RoSPA campagin reaches its 15th anniversary

3 March 2011

Driving for Better Business partner RoSPA is celebrating the 15th anniversary of its Managing Occupational Road Risk (MORR) campaign.

It was initally launched with the publication of a discussion paper in 1996, which estimated that up to 25 per cent of road deaths each year involved vehicles being driven in the course of work activities.

Subsequent research has estimated that up to a third of road accidents involve someone who is at work. Applying this to the most recent casualty figures means that in 2009, an estimated 740 people lost their lives - more than two people a day - and a further 8,230 were seriously injured in work-related road accidents in Britain.

Roger Bibbings, RoSPA’s occupational safety adviser and author of the 1996 discussion paper, said, “RoSPA was the first organisation to try to quantify the devastating impact of at-work road accidents and our early casualty estimates have since been confirmed, and even increased, through subsequent research.

“The continuing level of suffering, and the fact we have an increasingly road-mobile workforce, means that - 15 years on - we cannot declare work-related road safety as something that has been ‘achieved’. Driving remains the most dangerous thing that most of us do for work and too many organisations are still failing to act on MORR.

“We urge businesses and organisations to make 2011 the year in which they commit to regularly reviewing and improving their road safety arrangements."

Read the full story at rospa.com