By Mark Cartwright, Head of Commercial Vehicle Incident Prevention at National Highways
At National Highways road safety is our number one priority. Our roads are some of the safest in the world, but our ambition is for no-one to be harmed while travelling or working on them. Road safety is a shared responsibility – everyone must play their part.
Driving for work continues to be one of the highest-risk activities that employees undertake. A survey of organisations signed up to Driving for Better Business (DfBB) showed that one-third didn’t have a driving for work policy, and a further fifth did not know if they had one. Additionally, half of those surveyed who do have a policy either haven’t reviewed it within three years or didn’t know if it had been updated.
Employers have a critical role to play in helping us reduce the number of collisions, serious injuries and deaths on UK roads. The first step for employers wanting to lower the risk of collision and improve their fleet safety is a good driving-for-work policy.
That’s why National Highways’ Driving for Better Business (DfBB) has created a fully editable, free-to-use, online tool to help employers create a comprehensive, purpose-built policy. It is already populated with best practice content, which organisations can edit to fit their individual needs.
If you already have a driving-for-work policy, you can sign up for regular updates to best practice and regulatory changes, as well as an annual reminder when your policy should be reviewed and republished.
The policy tool is available to any business or employer to help reduce their work-related risk and improve safety, efficiency, and sustainability.
A driving-for-work policy is important in many ways. It captures your standards, expectations and protocols for employees on the road, and clearly presents what you consider appropriate behaviour and the behaviours you will not allow. If you expect drivers to follow specific rules, you must first clearly communicate those rules.
Conversely, without a driving-for-work policy in place, an organisation will struggle to meet, or to prove that it meets, its legal obligations or duty of care to employees or the road-using public.
Every organisation should have a driving-for-work policy that covers every driver who does even the shortest trip on a company’s behalf. Check out the policy builder and sign up for the updates. Wherever you are on your fleet management journey, our tools will help.
Together we can make sure that more vehicles on UK roads are driving legally and safely, with a best practice policy shaping the drivers’ behaviours and attitudes.
You can find all kinds of useful high-quality resources for driver and vehicle management at Driving for Better Business.
