26 September 2013

Occupational road risk, are you managing it?

It has been estimated that a third of all road traffic accidents involve someone who is at work. So the HSE are encouraging employers to provide better management of driving risks within the business. This is all about sensible management of occupational road risk and working closely with employees to ensure implementation.

Employers are under the impression that if they comply with traffic law requirements, which are valid driving license, vehicle insurance and valid MOT certificate, that this is enough to ensure that their employees are safe whilst out on the road for the business. However, under certain health and safety legislation, road activities must be managed within the company’s Health & Safety Management plan.

Promoting recognised safe driving practices can encourage safer driving outside of work. This can help reduce the chances of employees being injured in a road traffic accident outside of work activities.

So you may now be thinking, what are your legal requirements? As an employer you have additional duties to the Road Traffic Act and Road Vehicle Regulations. You have the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974, which require you to protect your employees and that you don’t put others at risk by your work-related activities, which includes staff driving for the business. Also, under the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999, you are required to carry out a risk assessment of the hazards and risks of activities and review them on a periodic basis.
The best way to manage road risk effectively is to ensure that you intergrate this hazard into your safety management system. The areas that are to be considered are the organisation and its policies and culture, its management systems, responsibilities and monitoring processes.

When assessing any driving activities you should follow the same principles as any other work activity risk assessments. You must also ensure that you review your assessments, if you introduce new routes, any equipment or you make changes to your vehicles.
The following considerations will help you manage road safety effectively.

Plan – Do – Check - Act

Plan – Overall look at the vehicles you use within the business. This includes your own vehicles, employees’ vehicles used for work. Review the annual mileage, any incidents, why they were caused and associated costs.

Research what other companies are doing and talk to all your employees to obtain their views on road safety.

Develop a policy, this only has to be short, on how your company will manage road risk and communicate it to all your staff. Once they understand their responsibilities this will help build the foundation to the overall risk management approach.

Do - Reducing road travel and high mileage, this will assist in the reduction of potential and actual road traffic accidents, by looking at other modes of transport, for example, travelling by train. Using public services can also help reduce the lost time experience due to travelling, as this allows employees to work, for example, on the train using their laptops and other devices. The organisation should also ask the question, do staff need to travel for this particular meeting?  With significant technology improvements as seen today, do staff need to travel to attend the meeting? Would a simple teleconferencing meeting be best or a similar type of video calling feature. This can significantly reduce costs, reduce the exposure to road risk for the employee and save the business money.

Driver attitudes – Always check employees’ competencies and additional licenses through the recruiting process. Ask about any road accidents they have been involved in, any penalty points, etc., and remember to carry out frequent checks of drivers’ licenses for endorsements.

You should consider investing in advanced driving lessons for employees such as van drivers, sales reps and managers who frequently use the highways for the business. These courses can vary, but even a basic three hour training course can make improvements to drivers’ attitudes and driving techniques in all weather conditions.

Ensure all journeys are planned, making certain that the safest routes are taken. Try to plan stops of at least 15-20 minutes every two hours and that the risk assessment considers overnight stops rather than driving straight home. Consider whether the journey can be rescheduled if the weather is too adverse, this would include making sure the vehicle is properly equipped to operate.
The employer must be very clear within its policy that employees must not speed whilst on company business. You must also ensure that you do not set unrealistic targets for call out or delivery times, as this can lead to poor driving techniques. 

Ensure your drivers are “fit” to drive and that they meet the DVLA’s medical fitness such as, reporting any visual disorder, neurological or psychiatric disorders.

Ensure that the vehicle is right for the job and that it is properly maintained and serviced, taxed, MOT’d and that drivers, who drive their own vehicles for work, must have a valid business insurance policy. But is this enough? If you take this point to the letter of the law then a company vehicle whether a van or car, etc., would fall under the criteria of the Provisions and Use of Work Equipment Regulations, PUWER, thus should be maintained in an efficient state and in good working order. But how often do staff actually physically check their vehicles? Is this documented every week? 

Ensure that drivers know what they should do in an emergency and provide them with a mobile phone. However, you must ensure that you prohibit all use of mobile phones while driving, this includes hand held and hands free kits. You should be aware that an employee can still be prosecuted if they cause an accident whilst using a hands free device.

Check - Ensure that all your drivers have a valid driving license and carry out frequent checks of any penalty points or incidents. Ensure that drivers report all accidents and incidents and make sure that all are investigated.

Act- Always ensure that you audit your policy criteria to assess effectiveness with the hazard and risk it was devised to manage. Any issues identified should be acted upon to ensure improvements are made.

For further information, look at the BPIF/BOSS guidance documents on the website for occupational road risk and other related documents, such as HSE’s Driving at Work, Managing Work-Related Road Safety. Or call your local BPIF/BOSS Health, Safety and Environmental Adviser.