Global Road Safety Week, 23-29 April 2007
Today is the start of the first United Nations Global Road
Safety Week, focusing particularly on young road users, but
generally an opportunity to raise awareness of road safety.
Globally, around 1.2 million people are killed in road accidents
every year. To highlight the campaign, someone who should know
about driving for work is former F1 racing champ
Michael Schumaker who is serving as a member of the independent
Commission
for Global Road Safety, chaired by
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen.
To address this challenge RoSPA is driving forward the UN
Global Road Safety Week in Scotland and is asking organisations to
support Global Road Safety Week by undertaking
road safety activity between the 23rd and 29th
April.
In the UK 3,000 deaths and 237,000 injuries on the roads every year
cost the NHS £470 million and the economy £8 billion according to
the Audit Commission. Around
a third of these are
work-related but this does not show up in the
HSE’s workplace accident
statistics as the HSE does not deal with road safety. While the
statistics on workplace deaths, injuries and ill-health are
shocking, it is more shocking that nearly three times as many
employees die or are seriously injured while driving on company
business.
Employers often cause or contribute to these deaths by
excluding driving from their Health & Safety arrangements,
placing responsibility on individual drivers' behaviour, not
satisfying legal duties to assess/mitigate risk, pressurising by
unreasonable targets, occupational hazards such as long hours,
stress, bullying, and not recognising driving is integral to many
peoples’ work. In the lead up to Workers Memorial Day
on 28 April, Preston & District
Workers Memorial Day Committee have launched a
petition to persuade the Government reportable under
RIDDOR all injuries and deaths
to workers/members of the public from work-related traffic
incidents.
To help organisations assess the safety of their road
transport operations, and to identify measures to mitigate the
risks, Highland Road Safety in partnership with RoSPA is holding a
Management
of Occupational Road Risk (MORR) Seminar, as part of Global
Safety Week. This will be held at the Hilton Coylumbridge, Aviemore
on 27 April 2007.
The government
recently warned that stress and distractions could be placing
working drivers at serious risk, and launched a new campaign
targeting the UK's three million-strong army of 'White Van Men'.
The campaign’s key message to drivers is that good driving is also
safe driving, and employers must take responsibility for managing
the safety of their staff when out on the road.' The 'THINK! Driving for Work'
campaign will focus on removing many of the hazards van drivers
face, such as stress, fatigue and answering mobile phones whilst
driving. While focussing on white van drivers, most of the advice
is equally applicable to anyone driving for work.
Drivers and their bosses will also be encouraged to plan
journeys better in a bid to reduce speeding. The government is also
rolling-out the 'Driving for Work Business Champions' initiative.
Run by road safety charity Roadsafe,
the programme aims to spread advice and good practice and will
encourage business leaders to communicate directly with other
employers about the benefits of managing work-related road
safety.
More information
Amicus,
driving and
workplace transport
Audit Commission,
Road safety
area
Road safety
petition
Roadsafe
THINK! Road
safety website
United Nations Global Road
Safety Week
