SAFE MOBILITY SYSTEM – FLEET SAFETY TRAINING WITH A DIFFERENCE
WORDS BY FIONA PERRIN , SENIOR RISK ENGINEER , ZURICH RESILIENCE SOLUTIONS
There were 54 work related fatalities on our roads last year . There were also 4,477 serious Workers Compensation claims in the Road Transport industry last year , with a median cost of $ 23,307 per claim . 1 However , the social and economic costs of all road crashes in Australia are estimated to be more than $ 30 billion each year , according to the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics2 .
It is tricky to narrow down the figures for just fleet or business-registered vehicles , though . We know that there are currently 460,000 fleet businesses in Australia operating 3.9 million vehicles , with the average fleet size ranging from 75 to 100 vehicles . 3 So driving for work purposes is considered a road safety risk . A key issue is light vehicle workers are out of sight and therefore often out of mind .
Yet , under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 , organisations must provide a safe working environment . The Act states a workplace is any place where work is carried out for a business or undertaking and includes any place where a worker goes or is likely to be while at work , including vehicles and other mobile structures . Vehicles are seen as a workplace when workers are operating within an organisation ’ s so-called ‘ Grey Fleet ’.
Zurich Resilience Solutions recently partnered with the National Road Safety Partnership ( NRSPP ) to pilot a brand-new online course to assist Directors and Officers understand their own organisation ’ s road related risks , operational gaps and develop solutions to address them .
The seven-unit course was run over 2 months in collaboration with Flinders University , Griffith University , and the Accident Research Centre at Monash University . The facilitators for the course were Dr Darren Wisehart , Professor Tania Leiman and Emeritus Professor Jude Charlton .
The safety culture of an organisation is guided and grown by its leadership .
If the leaders do not understand the risk their workers face when on the road , their legal responsibility or the cost benefit of safely managing those workers , then others in the organisation will struggle to influence it . So this course was aimed specifically at Directors and Officers of organisation with motor fleets . Participants ranged from in-home care providers , construction companies and utilities providers . Topics covered included the following : -
14 ISSUE 43 OCTOBER 2023 / WWW . AFMA . ORG . AU