INDUSTRYNEWS
SPONSORED BY DUFFELLS
Are you looking after ALL
of your company drivers?
Leading occupational driver training company, IAM Drive & Survive,
explains how it is essential and makes perfect business sense to ensure
everyone who drives for your business is safe and compliant.
Let’s face it, there are probably a
hundred things right now that you feel
are far more important than providing
guidance and if necessary, training, for
you and your drivers. Right? Thought so,
especially as the last few years may have
been really tough and you’re just glad to
have your guys out on the road going to
and from jobs.
However, let’s try and stop and think for
a minute about exactly that. Your guys.
Out on the road. Driving to a customer. If
we break that down, there’s actually quite
a lot that you need to have thought about
to ensure your business is compliant with
Health & Safety legislation and the rather
important Corporate Manslaughter Act.
Before you turn the page, here are a few
key things that won’t go away:
1. Do you have a Company
Drivers Policy in place?
2. Have all (yes, ALL) of those driving for
your business seen and signed up to it?
3. Have their licences been verified?
4. Are all vehicles roadworthy
and fit for purpose?
5. Have all drivers been assessed for risk?
6. Have at-risk drivers been trained
or offered training?
Okay, that’s enough for now but you can
immediately see that driving for work is
not something to be taken for granted or
ignored. As an employer, you simply have
to address, at the very least, the key issues
concerning occupational driving.
Why?
Well, if you don’t do anything and
something does happen to one of your
employees whilst out driving for work, you
could be found negligent and face severe
punishment at the end of a court case.
Only just recently, two company directors
were jailed for this very reason after an
employee died after driving over and
above the permitted number of hours.
36
THE SEP/OCT 2013 ISSUE
SPONSORED BY ADVANCED KEYS
You might be thinking this is scaremongering. Far from it. In 2011, over 1,750
people were killed whilst driving and
nearly 600 of these were whilst driving for
work. That’s at least 2 people killed and 30
seriously injured every single working day.
When you compare these stats to those
concerning fatalities and injuries incurred
in other industry activities, it is clear that
driving for work is the single riskiest thing
that anyone will do for their employer.
Fact.
So where to start, if you haven’t already
done so? The best place is to look at the
policies and procedures that will underpin
what the industry refers to as Driver Risk
Management (DRM). It’s an “umbrella”
term for ensuring that the risks faced
by your drivers when out on the road
are addressed and as much as possible,
mitigated.
DRM Policies and procedures help to
provide your drivers with clear guidance
and have been proven to reduce your
business’ liability in the event of a court
case. Always a good thing. Unfortunately,
‘clear guidance’ is a broad term and can
include a wide selection of materials such
as driver handbooks, crash packs, postincident guidelines and more. Knowing
what items should be included and how
best to word it for the greatest impact
can be incredibly confusing and timeconsuming. Keeping your policy up to
date with constantly changing legislation
can also be a challenge.
For businesses which either don’t have
this material in place, or need to refresh
their current guidance, it’s important that
you seek advice and use measures that are
sufficiently robust to withstand scrutiny in
the event of an accident.
Take driving licence checking – surely
the simplest of tasks? Well, it is easy but
only if you do it the right way and this
means ensuring every licence is currently
valid. This can only be done using the
DVLA and not simply by a visual check
of the paper and photo card elements.
If you’re only doing the latter, you’re
leaving yourself wide open to a claim of
negligence.
If all of this sounds like hard work and
added cost to your bottom line, then it