Health & safety bulletin
Driving Safely
19th February 2009
As part of our continual safety performance review process, we identified last year that, particularly on maintenance jobs, as much as half our time can be spent driving to and from sites. We have therefore made a commitment for 2009 to reduce this wherever possible.
Analysis of the year end 2008 statistics, shows 32,000 hours of our time was spent either driving (or as a passenger) to and from sites.
Employers, on the whole, spend a considerable amount of money training people in carrying out their work safely, but very little time on training people to improve their driving and recognise risks on the road.
Driving risks are increased further in the event of adverse weather conditions, where numerous sites may need to be 'made safe' in various locations.
To this end, we are personally committed to sending every Xmo Strata and Xmo Veritas company-vehicle driver, on an advanced RoSPA driving course during 2009. The course was attended and assessed by Kevin Cully and Gary Bramley in January and was deemed to be beneficial by them both.
As with all training, this investment in your own personal safety will be at our cost and you will be paid for attending as per any ordinary working day.
Although our road safety record over the last five years has been excellent, I feel that this investment, given that we drive more than 500,000 miles per year, is money well spent.
During our analysis, we have considered the increased risks involved when storms add to our workload, and we are asked to attend many sites to 'make safe'. We are, of course, committed to keeping our customers and the general public safe, but we must also be careful that we don't unwittingly put ourselves at risk in the process. We have therefore amended our guidelines to employees (and updated our Health & Safety manual) and set a mandatory limit that states no-one should exceed 400 miles of driving per day. If you feel that you may exceed this, please speak to your supervisor or manager and arrange to stay away at the company's expense.
The Department for Transport reports that in 2007, there were 7,432 light goods vehicles involved in road traffic accidents while journeying as part of work.
Let's make sure that no-one Xmo Strata becomes part of these statistics!
Further information on driving in adverse weather conditions can be found by visiting www.brake.org.uk