A new international and UN/WHO supported report into work related road injury, stresses the urgent need to address fleet safety.
A vital report
Co-author of the report, Mary Williams OBE, chief executive of Brake, said: “This vital report is the first international report of its kind uniting voices in proclaiming the urgent need to address deaths and injuries on roads caused by a vehicle being driven for work purposes”
The report, “Managing work related road injury risk”, can be accessed on the Brake site.
It focusses on road risk management needs and recommends governments strengthen legislation. And fleet operators implement procedures. To better manage road related risk. Including improvements in data collection regarding work related road injury, collisions and their causes.
The report is prefaced by, Etienne Krug. Director at the World Health Organisation, who hopes the “report will play a valuable contribution to strengthen action on work-related road safety.” He “urges governments and organisations to read it and implement urgent actions to save lives.”
Why it’s important
The report leads with a sobering fact: “In most high-income countries, an estimated one-third of road traffic crashes involve someone at work. In developing countries, it is likely to be higher.”
It covers how the issue should be addressed. Within the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and via public-private partnerships across societies.
The report also details a history of success stories in work-related road injury risk (WRRR). From around the world and over the last 15 to 20 years.
In so doing it highlights that “Good management of those who drive for work and ensuring decent work conditions has been shown to reduce risks and improve business outcomes.”
Work related road injury risk – an observation
As an observation, from the customers that CMS works with. These strategies of good management and risk considerations are core to their fleet and driver risk management programmes.
We’ve also found that with the combination of customers prioritising risk management, and our technology. They are moving from using descriptive information (what has happened?) through predictive (what’s likely to happen?) and onto prescriptive strategies (what should we do?).
That is, for many of our customers it is no longer about knowing what has just happened.
It’s not even about predicting what will happen.
It is now about informing how to stop it happening.
And as the “Managing work related road injury risk” report implies, having good, clean, actionable data is THE key part to this evolution.
So, like much in life, an old maxim still holds true. In the case of road, fleet and driver risk management it is “if you can measure, then you can manage”.
