Foreword
THE number of deaths on Britain’s roads has dropped to an 80-year low, but on average there are still more than eight fatalities per day...
Ashley Martin
While any decline in the number of road crash fatalities and serious injuries is to be welcomed, there remains overwhelming evidence that atwork drivers are a ‘high risk’ group.
It is for that reasons that the Department for Transport and RoadSafe are continuing to champion the benefits – financial, legal and moral – of organisations of all sizes having in place robust occupational road risk management strategies.
As we highlight in this magazine, the Department’s ‘Driving for Better Business’ programme, which is managed by RoadSafe, is looking to expand. Across the following pages there are numerous examples of measures being introduced by businesses in different sectors of industry to improve at-work driver safety. Simultaneously, the Department is conducting a wideranging review of driver training and testing and while the focus is very much on young drivers – another ‘high risk’ category – qualifications for at-work drivers are under consideration.
Just as this issue highlights the numerous benefits that companies have seen as a result of taking a pro-active occupational road risk management stance, so the publication also carries a warning of what can happen to companies that turn a blind eye to safety.
One organisation was dragged through the courts after it allowed a car with defective tyres to be used by staff. Two people were killed in a crash.
Weak fleet management procedures led to the tragedy, which, in turn, resulted in a huge police investigation and a raft of negative publicity for the business.
If any company director or fleet manager is in doubt as to the reasons why every single public and private sector organisation should have a robust occupational road risk management strategy in place, then that crash and the resulting consequences should change their complacent attitude.
Ashley Martin, Editor