Driving while at work

Did you realise that health and safety law applies to work activities, including Driving While At Work’?

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it does, and more than a quarter of all road traffic incidents may involve somebody which is driving as part of their work at the time? – Statistic took from the HSE INDG382(Rev1).

So as a quarter of all road accidents happen when someone is driving for the purposes of work, it is not acceptable to simply assume just because a person has a license they are driving safely!

The pressures of work or complacency due to driving every day, can lead to unsafe driving and ultimately a serious accident, fatality or multiple fatalities.

What does the Law say?

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 states you must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of all employees while at work.

Furthermore, Regulation 3 of The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 details your responsibilities to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the hazards those employees may come across when driving on company business.

Health and Safety law does not apply to people commuting (i.e. travelling between their home and their usual place of work), but most certainly includes the workers travelling to other places within company time.

Making a sufficient Assessment!

To help management understand the risks, to help workers understand your control measures, you must complete and record the assessment. This can be a simple and uncomplicated assessment, other pieces of information will be extremely beneficial to increase the workers resilience such as; information on sleep deprivation, fatigue, videos and even tool box talks on the hazards of driving while at work.

Hazards – Risks

Consider all the types of vehicles that could be used on the road, including company cars and vans, and personal cars.

You need to think about what might cause harm to people and decide whether you are taking reasonable steps to prevent that harm.
Common points as detailed by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) are:

• Are all the vehicles used maintained and kept in a good condition with regular inspections, services, MOTs and repairs?
• Do the employees with driving responsibilities have the correct license for the vehicle that they are driving?
• Think about the potential hazards:
  • Violence,
  • Work pressures,
  • Stress,
  • Fatigue,
  • Night-time driving,
  • Weather conditions,
  • Experience,
  • Competency,
  • Speed limits,
  • Journey length
  • Mobile phones
• Does the driver have responsibilities for loading, securing and sheeting of equipment?

Your risk assessment should be about identifying sensible measure to control the risks than creating a huge amount of paperwork.

You will also benefit from putting in place a ‘Driving at Work Policy’, this allows the workers to understand the business procedures and the standards you have in place to prevent harm.

Why Safety PAL?

Safety PAL can help you create a ‘Driving at Work Policy’ for all workers who you have responsibilities for – but why use Safety PAL when the HSE provide free and great guidance.

Where Safety PAL can really help though, is in the delivery of your policy and new procedures, reporting and auditing, along with workers development, awareness and training, all designed to reduce business costs and increase protection.

If you would like to see how Safety PAL would integrate with your existing management and systems, then choose your options here or just watch our ‘day in the life of Safety PAL’ video.

Useful links

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg382.pdf

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3242/regulation/3/made