Ministers to hear campaign
A campaign which could see companies ordered to tell the authorities about every road incident in which employees are injured has been taken to ministerial level...
John Lewis, director general of the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association and committee chairman of the Government’s ‘Driving for Better Business’ initiative, which is managed by RoadSafe, has raised the issue to stop it ‘dropping off the radar’ as part of his role on The Motorists’ Forum, an advisory non-departmental public body that provides independent advice to the Government on transport policy.
Currently, at-work driving incidents are not included in the rules which make companies report workplace incidents, called the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR).
But Mr Lewis said: “I have had the personal opportunity to raise the issue of RIDDOR with Road Safety Minister Jim Fitzpatrick and he has said he will make the effort to look into this so he can understand it in more detail.
“I am very concerned that we make executives of organisations aware of the link between the fixed and the mobile workplace.” A review by the Health and Safety Executive in 2006, left the scope of RIDDOR relatively unchanged.
The HSE currently deals with about 240 workplace deaths under its current remit, but extending RIDDOR could potentially mean investigating more than 1,000 at-work road deaths that occur each year.
Mr Lewis, added: “We would like to see the rules that relate to the fixed workplace extended to cover the mobile workplace and not just vehicles owned by the company, but any vehicle used on a business trip.”
There are thought to be long-term plans for a full review of RIDDOR, but an HSE spokesman said that there had not been further discussions since the 2006 review.