Road risk management policies

Many businesses want to ensure they have best practice occupational road risk management policies in place to protect them from the impact of the new Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act.

Secondly, those same businesses were largely unaware that the implementation of safety measures impacting on drivers, vehicles and journeys could be the springboard to a raft of benefits including significant financial savings.

Those facts emerged during question and answer sessions at a number of conferences, seminars and workshops held into the run-up to the April 6 implementation of the Act and conversations I had with delegates at those events.

Despite, all the reams of comment written in recent years about the importance of businesses and organisations, such as local authorities and charities, having at-work driving safety measures in place, the long-awaited introduction of the Act maybe the ‘stick’ that has been required to force thousands of businesses into action.

Once again, as we highlight throughout the magazine, there are numerous examples of companies that have tackled the occupational road risk management issue in a variety of ways.

The safety improvements by those firms - measured in terms of financial benefits, staff morale increasing and legal compliance - has seen them join the Government’s ‘Driving for Better Business Programme’ and become ‘business champions’.

The aim of the initiative is to encourage businesses to take the safety gospel to other companies and organisations. And, as we report, 2008 is a year of expansion for the programme as it looks to encourage fleet and leasing companies, FTSE250 organisations and business groups such as the CBI, Institute of Directors, Federation of Small Businesses and the British Chambers of Commerce to become involved.

The plan is that by encouraging as many people and organisation as possible to highlight their corporate safety achievements, their successes will result in more businesses taking action to cut the toll of 200 road deaths and serious injuries each week involving someone at work.

Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously declared in one speech that her number one policy was ‘education, education, education’. As Rob Gifford, executive director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, says in our ‘VIP Viewpoint’, there is no overnight ‘fix’ to reduce the number of crashes involving at-work drivers.

But, with the raft of initiatives being introduced by organisations such as Arval, Central Auto Supplies, nkl Automotive, T-Mobile, Unison and many others, the corporate desire to reduce the work-related carnage on Britain’s roads is gathering momentum.

As one company executive said: “People who think health and safety is unnecessary bureaucracy should be in jail.”

While individuals may not end up in jail, the new Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act could just make sure that those companies that continue to pay lip service to at-work driving safety are hit with multi-million pound fines and a raft of unwanted publicity in the event of a fatality. The choice is yours.

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