New standard to drive improvements in road safety

I have been heavily involved for over 15 years in campaigning to get employers to address occupational road risk as a mainstream health and safety management issue. The key is not just driver training but getting the policies, people and procedures right.

Recently, the International Organisation for Standardisation has developed ISO 39001: Road traffic safety management systems – requirements, so I am extremely hopeful it will become a practical resource for all those responsible in organisations for helping to assure the safety of people at work on the road, not just in the UK but across the world.

Governments, vehicle fleet operators and organisations worldwide can make a real difference with this standard, which has a Plan Do Check Act (PDCA) risk management approach to road safety.

Developed with the support of experts from 40 countries and 16 liaison organisations, including the International Road Federation and the World Health Organisation, it is an in-depth, valuable piece of work.

Through its training courses, RoSPA, is enabling organisations to meet the spirit of this standard and to know that they have a good management of occupational road risk (MORR) capability. This is also because we are able to apply our knowledge of health and safety management systems to enable organisations of all kinds to adopt a proactive risk management approach to reducing the risks connected with ‘at work’ vehicle use.

RoSPA was the first to highlight the dangers of occupational road risk in the UK when we launched our MORR campaign in 1996, bringing forward a case for including this as a key issue in both day to day health and safety management and regulation. Ever since, we have highlighted the fact that between a quarter and a third of road crashes every year involve someone who is at work at the time.

Our perseverance in carrying out further research and drawing up MORR guidance has influenced government to include MORR as an important element in overall UK road safety and strategy, and it has caused the UK’s leading companies to address the risks faced and created by their employees while on the road as part of their work, as a mainstream health and safety management challenge.

It also paved the way for the first Driving At Work national guidance in 2003 and since then the law governing MORR has been strengthened. This latest ISO standard builds further on this approach and extends it to an international level.

With road accidents causing 1.3 million deaths every year worldwide, the standard recommends a process approach with requirements for continual improvement. It provides state-of-the-art requirements for road traffic management to all public and private sector organisations involved in regulating, designing or operating road transport.

Tackling important issues, including speed, vehicle condition and driver awareness, this standard includes auditing the effectiveness of road safety programmes, such as for analysing “black spots”, providing funding or awarding prizes for road safety. These topics have also been taken on board by the United Nations and used to shape its Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 report.

RoSPA is helping organisations to achieve this new standard by detailing what they need to do to develop and implement an appropriate occupational road risk safety policy with objectives and action plans. If done well, it will not only save lives and reduce injuries but make sense to companies on a financial level too. For example, making changes can lead to less down-time, lower insurance premiums and enhancement of reputation, which can all help companies win or retain business.

There is more to come on this topic. Just last year, RoSPA commissioned University College London and TRL to carry out a major review of work-related road safety strategy, with funding from the RoSPA/BNFL Safety Scholarship Scheme, to help re–energise the occupational road safety agenda.

The aim is to chart strategic policy development in this area since 1996 and assess evidence on efficacy of interventions by employers. The report is nearing completion, so watch this space.