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Enough of living dangerously

21th October 2004
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Concluding his report on CM'S recent safety conference, Patric Cunnane explains how the

industry is using tough love to reduce accidents.

Tough love seems to be the latest approach in the road transport industry when it comes to raising safety standards. At Shell, for example, drivers caught twice without a seat-belt are sacked. "Drivers must wear a seat-belt." says John Samson-Snell, Shell's order fulfilment manager for the European operation. "if you don't it's two strikes and you're out. If !catch you twice driving without a seat-belt,1 don't want you driving for me."

This tough new approach was revealed at the Driving Accidents Down conference, organised by Commercial Motor and our stablemate Contract Journal and held atAston Villa's football ground. Last week's report included Ryder's pledge to sack drivers who have more than three preventable accidents under this new rule six drivers have been dismissed. Shell has introduced what Samson-Snell calls a "safety culture framework". Across the Continent the company contracts out 90% of its 7,000 truck fleet."But we do not contract out our safety responsibilities," says Samson-Snell. -We investigate every fatality and we are more thorough than the police."

The company is prepared to act if one of its operators does not perform: "In Greece there was a very poor accident record so we took the fleet back."

Seat-belts save lives

To dispel any doubts why Shell is so serious about seat-belts Samson-Snell shows a crashtest dummy video. This recreates a real case where a truck left the road. The driver is strapped in and remains in his seat while his passenger is repeatedly thrown all the cab. "Which of the two survived? Neither.The passenger killed the driver," he reports.

A Shell driver in Finland survived a horrific accident because he had belted up. The company subsequently took him to a meeting of Turkish drivers, who were habitually removing their belts as soon as they left the yard. "I survived because I was wearing a seat-belt," the Finnish driver told them. The same approach might work in Italy where drivers believe wearing seat-belts is not macho.

Shell rewards safe drivers with extra holidays. achievement badges and cash bonuses. The company also responds to driver initiatives. In Portugal, for example, drivers drew up a map marking the black spots they had identified."We have now produced it and it is given away at filling stations," says Samson-Snell. "We have also lobbied the government about the danger of these roads."

Challenging unsafe practices

Many operators may not be familiar with the name Carillion — the company was known as Tarmac until the recent de-merger. Barry Quatermass, responsible for health and safety at CaliIlion, was on hand to tell the conference about the company's all encompassing safety policy, catchily titled Don't Walk By. Quatermass dreamed up the concept. "Don't Walk By is about creating a culture where unsafe practices can be challenged and changed," he says.

"A health and safety inspector told me,'You have your systems in place but your culture is crap'," says Quatermass, "I reacted by deciding to visit the 10 best sites instead of the 10 worst. We summarised what we heard from the project managers. What they had in common was that they were encouraging their guys not to ignore things."

From this research Quatermass deduced three things: the absence of accidents is luck; measuring accident frequency rates is not the issue; having the right safety systems in place is the way forward.

The company instigated 'toolbox talks' — informal on-site safety briefings — and a range of promotional material including posters and an induction video.The aim was to ensure that all employees would report safety infringements, however minor, or approach a fellow worker operating in an unsafe way. Employee comments on the video include:"It's a lot better if you have 10 pairs of eyes watching as well as your own," and "It gets everyone involved and everyone's their own safety officer."

A new angle on safety

Sean Cusack.group health and safety manager at Wincanton, took a different angle from most of his fellow speakers. Ile explained how the company had worked hard to drive down the amount of compensation paid to accident claimants: "1 looked in the Daily Mirror and there were live ads for no-win/no-fee solicitors. Where there is an opportunity to be found, there are fraudsters. When I joined Wincanton two years ago claims were growing while accident numbers were falling."

Cusack took steps to remedy this by centralising the handling of all claims.This. he believed, would eliminate the shoddy handling of claims by local depots. Now a new central liability team chases the depots for information. This might include statements from witnesses who could testify, for example, that"! was there and the floor was not wet".

Cusack says the strategy is working: "By managing our claims aggressively we found that £1 in every £7 is unproven or fraudulent" Perhaps the company's biggest success was a prolonged legal battle involving a driver who claimed he got frostbite caused by a hole in his boot when he left his cab to clear a snowdrift: "We hadn't asked him to carry out this work," Cusack explains.

That case involved a £250,000 legal bill, Initially Wincanton won the case. The union appealed on behalf of the driver and won. The company appealed to the House of Lords and the law lords voted three to two in its favour.

This driver was acting from a genuine belief that the company was culpable. But where an employee is guilty of putting forward a fraudu lent claim Wincanton reserves the right to take disciplinary action. "However, this is not a foregone conclusion," says Cusack.

Robin Sharp, head of health & safety at the Freight Transport Association, provided delegateswithsomesobering reminders of why safety in the depot is such a major issue — and why it is vital to separate vehicles from pedestrians.

A member of the public was killed by a forklift truck inside a site run by a high-street DIY chain. The company was found guilty of negligence and an inquiry heard that concerns had been raised previously about the operation of forklift trucks within the retail area while the public was present. The company was fined £550,000 with £250,000 costs.

"In another forklift incident involving a fatality the operator was fined £60,000," Sharp adds.

In 2002/03 there were 343 major workplace injuries involving forklift trucks and a further 153 involving lorry loaders. Four of the lorryloader incidents were fatal. This is against a background of 49 workplace deaths in the transport industry that year.

Management is the key

Sharp says operators can reduce the number of such incidents by providing proper line managerrientconstantly monitoring the risk, taking corrective action when a shortcoming is identified and arranging further training if necessary It is also vital that complete records are kept of incidents or safety issues, "You need to review your risk assessment. review your training procedures, retrain where necessary and raise awareness in the workplace,says Sharp.

"Determine the responsibilities of your supervisors and have prominent instructions for visitors and delivery drivers. Above all, you must enforce the rules." He concludes there are three safety rules that every operator must remember: "Don't be complacent, be pro-active and do not add to the statistics."

• Part one of this report appeared last week. If you are interested in attending a future safety conference please contact Commercial Motor's editor-in-chief Brian Weatherley, at brian.weatherley@rbi.co.uk


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