall was able to consult with the drivers, who in the main admitted to paying far less attention and being much more complacent about their driving when they were on ‘home soil’.
As well as driver awareness training, other solutions put forward were varying routes in and out of the area, altering shift times and routing drivers on a rotational basis, which led to a decrease in claims.
Call for more powers to death crash coroners
Coroners should be given additional powers to investigate work-related road deaths, according to a major report by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety...
The recommendation, along with the establishing of a national road death investigation unit that would be run by the Health and Safety Executive, are two of the key fi ndings in the far-reaching report called ‘Beyond 2010 – a Holistic Approach to Road Safety in Great Britain’.
The report also calls for ‘new impetus’ to be given to highlighting road safety for at-work drivers. This, suggests PACTS, would involve employer groups and training organisations in a bid to bring about a cultural change in attitudes when employees are behind the wheel.
In England and Wales, says the report, coroners ascertain the cause of death without apportioning blame. But, in Scotland, following the death of a person while at work, there is a ‘fatal accident and sudden deaths inquiry’ with a sheriff determining if the death may have been avoided through the taking of reasonable precautions; if any defects in the system of working contributed to the death and any other facts relevant to the death.
PACTS wants coroners in England and Wales to be given similar powers to investigate fatal collisions where they have involved a person driving in the course of their work. This, says the organisation, would ‘act to highlight the importance of preventing work-related road deaths’.
Meanwhile, the report criticises the HSE for having an ‘inconsistent approach’ in terms of investigating road deaths suspected to have occurred while at work.
The report says: “Whereas it [the HSE] has a commendably strong role in upholding health and safety laws in other sectors, it chooses to over-look work-related road safety issues. It should take up its rightful role overseeing this areas as a matter of priority.”
Road travel is the only mode of transport for which there is no specialist national team of crash investigators and, as such, says the report, the HSE should establish and resource a road deaths investigation unit. RoadSafe director Adrian Walsh said: “Driving on business, for most employees, is the most dangerous task they undertake during their working life. It is estimated that between a third and a quarter of all roads traffic crashes involve someone who was at work at the time. Based on last year’s data that would be around 800-1,060 deaths a year compared to 241 fatal injuries to workers in the ‘traditional workplace’. The percentage of occupational drivers injured is also between a third and quarter of the total figure.
“The HSE is tasked with improving safety at work and, therefore, tackling occupational road risk should be a significant part of their workload.”
An HSE spokesman: “There are many others who, because of their experience and expertise, are better placed to deal with roadrelated issues than the HSE. For example, the police and the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency, who administer and enforce road traffic legislation.” But, Mr Walsh said: “Health and safety inspectors should be charged with visiting companies to ensure not only that the guidance is being acted upon but companies are, importantly, compliant with the law. They could quite easily extend their current initiatives and visits on site transport safety to also cover on-road safety.”
Other PACTS recommendations include:
Proposals to introduce road pricing on major roads should include warnings of the dangers of driving tired, with a particular emphasis on driving while at work. Some vehicle users, says the report, maybe driven on to ‘riskier roads at riskier times of the day’ leading to an increased risk of collisions due to fatigue and reduced visibility
Speed limiters should be introduced into all fleet cars in a bid to reduce crash risks associated with speeding. Additionally, a management culture focusing on ‘quickness’ should move towards an understanding of car journeys as ‘work’ as part of a fundamental step towards improving road safety.
Speed limits in many towns and cities should be reduced to 20 mph to halve the number of deaths on Britain’s roads within the next few years.
A survey by the Transport Research Laboratory of 20 mph zones across the UK and in other European countries found child road accidents fell by 67%, cyclist accidents by 29% and traffic flow improved.
The PACTS report is available at www.pacts.org.uk.
Met police improve safety with delegated powers
Eleven Metropolitan Police officers working under delegated powers from the Health and Safety Executive are helping to improve work-related road safety across all freight operations from car-derived vans to HGVs in London...
The programme, following an initial six-month secondment that ended in March, has now turned into a full time operation, funded by the Freight Operator Recognition Scheme that functions in the capital.
Officers, who remain in police uniforms and continue to have Metropolitan Police line managers, have HSE approval to deal with a broad cross-section of vehicle-related safety issues from stopping a vehicle at the roadside to investigating fatal crashes.
FORS manager Glen Davies said: “The officers go into operators’ premises and look at the root cause of any misdemeanour and then make recommendations for improvement. If a blind eye is turned to issues such as tax disc problems, drivers’ hours and vehicle maintenance protocols then a culture of danger can worsen. We also hold regular best practice workshops that are very popular with freight operators across London irrespective of the size of fleet and the size of vehicles they operate.”
There have been no prosecutions as a result of the scheme, with the offi cers’ work so far focusing on education.
Mr Davies said: “The HSE has been wholly supportive of the work and makes sure that enforcement aims operate in a complementary manner.”
He believes that it is an initiative that can work elsewhere in the UK and added: “I think the HSE would be very supportive and then it is a matter of convincing all the police forces across the UK to also be involved.
“Freight operators want to have a safe fleet and they have been very responsive to the workshops that we hold and when officers call at their premises.
“I don’t see any reason why the programme could not be extended nationwide and also eventually apply to company cars as well. Everyone is working towards the same target – fewer work-related road deaths.”
The FORS scheme is also backed by Transport for London and the Department for Transport and shortly the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency is expected to be on board. RoadSafe director Adrian Walsh said: “The FORS solution works very well in London and I think it is an initiative that should be looked at to see if it is possible to extend it across the country.”
An HSE spokesman said: “This project is still in its early stages and we will be meeting with the police shortly to discuss progress.”
As part of the project, HSE is working with TfL, DfT and the road haulage industry to produce a British Standards Institute Publicly Available Standard for freight operators to achieve when joining the scheme.
DfT and police have main responsibility
Primary responsibility for road safety and for investigating road traffic accidents lies with the Department for Transport and the police, according to the Health and Safety Executive...
However, the organisation says that it will continue to ‘offer support and advice where necessary’ and points to the fact that enforcement powers were used to prosecute a company last year and will continue to be used in cases where there is ‘good reason to suspect that management failings have led to serious road accidents’.
The HSE prosecuted The Produce Connection business, of Chittering, Cambridgeshire, following a referral of a fatal road crash from the police. The company was fined £30,000 after one of its workers crashed and died while driving home after a third consecutive shift of nearly 20 hours. The company admitted failing to ensure the health of workers and the public.
Judge Gareth Hawksworth at Cambridge Crown Court said the firm had failed to monitor the hours employees worked. The court heard that the van driver, who had drifted into the path of a lorry on the A10 near Ely in 2002, was thought to be suffering from ‘chronic fatigue’ and had fallen asleep at the wheel.
Evidence of excessive working hours was presented at the inquest into the driver’s death.
HSE investigation showed that he and other employees, had been working in excess of 100 hours in each week preceding the accident and HSE prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. With up to a third of all road traffic incidents involving someone who was at work and a growing body of opinion that health and safety management failings are at the root of a proportion of these crashes an HSE spokesman said: “The HSE considers this an important area of work and continues to work closely with Government and industry stakeholders [Vehicle and Operator Services Agency, Traffic Commissioners, Association of Chief Police Officers] to raise awareness of the need to manage risks to those who drive at work.”
In defending the HSE against calls for a national road deaths investigation unit to be established, the spokesman said: “Improved communication and cooperation with the police, including improved guidance on the circumstances in which accidents should be referred to HSE for consideration of health and safety management failings, should ensure a proportionate response to accident investigation and enforcement.”
Pointing to a raft of ongoing work with a variety of organisations designed to improve occupational road safety, the HSE is also working with the DfT in the development and piloting of a CD-Rom on workrelated road safety, which will be incorporated into guidance on the DfT’s website.
Break fears
More than 50% of fleet drivers are exceeding the Government’s recommended journey duration time without taking a break, according to insurance giant Norwich Union. Duty of care reports compiled over a six-month period (January –July 2007) found that over half of car and van drivers were exceeding the Department for Transport guidelines of driving for two hours without a break, with the longest continuous journey lasting six-and-a-half hours...
What’s more, says the company, many fleet managers admitted they were unaware of the guidelines, which recommend that drivers have a minimum break of 15 minutes every two hours.
Phone call
A campaign that urges drivers to switch off their mobile phone – including hands-free mobiles – before setting off on a trip, so that messages can be received by voicemail has been called for by yesinsurance.co.uk...
The call follows publication of a number of studies – including those by the UK’s TRL (Transport Research Laboratory), the University of Sydney’s Injury Prevention and Trauma Care Division and the University of Utah in the USA – suggesting that motorists using phones are four times more likely to crash. The studies also show that talking on a mobile phone - including a hands-free phone - could be worse than drink-driving. It is claimed that drivers have an average 30% slower reaction time than drinkers at the UK drinkdrive limit. While it is legal to use a hand-free mobile, use of a hand-held mobile is punishable with a £60 fine and three penalty points.
A spokesman for the insurer said: “While we would not go as far as calling for a complete ban on hands-free devices, we would like to see the Government placing a greater emphasis on warning drivers that use of a hands-free device can be as dangerous as drinking.”