Driving for Work Risk Assessment Example
All drivers face risks on the road. Employers have a legal responsibility to assess these risks and take preventative measures to control them. Having a risk assessment and a driving for work policy in place is essential to managing road risk and improving driver safety.
If you have employees, the chances are a proportion will:
- drive a vehicle FOR work as part of their job
- drive AT work, either regularly or occasionally
- drive on business between locations – at some point during their working day or night
- drive a private vehicle – theirs or someone else’s while on business
Driving for Work Risk Assessment Example
All drivers face risks on the road. Employers have a legal responsibility to assess these risks and take preventative measures to control them. Having a risk assessment and a driving for work policy in place is essential to managing road risk and improving driver safety.
If you have employees, the chances are a proportion will:
- drive a vehicle FOR work as part of their job
- drive AT work, either regularly or occasionally
- drive on business between locations – at some point during their working day or night
- drive a private vehicle – theirs or someone else’s while on business
What is a risk assessment in driving?
A driving risk assessment examines what, in your workplace or in a vehicle being used by your employee, could be dangerous. It is a fundamental part of an employer’s risk management strategy, and is legally required to be ‘suitable and sufficient’.
Driving for work is one of the most dangerous things employees do – even if they’re only on the road from time to time. UK health and safety law applies to vehicles in the same way that it does to a fixed site, so employers must take their legal duty seriously to minimise the risks that their drivers face, and the risks that their drivers create for other road users. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require every employer to carry out an assessment of the risk to their employees while at work – and that includes any driving on the road too.
But what counts as driving for work?
You might not think that you have a fleet to manage. However, if anyone in your business ever makes a work-related journey during working hours, this is classified as driving for work – even if it’s a short drive to a meeting in a private vehicle. If any of your employees drive for work in any capacity, these issues and legal responsibilities apply to you and your business. It’s keye, therefore, that you understand your responsibilities and who within your organisation must discharge them
People who drive for work are 40% more likely than other drivers to be involved in a collision, which makes it vital that employers understand where the risks are for their drivers, and have driving for work policies in place to help reduce these risks as much as possible. Having a driving for work policy and risk assessment in place isn’t just a tick-box exercise – it’s about creating an organisational culture that protects drivers and saves lives. Your organisation needs to do this for three reasons:
- It’s the right thing to do – everybody wants employees and other road users to return safe and well to their families at the end of each day
- It makes good business sense – poorly managed drivers cost you more
- It’s a legal requirement – in the event of a serious incident, you could be asked to prove that reasonable steps were taken to protect your drivers and other road users
A driving for work risk assessment does not need to be overly complicated or technical, but it should be thorough and accurate. Part of doing a risk assessment is finding the gaps in your existing risk management strategy, and knowing how to plug them. A Gap Analysis is a simple way to find out where these gaps are, and it serves as a great foundation to a driving for work risk assessment.
You can assess some free online driver risk assessment tools online, such as this Gap Analysis from Driving for Better Business.
What is an example of a driving risk?
There are almost 40,000 injuries on Britain’s roads each year that involve someone who was driving for work.
In essence, work-related road risk is the risk that one of your employees could be involved in a collision while driving for work, with the potential of harm to the driver or other road users. When creating a risk assessment for driving company vehicles, it’s important to consider the full range of factors involved in driving for work, from vehicle roadworthiness, to the employee’s fitness to drive, to weather conditions during the journey. Fleet managers should consult their organisation’s driving for work policy for specific advice on procedures to minimise risk for their drivers.
Vehicle roadworthiness
The DVSA says that you must make sure your vehicle is safe to drive. Even if a vehicle has a valid MOT certificate, this does not guarantee that the vehicle will meet the standards of roadworthiness for the next 12 months.
To avoid the dangers of an unroadworthy vehicle on the roads, there are checks that need to be carried out on a vehicle every time it is going to be driven – including (but not limited to) checking that all lights and brakes work, and that all windows and mirrors are clean. Details about how often to check engine oil, brake fluid level, tyre tread, and the vehicle’s battery can be found in the vehicle handbook.
There should also be further information detailing road risk relating to the vehicle itself in your organisation’s driving for work policy.
Fitness to drive
Fitness to drive is a holistic term referring to the full scope of factors that might influence an employee’s ability to drive safely. Here, we might consider things like:
- Fatigue – up to 30% of collisions involve fatigue, so safety managers need to consider how to prove that a driver is aware of how often they should be taking breaks, and that employees are not made to drive if not fit to do so
- Drink driving and drug driving – this includes prescription drugs which can impair a driver’s ability to drive safely, so organisations need a drug screening process in place
- Health conditions – health declaration forms are more than just paperwork; they are a fundamental part of ensuring driver safety
- Vision – drivers must meet the DVSA’s minimum standards for vision
- Mental health and wellbeing – National Highways and Driving for Better Business have teamed up with CALM to help drivers who need to talk about issues they are facing, and this is one area you should address in your driving policies.
- Nutrition and physical fitness – a holistic view of fitness to drive considers good nutrition, hydration, and physical fitness as key to a driver’s ability to focus on the road
Weather conditions
Weather conditions during a work-related journey are difficult to control.
A driving for work risk assessment example should consider whether drivers are prepared and aware of what to do in the event of harsh weather conditions during their journey. The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) recommends that all journey planning should take account of adverse weather conditions to avoid placing drivers in danger.
Your organisation’s driving for work policy or road risk assessment report should acknowledge the impact of weather conditions on risk to employees while driving for work – but a policy on its own isn’t enough. An organisation’s safety culture needs to make sure the policies are put into action, and for anyone who manages drivers, this means setting out your expectations to drivers and ensuring that they are trained and aware of how their driver behaviours should change in accordance with adverse weather conditions.
In practice, on a scheduling level, this might also mean allocating additional time for journeys or deliveries to be made.
What are the 5 principles of risk assessment?
The HSE recommends a five-step process for carrying out a risk assessment to ensure that the result is comprehensive and thorough.
The first step is to identify the hazards. A hazard is anything with the potential to cause harm, so the first step of a robust road risk assessment should identify any significant hazards.
Consider the activity itself, the people involved, the working environment, and anything else that might generate a hazard. Even if something happens rarely, or at a different workplace but involves one of your organisation’s employees driving, the hazards still need to be identified.
It’s good practice to include all hazards irrespective of whether or not they already have precautions in place to reduce the risk of it harming anyone – it’s a great opportunity to assess whether the existing precautions are sufficient.
The second step is to decide who could be harmed and how. This is likely to include any employees who make a work-related journey during working hours – no matter how long or how often – as well as any other road user who could be affected by their driving.
Step three is about evaluating the risks. Measuring the level of risk a hazard poses is done by considering likelihood and severity. Typically, a higher-level risk will be something that is very likely to happen, or something that could cause serious harm.
Once you’ve established risk levels, you need to think about the measures your organisation will take to reduce or eliminate those risks.
The fourth step is to record your findings. By law, this applies to you if your organisation employs five or more people. This process involves recording significant hazards and your conclusions.
In the event of a serious incident, you could be asked to demonstrate the steps your organisation took to reduce risk for employees driving for work. A recorded risk assessment is a good way to prove that you have considered possible hazards and their threat level, and done everything reasonably practicable to manage the risk to employees. It’s also essential to tell employees and safety representatives about the findings of the risk assessment – this is another reason to make sure your risk assessment is written down and recorded.
Step five is to review the risk assessment. Having policies and frameworks in place is vital to ensuring driver safety, but it’s not enough to just have them – they have to be put into practice and kept up-to-date.
Regular formal reviews of your risk assessment are important to ensuring that it considers any new hazards that might emerge as a result of the introduction of new vehicles, changes to driver routes, or changes to the general nature of the task.
Make sure that the risk assessment document states the date of when the next formal review will be carried out.
By following these five core principles in the development of your organisation’s driving for work risk assessment, you’ll be taking steps to fulfil your obligations around driving for work and legal compliance.
What is the risk assessment of a driver?
The risk assessment of a driver is a comprehensive investigation into the hazards that anyone who drives for work for your organisation might face. It can be used to identify risks that employees might face, manage them, and comply with legal obligations.
There are measurable benefits to managing road risk effectively in your organisation. Better managed road risk means less collisions, lower fuel costs, lower insurance premiums, and lower cost of maintenance – and that’s before even considering its value in terms of protecting the safety of your employees.
According to Mark Cartwright, Head of Commercial Incident Prevention at National Highways:
“One of the things that terrifies and fascinates me in probably equal amounts is the number of health and safety organisations I’ve come across with robust systems and talented managers and directors that don’t get that their responsibilities extend out onto the road.”
Your duty of care towards employees is just as important when they’re out on the road as it is when they’re in the office. Taking preventative measures to manage risk and protect employees when they’re making a work-related journey is crucial – driving at work is one of the most dangerous things an employee will do. Anyone who manages drivers needs to recognise that fact and do their best to minimise the dangers of driving for work.
In practice, this means having a robust risk assessment in place, and a driving for work policy to prove what your organisation has done to manage road risk. A helpful starting point can be to find out how your fleet compares to the current best practice standards – the Driving for Better Business programme offers a free online Benchmarking tool for this.
What are the 5 things a risk assessment should include?
A comprehensive vehicle risk assessment checklist includes:
- Identifying the hazards
- Deciding who could be harmed and how
- Evaluating the level of the risk
- Recording the findings of your assessment
- Reviewing the risk assessment
A risk assessment which fulfils all of these aspects and a detailed driving for work policy are core parts of an organisation’s road risk management strategy. By acknowledging risks faced and created by anyone who drives for your organisation, and taking meaningful steps to manage these risks, you can protect both your drivers and your organisation in the eyes of the law. The Driving for Better Business Driving for Work Policy Builder is a useful tool which provides a template to be tailored to the specific needs of your organisation.