Fleet Road Safety - Ignorance is NOT bliss

17 Aug 2017

From a Health and Safety perspective, a work place is not just a building it extends to the vehicle being driven for work too.Businesses therefore must have an effective policy covering their work-related road safety.

From a Health and Safety perspective, a work place is not just a building it extends to the vehicle being driven for work too.Businesses therefore must have an effective policy covering their work-related road safety. With a quarter of all road collisions involving someone driving for work, the responsibility is with employers to manage and reduce the risks of road traffic incidents for their employees. “Health and safety managers and those responsible for fleet drivers, have admitted that their lack of knowledge about legal responsibilities for their staff who drive for work is a cause for concern, when they speak freely at fleet events and expos” says Adrian Hide, a senior consultant for TTC DriverProtect. “A good place to start for Health and Safety Managers, HR Managers and Fleet Managers is to try out our free TTC Driver Protect fleet risk audit. The audit is a structured questionnaire that covers all aspects of managing business drivers and gives free advice and feedback.”“There is usually “a great response” from businesses both large and small when they are invited to take the free online audit.”“Fleet managers often ask how they can make compliance and managing work-related road safety part of daily work activities”, says Adrian“Our TTC DriverProtect system helps employers to manage work-related road safety and meet their duty of care responsibilities. We are able to spend time with businesses conducting in-depth fleet audits, policy creation and management, and then arrange driving licence checks, driver risk profiling, e-Learning, in-house workshops, on-road driver training, and grey fleet management.” “A commonly occurring theme when meeting with delegates at conferences and Expos is grey fleet. Some are aware of the need to manage grey fleet but don’t know where to start. Others are doing it to a certain extent but some just do not realise they actually have grey fleet drivers.”Grey fleet is “a grey area” for many businesses. Some managers revealed they only knew which staff were driving on their behalf when expense claims were submitted. “The rule is simple. If you are driving at work you are driving for work and grey fleet drivers must be treated in exactly the same way as company vehicle drivers,” says Adrian. The law treats an individual using their own vehicle for work-related purposes the same as a company vehicle. Not knowing whether you have a fully compliant driver and vehicle is an area that poses the greatest risk in work-related road safety. Employers must ensure that the personal vehicle being driven for work must have current road fund licence, MOT, be serviced and maintained to manufacturers recommendations and have business class cover on their insurance.One in six businesses do not carry out any safety checks at all for their grey fleet drivers, which is a “very worrying” statistic, says Adrian.He also highlighted that more than one fifth of drivers and 8% of vehicle owners use out of date documents, which means they are illegal to drive. TTC DriverProtect have a wealth of experience in driver risk management and driver training. They are part of the TTC Group, who have over 20+ years of experience delivering police and court-referred courses such as speed awareness and drink drive rehabilitation courses to over 330,000 clients annually.For more information call TTC DriverProtect on 03330 113 113, email or visit www.ttc-driverprotect.com