Your Health & Safety Responsibilities.
Statistics show that 1 in every 3 road accidents involve a company vehicle.
The Health & Safety at Work Act states that employers have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their employees who drive at work and to ensure others are not put at risk by their work-related driving activities.
The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 requires you to ensure as far as reasonably possible the health and safety of your employees and to ensure that others are not put at risk by your companies driving activities.The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 also gives you a duty to effectively manage by periodically assessing risks and the control measures introduced to reduce them.
The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act came into force in April 2008. This Act sets out a new offence which may result in conviction where an organisation is judged to have grossly failed in the way it managed its activities resulting in a person’s death. This new act is concerned about encouraging the effective management of risk and not risk aversion. Those who disregard the safety of others at work, with fatal consequences, are now more vulnerable to serious criminal charges.
The Health and Safety (Offences) Act 2008 came into force on 16th January 2009. The act is aimed at those who breach health and safety rules but unlike the Corporate Manslaughter and Homicide Act, the breach does not have to result in death.
As an employer you have a duty of care to protect your drivers and other road users. It is your responsibility to ensure that the drivers of your vehicles possess adequate motoring skills. The road statistics are not fiction and speak for themselves. It is easy to forget that each statistic represents a real person injured or killed and the effect it has on their families.
What you must do & why:
It has been estimated that up to a third of all traffic accidents involve somebody who is at work at the time. This may occur for over 10 fatalities and 250 serious injuries every week. Some fleet driver employers believe, incorrectly, that provided they comply with certain road traffic law requirements, eg. company vehicles have a valid MOT certificate, and that drivers hold a valid licence, this is enough to ensure the safety of their employees, and others, when they are on the road. That is not enough. You must ensure that a full risk assessment, to a full and proper driver training programme is carried our with your team.
Risk Management:
However, health and safety law applies to on-the-road work activities as to all work activities, and the risks should be effectively managed within a health and safety management system. A fleet driver training programme for fleet drivers should be carried out with all those drivers considered at risk. This guidance applies to any employer, manager or supervisor with staff who drive a car, or ride a motorcycle or any vehcle or bike at work, and particularly those with responsibility for Fleet Managment. It also applies to self-employed people. It covers people whose main job is driving, and those who drive or ride occasionally or for short distances.
Your Responsibilities:
You have a responsibility to assess the risks of your employees driving at work activities. You have the responsibility to ensure your drivers are properly trained to carry out their job and drive safely. You are also required to periodically revise that risk.
To carry out any of these area you need to examine the benefits in a fleet driver training programme for your employees, whether they drive cars or large commercial vehicles.
Some Scary Facts:
* 2,538 people killed on the roads in the UK p.a.
* 26,034 seriously injured p.a.
* 202,333 road casualties p.a.
* 1/3 of all crashes are rear-end shunts.
* 1/4 of all crashes are because drivers cut across another's priority.
* 1/6 of all crashes are as a result of losing directional control.
Will you avoid all of these ?
Are you sure that the fleet drivers and company drivers employed by your company are not putting other road users at risk? Have you carried out an appropriate risk assessment of each driver and planned the correct driver training programme?