Safe Speed Forums

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/ ... 19,00.html

Working drivers 'responsible for 1,000 road deaths a year'

Denis Campbell, social affairs correspondent
Sunday November 13, 2005
The Observer


Millions of Britons who regularly drive for their work are potentially lethal 'crash magnets', whose risky behaviour at the wheel makes them much more likely than other road users to cause accidents, new research reveals.

Employees who spend long hours driving to meet colleagues or clients cause some 1,000 deaths a year, almost a third of the UK's annual toll of 3,221 road deaths. They break speed limits, get fined, pick up penalty points and crash more often than other drivers.

The findings emerged from a survey of a range of workers in Strathclyde, including drivers, sales staff, engineers, managers and directors. It was led by Steve Stradling, professor of transport psychology in the Transport Research Institute at Edinburgh's Napier University.

The study, Factors Influencing the Behaviour of People who Drive at Work, will be published this week at an international conference on driver behaviour and training. It found that:

· 30 per cent of work drivers questioned had been involved in one or more accidents in the previous three years.

· 56 per cent of their crashes occurred while they were driving for work.

· 15 per cent had been caught speeding during work time over the same period and 10 per cent had been flashed by speed cameras while driving in their leisure time.

· 63 per cent had received penalty points.

· 60 per cent admitted slowing down when they saw cameras, then speeding up for the rest of their journey.

Stradling blamed dead-lines, work-related stress, fatigue, use of mobile phones at the wheel and a lack of driver training for staff. His team said: 'Many respondents view the complex physical and mental task of driving as a time when they can think without distractions.'

Sixty-two per cent of those surveyed, from 23 companies in central Scotland, admitted they were often under time pressures while driving.

Stradling's researchers, Catriona Rae and Lee Martin, said their findings showed that road safety messages about speeding were not getting through to the drivers who need most to heed them.

Dr Lisa Dorn of Cranfield University, an expert on driver behaviour and the organiser of this week's conference in Edinburgh, said: 'Companies need to conduct psychological profiling of employees to see who has a tendency towards aggression or thrill seeking.'

Edmund King, executive director of the RAC Foundation, said some accidents involving work drivers occurred because staff are put under greater pressure by their employers.

'Ten years ago, a salesman may have had to make six calls a day; now it's 10. So when you get in your car, there's more of a temptation to put your foot down,' said King. 'An employee may hit congestion, be late for a client and miss a sale as a result.'
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I believe that Steve Stradling (and his ilk) are part of the problem, not part of the solution. He told us a few years ago that drivers with speeding points were more crash involved than those without, but he didn't correct for exposure. He might as well have said those that purchased more fuel had more crashes.

In this new study I expect there will be similar oversights, and I'm confident that he will not have properly considered the underlying behaviours that do cause elevated risk for SOME 'at work' drivers.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

He does have a point, though - there is still a reluctance to regard driving as a genuine work activity, which leads to many hard-working people driving when they really shouldn't be.

Also answering calls on the hands-free, like the chap who a few months ago said his employers now expected him to deal with support calls while driving.

It doesn't necessarily need a change in the law, but it does need a change in attitude on the part of many employers.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Richard Dredge is on Radio 5 at 11pm this evening discussing this information.

Rich is a motoring journalist - a good guy - who I know fairly well.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

So I drive 40,000 odd miles, and as most of it is work related I tend to drive during daylight hours.

Now I'm told that this makes me more likely to be caught speeding and have more penalty points?

Also I am more likely to have an accident that someone who drives say average mileage.......at a guess I'd say 4 times more likely.

Pure genius!

It's the old statistical trickery of misrepresenting correlation as causation.

I doubt it's even that.

I expect around one third of the traffic is 'work related' and about one third of crashes occur during work related driving. Nothing remarkable there.

Most of the problems identified apply to all drivers.

BUT, there is a special opportunity to improve road safety via 'work related' driving. It arises as follows:

* Work related drivers all have management teams and supervisors. This provides a communications channel not available to the wider driving population.

* Work related driving is 'wealth creating' - it follows that cash is available at point of delivery for training and communication.

* Work related driving crashes have direct costs to employers. Therefore the motivation exists to save money through crash avoidance.

* The work environment can create a safety culture which is by far the most important single influence on drivers. (We can do it nationally too, but since no one seems to realise this we'll have to work up from 'work related')

* There exists a Health and Safety Executive, who are well placed to drive the developing strategies intended to improve work related road safety.

* Employers could screen drivers to identify those with dangerous attitudes.

* Employers can operate systems of near miss reporting and investigation to trigger closely coupled training (retraining?).

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

See www.drivecam.com - it's little gadget with a video camera and accelerometer that buffers video and dumps an event to flash memory when it detects harsh movement. They have thousands installed in fleet vehicles and hire cars in the US and while I don't know whether they cut accident rates it does claim to cut insurance claims and liabilities by half (presumably because it is proof of fault).

Anyway, I picked one up 2nd hand last week and it's in the Great British Postal System at the moment, should be here in the next few days.

Gareth

As far as driving at work/for work goes I'm often horrified at the scant attention that companies give it. I visit companies for safety inspections - they can show me risk assessments, CoSHH, DSE all the usual but when it comes to cars they have a couple of bits and pieces that basically say to the driver 'It's down to you mate'.

There seems to be little appreciation within companies that work related driving is as much a H&S issues as DSE, Management Regs, CoSHH etc. Especially when it comes to deadlines and work loads at lot of the companies that I've inspected and soe I've worked for expect their staff to drive 2 1/2 hours to site do eight hours work then 2 1/2 hours drive home - a 15 hour working day, they then wonder at the high rate of illness and the number of accidents that teir drivers are having !!

I worked for one company and had a string of dangerous cars, including one that had it's brakes sieze up on the motorway (70-10, lots of smoke, no brake lights - scared the hell out of the guy behind me ) somewhat embaressing I was working for a safety consultancy at the time

With regards 'officialdom' the HSE have long regarded work related driving (cars, non construction and non dangerous goods) as the remit of the trafpol and trafpol have viewed it as being the HSE's responsibility. End result it falls into a grey area.

1. We need to see either trafpol or HSE take this under their wing and be active in dealing with it, rather than playing pass the parcel.

2. Employers need to deal with this as a genuine H&S issue, many policies I've come across expect the driver to stump up the first £500 of any damage, minor knocks are effectively payed at little cost to the company.

3. Pre-screening or training before being issued with a company car - I know of several including a large company where I live in Chelmsford,

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Our company policy on this type of subject can be broadly summed up as follows:

The company will take all reasonable steps to ensure that any vehicle provided is roadworthy, safe and legal. However, it is the responsibility of the driver to assure themself of the above and to drive and use the vehicle in a legal and responsible manner.

Any comments on this? It combines corporate and personal responsibility in a small company environment.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

To be quite honest it's fairly representative of the usual crap a lot of companies put in.

Lots of companies have what they think are H&S related policies, but a policy is more than just a fancy sounding statement, the other part is what are the arrangement for actioning that policy.

Ideally companies should have a policy that states:

1. What the drivers is required to do (the policy statement you've put up gives that)

2. What the company is expected to do (or not do) e.g. you will be expected to take a break every two hours driving or if we have two engineers we will send the nearest to site (the number of national companies that will send a driver 150 miles to a client rather than someone closer because it's not their region).

3. If there is a problem with the car, who deals with it, many companies still use HR, Accounts or the FM department to deal with cars, often people who have no knowledge of the basic legal requirements on drivers or cars, having a fleet department is a step in the right direction but again they should be competant to deal with likely issues.

(As an example of comeptance, when the brakes on my company car siezed, I was told to drive the car to the nearest garage, I refused, but should not have been given that instruction).

4. Companies should pre-screen drivers, the company I work for now requires me to drive 60K a year and the job was offered conditonal to a. my professional quals, b. satisfactory reference and c. clean current licence (ok not all the answer but a step in the right direction).

5. If you want to get really fancy, a friend works for a company who will not issue a comapny car until you have taken and passed a defensive driving test (arranged and paid for by the company taken in company time, I think it's IAM Fleet).

The HSE have produced a good guidance doc, my main gripe is that neither the HSE or trafpol are likely to enforce it. If you want a copy and any other H&S driving docs drop me an e-mail, also let me know what size your in box is I have a couple of docs that are good but large file size.

_________________
Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Oops I'm at brettdaysp at btinternet dot com

_________________
Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk