IOSH has called on the Government to include work-related road traffic accidents into official occupational health and safety statistics, insisting that employers have “a moral and legal responsibility to look after their employees every mile of their business trips”.
Speaking on World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims (20 November) and at the start of Road Safety Week (21-27 November), the Institution’s head of policy and public affairs, Richard Jones, said: “Each and every death, or serious injury on the road is a cause of deep regret. Nationally, we need to do more to improve our management of work-related road risk and prevent accidents.
“If the Government insisted work-related road traffic accidents were reported as part of RIDDOR, employers would know more detail about accidents that commonly take place. As a result of knowing more, companies will be able to act on the causes of the accidents and work to reduce them.”
UK statistics show that one in three company drivers has an accident each year, and up to a third of RTAs are work-related. Some of the most common causes are distraction, fatigue and time pressure – all of which can be addressed by employers, says IOSH, by, for example, assessing driver ability, providing good training, and being flexible when it comes to travel times.
The theme of this year’s Road Safety Week, which is organised by the charity Brake, is ‘Too young to die’, highlighting the fact that road crashes are the biggest killer of young people. During the week, Brake will be appealing to young people, drivers of all ages, parents, the wider community, and policy-makers to work together to stop the loss of young lives on Britain’s roads.
Further information, fact sheets, and an action pack are available on the event website at www.roadsafetyweek.org.uk
This eBook will guide you through some of the key understandings you need to be able to manage driver safety effectively and, at the end, provide a series of free resources you can access to help you ensure your own driver safety management system is robust, legally compliant and in line with industry-accepted good practice.
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Getting people to behave at work is 1 thing without expecting employers to have total responsibility for when staff are on the road! Yes, companies should make efforts to reduce driving, encourage overnight stays etc, but if working away from home and returning on Friday in a rush; who is in control? Many peoples driving is down to their attitudes and not employers! The UK is trying too hard to eliminate all risk from work, which is simply unrealistic. Personal responsibility is also required
This argument about including RTAs and fatalities in h&s data has been on the agenda for some time. In this current climate of anti-h&s there is little hope of getting support and lobbying ministers who want to increase the national road limit to 80mph seems…bizzare.
Anyway, I thought we had a consultation recently on RIDDOR, surely that was time to lobby for work-related RTAs to be included? For what it is worth, I would like to see work-related RTAs included in h&s data reports.