Work-related road safety management

In several countries, governments, public and private sector employers as well as non- governmental organizations have taken steps to address work-related safety against the background of national road casualty reduction targets and with the aim of reducing costs. Such actions range from national strategies, employer policies in the public and private sectors to ad hoc measures. Research and experience has, to date, identified substantial potential benefit associated with managing work-related road safety, though little activity has been evaluated scientifically and systematically and knowledge is fairly limited.

A review of UK and Australian activity identified ten barriers to effective work-related road safety activity: the absence of ‘purpose of journey’ data, the nature of operational procedures and structures, the lack of senior management commitment, lack of integration between fleet safety and occupational health and safety, the focus on ‘claims-led’ procedures, lack of crash investigation, lack of standard definitions and conventions, a reactive rather than proactive response to injury prevention and inflexible attitudes to change and poor management.

Work-related road use comprises a highly diverse group of drivers, vehicles and working environments, making it unlikely that their crashes are homogeneous and susceptible to a single remedial measure [21]. Experience to date suggests that fleet safety is most likely to be improved by the introduction of an integrated set of data-led measures based on a strong safety culture within the organization [12] [29].