Work Driving Safety: How Well is Your Organisation Managing the Risk

Abstract

Driving for work has been identified as potentially one of the highest at work activities that a worker may undertake during the course of their working day. The National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020 highlight that within Australia, company drivers’ travel twice the annual distance and have approximately 50% more crashes than drivers of private vehicles. Safe Work Australia has indicated that over the last 13 years vehicles have been involved in two thirds of workplace fatalities and this figure is at least twice as many as other mechanisms of injury in the workplace. Almost all workplace fatalities (96%) that have occurred in Australia have been males. Research has also indicated that work related road crashes injuries are also approximately twice as likely to result in death or permanent disability as other workplace injuries and the average time lost due to injury is greater than any other workplace claim. Accordingly, work related road safety is an area within road safety that is gaining increased attention due to the substantial physical, emotional, and economic costs to the community that are associated with work related road crashes. It also provides an indication that within a work environment, better risk management practices and intervention strategies are required. Despite legislative requirements clearly outlining obligations associated with work vehicle use and risk management, many organisations fail to adequately address risks associated with work driving, particularly in comparison to other hazards and risks within the workplace. Therefore, there is a need for industry to adopt improved strategies of work driving risk management. This paper will discuss the legal implications and challenges of work driving risk management for Grey Fleet (private vehicles used for work), traditional fleet, high occupancy vehicles and heavy vehicles. It will provide relevant research data that highlights the type of crashes most common in work vehicles and the range of factors that contribute to crashes. The results will also utilise various case studies to demonstrate the different approaches and intervention strategies implemented by various organisational sectors along with results of intervention strategy evaluations. These case studies will be drawn from experiences managing risk across traditional fleet, Grey Fleet, high occupancy vehicles and heavy vehicle sectors. In addition, this paper will also provide a practical framework for participants as a take away to facilitate development of intervention strategies and tools to address their own particular issues and mitigate work driving safety risk particularly relevant to their own unique circumstances.