New resources that can help fleets navigate the driver risk management ‘minefield’ are now available from the Driving for Business (DfBB) campaign as it warns of common industry mistakes.
More than a dozen videos are now freely available from the National Highways programme to help fleet managers ensure they are taking care of new legal responsibilities.
The videos were recorded over a three-day Health and Safety Conference and pull together all the key strands of managing road risk, with a range of experts providing practical advice. The series includes a keynote presentation from Kanwal Kanda who heads up the transport sector at the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), introducing revised guidance for any organisation that employs staff who drive or ride for work, followed by a panel discussion involving HSE, the Department for Transport and DfBB.
Other videos include guidance on van fleet safety, driver hours and managing the risks from drink and drug driving.
According to DfBB campaign manager Simon Turner, there are five common risk management mistakes made by fleet managers:
- Failure to comply with Duty of Care legislation – Mainly through lack of awareness and gaps in understanding responsibilities among certain levels of employees.
- Lack of a proper vehicle defect system – One in three cars and half of all vans fail their MoT at the first attempt.
- Failure to identify high-risk drivers – As an example, one driver successfully persuaded a judge not to withdraw his licence as he would not be able to get work as a mobile tyre-fitter. The driver had 54 points.
- Reliance on different data sets that are not integrated – Which means that gaps in data are only likely to be spotted if and when an incident occurs.
- Lack of appropriate management information – “If you’re not measuring it and not monitoring it, you’re not managing it.”
Driving for Better Business also has a range of free online tools to help organisations understand their responsibilities, learn where to focus priorities, identify gaps in their management processes, benchmark them against others, create improvement plans – and share successes with other organisations.
“With around 20 million vehicles being used for business journeys, including trucks, vans, company cars and grey fleet, that means every at-work driver has a 1 in 500 chance of being in a fatal or serious injury collision,” said Simon Turner. “Our mission is to improve compliance for all those who drive or ride for work by demonstrating the significant business benefits of managing work-related road risk more effectively.”
To access the DfBB’s driver safety videos, click here.
To support the videos, DfBB has produced an Employer’s Guide to Managing Road Risk, available here.
