Business champion establishes mentoring scheme

4 November 2010

Driving for Better Business champion British Gas is introducing a road safety mentoring scheme to help other organisations implement occupational road risk management processes and reduce vehicle collisions.

The company, which operates one of the UK’s largest fleets including more than 10,000 vans, almost 1,900 company cars and 24 HGVs, has implemented numerous initiatives to reduce the risk of crashes among its workforce. In addition, almost 2,000 employees who drive their own cars on business trips are included in British Gas’s safe driving programme.

Those initiatives have seen incident rates tumble by more than 30% in five years, which has resulted in improved employee well-being, considerable financial savings, increased efficiency and reduced staff absences.

Thanks to its commitment to occupational road risk management British Gas is a Driving for Better Business champion. 

Jon York, fleet operations manager at British Gas, said, “Many organisations, particularly smaller businesses, often don’t have the capacity to implement specific road safety initiatives. Through this innovative mentoring scheme British Gas and other business champions can work with organisations in their respective areas to help them put measures in place.

“Improving safety on the roads benefits all employers, and by working together and providing best practice advice we can all help each other.”

Michael Parish, programme consultant for Driving for Better Business, said, “British Gas’s idea of mentoring local organisations to help them introduce at-work driving risk management schemes is fantastic.

“The whole idea of the business champions network is to act as advocates to promote the business benefits of managing at-work driving. As a result of the mentoring programme I hope we gain more business champions.

• Anyone business interested in being mentored is asked to email Jon York at jon.york@britishgas.co.uk or the Driving for Better Business campaign at info@roadsafe.com

For the full press release please click here.