A company with inadequate Road Risk Management faces severe penalties in the event of a serious road accident. The Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007 allows an unlimited fine to be imposed on the company. Where gross negligence is evident, the Health & Safety Executive frequently work with the police to prosecute company directors responsible for Health & Safety.
How can Driver/Rider Training benefit your business?
Under government legislation, companies have a Duty of Care towards employees when Driving or Riding at Work. Having an effective road risk management system in place protects you and your business from prosecution that can result in fines of £20,000 and much more. There are other considerable benefits to supplying training for your Drivers and Riders.
- A potential 20% reduction in fuel costs.
- Overall reduction in vehicle running costs through wear and tear.
- Less collisions means less abstraction through sickness and greater business productivity.
- Less repair costs and less hire vehicle costs.
- Reduced fatigue and stress in your drivers to enhance productivity.
- Promotes a positive company image through well-driven branded vehicles.
How can you protect your business and your employees?
- Risk assess your drivers and the type of driving that they are required to do.
- Provide information on safe work practices.
- Provide training to drivers/riders especially those considered high risk through high mileages covered or previous collision record.
- Provide regular refresher training for all drivers.
What does the Driver/Rider Training involve?
Understandably as a company there may be concerns about Return on Investment. Driver/Rider abstraction from their core role whilst undertaking training can be an issue. Apart from the obvious benefits listed above, everything can be tailored to suit company needs and requirements. Just ask.
Training can be supplied in company or hired vehicles and on a 1 to 1 or 1 to 2 basis. I can either travel to the trainee’s home address, place of work or other convenient venue and the courses can be half or full days and can also include weekends if this is preferred.
How does current legislation affect your business?
The Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 requires you to ensure, so far as is reasonably practical, the health and safety of all employees while at work. You also have a responsibility to ensure that others are not put at risk by your work-related activities. This applies to every size of business, including the self-employed.
Under the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999, you have responsibility to manage health and safety effectively. You need to carry out an assessment of the risks to the health and safety of your employees, while they are at work, and to other people who may be affected by their work activities.
The Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007 further reinforces the above legislation. Under the new Act, employers have a Duty of Care to ensure the safety of employees driving for work purposes. The revised legislation makes it easier to prosecute companies for manslaughter following a work related death.
The Health & Safety Offences Act 2008 raised the maximum penalty that can be imposed by the lower courts, for less serious offences, from £5,000 to £20,000.
A company with inadequate Road Risk Management faces severe penalties in the event of a serious road accident. The Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007 allows an unlimited fine to be imposed on the company. Where gross negligence is evident, the Health & Safety Executive frequently work with the police to prosecute company directors responsible for Health & Safety. This can result in a custodial sentence.
Why is it necessary?
The term ‘accident’ is a euphemism for collision. It helps most people feel better about their general standard of driving. A traffic ‘accident’ is the result of some unforeseeable condition that reasonable human effort couldn’t prevent. It is now widely accepted that most ‘accidents’ carry blame to one degree or another. To this end the new term is ‘collision. The reason for this change is that a traffic collision is something that could have been avoided with reasonable human effort.
Statistics show that there are around 3 million company cars on UK roads and at least 1 million private cars used regularly used for business purposes. Almost a third of company cars are involved in collisions every year and there are 150 DEATHS and SERIOUS INJURIES to drivers on company business EVERY WEEK!
Road deaths are costing UK business around 3 Billion pounds per year! Further statistics show that employees driving in excess of 25,000 miles per year have a 1:8000 chance of dying behind the wheel!
Remember these statistics do not include Vans/LGVs/PCVs, the number of which have now reached the highest levels in recorded history.
If you ride motorcycles for a living or employ people who do, the figures are equally as staggering. Motorcyclists make up less than 1% of vehicle traffic in the UK, and yet motorcycle riders suffer approximately 14% of the serious injuries and deaths on UK roads. The rate at which they are seriously injured or killed is approximately twice that of cyclists and over 16 times that of car drivers and passengers.