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Zero defects
Page 30
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Accidents can cost your business dear, but can you cut them out completely? Some companies seem to think so.
Words: Roger Brown / Image: Graham Richardson
Is it possible for a haulage firm to completely eliminate accidents involving its drivers?
Petroleum tanker specialist Suckling Transport, based in West Thurrock, Essex, thinks so, and has embarked on an ambitious programme to turn that dream into a reality.
MD Peter Lamer told delegates at the Brake Fleet Safety Conference in Birmingham last month about his firm's Zero Incidents Project (ZIP), which was introduced two years ago.
In the period 2004 to 2008, the company recorded between 52 and 71 accidents per one million km. However, after launching ZIP, the average of 6.3 fell to below 2.9 accidents per one million km in 2009a drop of about 50%.
Lanier said: "All the received wisdom goes against the idea of a firm being able to achieve zero accidents, but this target is something that Suckling wants to do, and is something I am very keen to attempt."
Driver behaviour
As part of the initiative, the company conducted trials MD Peter Lamer of 14 items of safety equipment, including tank and implemented the 'Zero hose-fitting devices, along with object sensors on the cab, Incidents Project at reversing aids on trailers, lane-departure warning systems. Suckling Transport and vehicle stability-control devices. Those deemed suitable for particular operations were fitted to the fleet.
Last year, Suckling also introduced on-board computers to its trucks to gain more data about driver behaviour.
"Drivers have also been financially incentivised to submit near-miss and potential incident reports, however trivial," Lamer added.
Issues of safety and training are also important to companies such as Allied Bakeries (ICingsmill). Steve Kay, national health and safety adviser for the firm, described how the business had enhanced its training procedures after one of its drivers who suffered from the condition Sleep Apnoea had fallen asleep at the wheel and hit a car, killing a motorist in Cardiff in April 2007
Training procedures
Speaking to the conference, Kay revealed that Allied did have training procedures in place before the accident.
These included full-time driver assessors at each site; a driver training programme; driver handbooks; sleep awareness training; risk assessments; driver licence checking and an internal tachograph checking system.
However, over the past couple of years, the company has enhanced its sleep awareness training, participated in a trial sleep disorder study with a medical consultancy, and sent drivers to the Transport Research Laboratory simulator in Crowthorne, Berkshire, which is able to test the sleepiness of drivers.
Kay revealed: -The incident was a wake-up call. Although we had good systems in place, we decided we had to try to do things better."
Allied posted a 20% cut in crashes and damage costs in 2008 compared with the previous year.
Plans include the introduction of driver profiling using data from telematics equipment to try to predict where future accidents might come from.
Cornmunication
Finally, Geoffrey Bray, chairman of road safety consultancy Fleet Support Group, issued a reminder that the safety culture -must start at the top" of a company and that -everyone else needs to be engaged with the issue at an early stage".
He added: "It is very important that firms consult and communicate with staff on a regular basis and embed work-related road safety within the company culture.II