As an employer, manager or supervisor you have a legal responsibility to ensure the health and safety of all employees while they are at work. Health and safety law applies to on-the-road work activities as it does to all work activities.
This section suggests ways to manage at-work road risk and outlines the benefits for you, your employees and your company, including helping to keep your costs down.
The true costs of crashes to organisations are nearly always higher than just the costs of repairs and insurance claims. The benefits to you, your employees and the company from managing workrelated road safety can be considerable whatever the size of your business. Some of these benefits are listed below:
- Fewer days lost due to injury.
- Reduced risk of work-related ill-health.
- Reduced stress and improved morale.
- Less need for investigation and paperwork.
- Reduced lost time due to work rescheduling.
- Fewer vehicles off the road for repair.
- Reduced running costs through better driving standards.
- Fewer missed orders and business opportunities.
- Less chance of key employees being banned from driving, e.g. as a result of points on their licences.
As an employer you should carry out a risk assessment. A risk assessment is nothing more than a careful examination of what at-work activities can cause harm to people. It should be carried out by a competent person with practical knowledge of the work activities being assessed. It will help you to assess whether you have done enough and what you need to do to ensure safer working practices. Your risk assessment should be appropriate to the circumstances of your organisation and does not have to be over complex.
The aim is to make the risk of someone being injured or killed, as low as possible.
When evaluating the risks, consideration should be given to the driver, the vehicle and the journey. To find out more see 'Driving at work: managing work-related road safety' at www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg382.pdf (Adobe Acrobat - 233kb).
There are also a number of things that all drivers can do to ensure their own safety. Employers can contribute to this by reminding employees to:
- plan journeys and make time for a break every two hours of driving;
- always wear a seat belt, even on a short journey;
- switch off mobile phones before they drive off.
|
|
Driving at work: managing work-related road safety
(Adobe Acrobat - 233kb)
This guidance applies to any employer, manager or supervisor with staff who drive, or ride a
motorcycle or bicycle at work, and in particularly those with responsibility for fleet
management. It also applies to self-employed people. Employees and trade union appointed
safety representatives will also find it helpful. It covers people whose main job is driving, and
those who drive or ride occasionally or for short distances. References to drivers and driving
include riders and riding.
(HSE: www.hse.gov.uk/roadsafety/index.htm)
|
|
