Driving for Better Business takes safety message to Wales

27 October 2010

Two of Britain’s largest employers that are in the vanguard of promoting occupational road risk management took the safety message to Welsh businesses at a major Driving for Better Business event held in conjunction with South Wales Police and Professional Driver Services (PDS).

(Nick Croft Assistant Chief Constable and director of the training department for South Wales Police with co-owners and directors of PDS Kath Bevan, and Steve Davies).

British Telecom and Tesco.com, which are both long-established business champion members of the government-backed Driving for Better Business campaign, urged Welsh companies to increase their focus on at-work driving safety and so reduce road crashes and cut costs.

The Driving for Better Business Wales event was held at the South Wales Police Driver Training Unit in Cardiff. It was attended by the ‘prominent directing minds’ from about 70 private and public sector organisations based in Wales.

Apart from hearing the actions taken by both British Telecom and Tesco.com to improve employee safety when driving and reduce their risk exposure, delegates also heard presentations from a number of road safety experts including campaign director Caroline Scurr and Nick Croft Assistant Chief Constable and director of the training department for South Wales Police.

Rebecca Ashton, of Vale of Glamorgan-based PDS, said, “The expert understanding and keenness to share knowledge from all of the speakers delivering their presentations was a huge positive on the day and will certainly have started a number of thought processes within those who attended.

“As the event progressed it became apparent that those in attendance held an array of knowledge of road risk management. Some of the smaller companies in attendance intimated that their organisational understanding of road risk management was not as it should be and that the speakers served to highlight deficiencies in their own solutions.

“We want businesses to feel confident knowing that they have taken the necessary precautions to protect both their employees and themselves from the implications of work related accidents on the road.

“Delegates were enthusiastic to implement solutions of their own within their organisation. To this end, the event must be deemed a success if the awareness of the need for road risk management amongst directing minds of organisations operating within Wales has been heightened.

She added, “PDS will continue to promote road safety and the Driving for Better Business Campaign throughout Wales; we hope to be able to host other events with the campaign in the future.

Ms Scurr said, “It was the first time that the campaign has partnered with a commercial organisation to organise an event. Its success means that we would like to partner in the organisation of other similar events in the future.

“One of the key features of the campaign is to encourage our business champions to speak at such events and give presentations on their organisational road risk management solutions and share their expert understanding of the necessity of managing road risk as well as identifying the benefits of implementing a solution.

“The event has without doubt given the campaign a much higher profile in Wales and we hope to recruit new ‘business champions’ from among the delegates