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di I sit on several committees, one being the Work

13th December 2001
Page 48
Page 48, 13th December 2001 — di I sit on several committees, one being the Work
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Related Road Safety Task Group, which is co-ordi

nated by the government. The point of this particular committee is to examine what is being done and what should be done by employers to ensure the safety of their staff and other road users when driving.

We are concerned with the safe operation of all types of vehicles, from pizza delivery mopeds to trucks. And we are also concerned with standards of driving and maintenance of vehicles Our work is important because so many journeys on our roads are for work reasons— about one in three crashes is estimated to involve a vehicle being driven for work. That's more than 1,000 deaths and more than 10,000 serious injuries every year.

6 The committee is co-ordinated by the Health and Safety Executive and therefore has tended to use lots of health and safety buzzwords, like 'risk management" and "risk assessment". These phrases are a far cry from the language of the average transport

2 depot, so how important and relevant are they?

lbelieve that they are highly important and relevant, as long as we can all understand what we are talking about.

There are two ways to tackle safety: bottom up and top down. ± From the bottom up, individual drivers and vehicle technicians have

a responsibility to ensure that their actions don't risk life. From the top down, their managers have a responsibility under the Health and Safety at Work Act to ensure that their business practices don't force their drivers to risk life.

Have you ever heard of a driver being encouraged or blatantly pressurised by a manager to break the hours regulations, disconnect their speed limiter or take out a wagon that should be going in for its service or has a suspected problem? Of course you have. A poor—and law-breaking—manager does these things. Such a manager is driven by short-term profitability to make ends meet at the risk of safety and is playing a lottery with people's lives. It is only by getting to all managers, who have the power to ensure the safety of so many, that safe operations can become more likely.

You can do this in two ways: you can police and you can educate. Educating managers is not about using health and safety buzzwords; it is about explaining that managing safety is simple, not costly, and can improve a company's performance and reputation. It makes good business sense and means you can sleep at night.

That's why Brake set up its Fleet Safety Forum for fleet managers. This non-profit-making initiative is highly subsidised by operators and manufacturers and is supported by the Traffic Commissioners. It covers topics from making sure your wheels stay on to checking your drivers aren't over the drink-drive limit, Education like this would take care of the problem if everyone was a good, careful operator, but there is always a need for policing too. You must have been deaf and blind to miss the news that managers are more likely to face charges if they fail to ensure their vehicles' safety and someone dies as a result. This is a reality that will, in the future, be backed up with more in-depth criminal investigations, involving identifying crashes caused by drivers and vehicles that are being run for work purposes and taking the investigation up the management chain of potentially guitty companies. This will mean more resources for our cash-strapped enforcement agencies, including the Vehicle Inspectorate, traffic police and HSE officers. So take action now to make sure your fleet managers know their responsibilities— and the risks of shirking them.

• This week's Legal Bulletin focuses on hauliers' liabilities for criminal actions by their employees—see pages 23-26.

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