ACFO, the UK’s premier organisation for fleet decision-makers, has called on the Government to gather accurate data to clearly identify at-work driving duty of care failings by public and private sector organisations in its submission to the Department for Transport, part of its nationwide consultation on a new road safety strategy set to be introduced from 2010.
ACFO has also called for the Government’s new road safety policy to cover a 20-plus-year broad strategy with rolling five-year reviews at a fairly detailed level and also wants to see a greater emphasis placed on educating schoolchildren about the dangers that roads present in preparation for when they learn to drive.
The Government has estimated that up to 200 road deaths and serious injuries a week result from crashes involving at work drivers with latest Department for Transport figures revealing a total of 2,538 people were killed and 228,367 injured in 170,591 road accidents in 2008. While, the number of road deaths and injuries are reducing it is estimated by the Government that around a third of all casualties are the result of road crashes involving at-work drivers – a figure totally disproportionate with the number of vehicles on the road being driven on business.
As a result, ACFO says in its response to the Department’s consultation document – ‘A Safer Way – Making Britain’s Roads the Safest in the World’: “Fleets stand accused – on fairly flimsy statistical evidence – of being overrepresented in accident and casualty figures. This has significant implications for organisations for potential input into the corporate manslaughter arena.”
With no detailed and comprehensive figures on at-work driving related road crashes available, ACFO says: “The overall road safety strategy should provide an accurate sub-strategy for driving at work/management of on-road risks, which is fair and unambiguous.
“A clear, stable, well-defined performance indicator is definitely required: the proper identification of at-work casualties to ensure that an effective and accurate picture is built up, of the real extent of duty of care failures among the fleet community.”
ACFO recently produced a free CD promoting its commitment to press for adoption of best practice for its 800 plus members, who collectively are responsible for the operation of over 500,000 vehicles, says the majority of fleets have implemented a wide range of occupational road risk management to address the road safety implications of their activities.
The ACFO submission says: “Many of our members have already developed high-quality strategies and policies to manage the on-road risk exposure of their employees. Many of these include on-going programmes of driver training, assessment and review.
“Importantly, several clearly espouse the principles of the ‘zero-incident’ culture where any incident, and in some cases even near misses, is investigated and analysed in a positive and non-accusatory manner to identify any lessons to be learned.”
In calling for a national strategy to teach basic roadcraft skills to all children in schools, ACFO says that it should ideally incorporate early-stage tuition about driving a motor vehicle and focus on the main issues of awareness of other road users – cycling proficiency, being a good pedestrian, and cover the issues of public transport options, congestion and vehicle parking as well as environmental factors.
ACFO’s response to the Department for Transport says: “Meaningful demonstrations about stopping distances, driver reaction times and visibility of pedestrians from the driving seat would provide valuable information about the real-life limits of driving especially in relation to urban/ built-up areas.
“A full awareness of the whole world of personal mobility taught at an early stage will make all future citizens more aware of the interplay of transport modes and give a more solid grounding in safer use of roads across all transport modes.”