Champions get down to business
‘Driving for Better Business’ is a Department for Transport programme aimed at establishing a network of employers and ‘business champions’ to promote good practice to cut the number of road crashes involving at-work drivers. ASHLEY MARTIN reports on the latest award-winning developments...
Jenny Stannard, road safety project manager, Cambridgeshire County Council, receives the Prince Michael International Road Safety Award, from Judith Pearson, High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire, surrounded by ‘Road Safety: We Mean Business’ team members, and Adrian Walsh, RoadSafe director (back left)
AN alarming number of companies have no idea how much road crashes cost their business, according to research undertaken among delegates attending a series of trailblazing seminars organised by Cambridgeshire County Council.
The award-winning eight-month pilot project saw representatives from 273 companies across Cambridgeshire – mainly small and medium enterprises – attend one of eight occupational road risk management seminars held in partnership with Cambridgeshire Constabulary, Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue, Peterborough City Council and RoadSafe.
Organised under the banner ‘Road Safety: We Mean Business’, the county council’s Road Safety Education Team has won a prestigious Prince Michael International Road Safety Award for the programme, which officially concludes at the end of this year (see story 'Council pledge').
However, while formal funding for the project through a £93,000 Department for Transport grant comes an end, promoting the importance of occupational road risk management to Cambridgeshire businesses will be taken on by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Road Safety Partnership.
It has been calculated that British business is losing up to £2.7 billion a year as a consequence of at-work road traffic with the Health and Safety Executive suggesting that for every £1 recoverable from insurance, between £8 and £36 may be lost to a company in uninsured costs.
And, despite the mountain of best practice evidence that shows that a comprehensive occupational road risk management programme saves companies cash and improves organisations’ efficiencies and productivity, 54% of delegates at the seminars had no idea how much work-related road crashes had cost their organisation within the last 12 months. Other research among companies attending the seminars revealed that:
- 48% did not have a written road safety policy in place within their organisation
- Regular driver licence checks were undertaken at 65% of companies
- 70% of firms said they had vehicle maintenance schedules in place
- 60% of businesses planned to implement driving-related risk assessments in addition to the 30% which already had them in place.
Against that background, Jenny Stannard, who managed the project, said: “It is encouraging that the attendees strongly agreed that their organisation is concerned for its employees’ well-being, takes workrelated road safety very seriously and that work-related road safety is supported by senior managers.”
The project’s aims were to assist local companies in understanding the legal requirement to manage work related road safety within their organisations, and to give them the tools and support necessary to write and implement their own work related road safety policies.
Cambridgeshire County Council also linked with three local companies who already managed the work-related road safety of their organisation, and appointed them as ‘business champions’ for the project - radio station Q103, engineering services company Freedom Group and Luminus Group, a housing association.
In the three years leading up to the launch of the safety initiative a total of 5,024 people either on a businessrelated journey or commuting to or from work were killed or injured on Cambridgeshire’s roads. Of those 109 people were killed and 635 seriously injured. In total 17,437 people were involved in personal injury road crashes in the county between January 2005 and December 2007.
While it is too early to complete an analysis of the impact of the programmes on crash rates, evidence from ‘business champions’ already involved in the Government’s national ‘Driving for Better Business’ programme suggests that crash rates will fall significantly resulting in major corporate cost savings.
Ms Stannard said: “Engaging with companies on a local level within Cambridgeshire should have an effect on crash reduction rates within the county.”
Following the seminars, delegates have had the chance to have their work-related road safety policies evaluated by the Road Safety Education Team and gain ‘Road Safety: We Mean Business’ certification.
Of the companies that attended seminars 25 have so far returned their policies for evaluation with 15 gaining certification. Of the remaining companies who attended the seminars: 44% have written and implemented a policy, 23% have started to write, or have plans to write their policy; and a further 12% have begun to implement important checks within their organisation.
The Department for Transport will now decide whether the concept behind the ‘Road Safety: We Mean Business’ programme is rolled out to other local authorities, but Ms Stannard said: “I believe the project provides a very good model for delivering work-related road safety to private and public sector organisations.”