date: 27 April 2004 embargo: 00.01hrs Wednesday 28 April 2004

Attention: health, industrial and transport correspondents, health and safety press

Preventing driving deaths at work

Driving for a living can be a hazardous occupation, every year over 1,000 workers are killed in work-related road accidents, and an additional 7,500 suffer serious injury. Today (Wednesday) to coincide with International Workers’ Memorial Day, the TUC is publishing a new ‘safer driving pack’ to encourage employers to take their responsibility for employees on the road more seriously.

Quite apart from the obvious pain and suffering experienced by families who lose a loved one, the TUC is concerned that the high number of work-related fatalities and serious injuries on UK roads represent a huge cost to the UK economy. Official statistics put the annual cost of workers killed or injured on the roads at a massive £3.5 billion (that’s in addition to the £14 billion cost of poor health and safety in the UK’s shops, factories and offices).

The TUC believes that employers are simply not doing enough to protect the health and safety of their employees who are out and about on the country’s roads. All too often, says the leaflet, employers seem to think that if they’ve asked a member of staff to ‘drive safely’ then that’s their health and safety responsibilities met.

Of course, not all work-related road accidents are preventable, but the TUC thinks that employers could be doing much more. Carrying out a proper risk assessment for all mobile employees to cover factors like the regular and proper servicing of company vehicles, sensible route planning and the setting of achievable deadlines would help cut the number of sales reps, delivery drivers, and HGV drivers killed or injured each year.

The TUC training pack aims to bring the issue of occupational road safety to the attention of the 200,000 or so union safety reps across the country. It gives tips on how reps can bring road safety to their employers’ attention, suggests what a good company road safety policy should look like, and states the legal responsibilities of employers towards their driving staff.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: 'Tired, stressed drivers with too many drops to make in too little time are not going to be particularly safe drivers. Bosses have a real responsibility for the safety of their roving staff and reducing unrealistic and unmanageable workloads for their drivers must become a top priority. Because many work-related road accidents are treated like any other road accident, many employers are never called to account.

'The UK does not have a fantastic health and safety record and early indicators suggest that the number of employees killed at work this year is likely to rise. Yet our worsening safety record comes at a time when we are seeing less enforcement of safety laws and a reduction in the level of fines handed out to bosses committing health and safety crimes. This can only have a detrimental effect on all workplace accidents.

'The TUC would like to see the Government marking Workers Memorial Day tomorrow by announcing extra resources for the Health and Safety Executive and local authorities so that they can throw the book at those employers with scant regard for the safety of their staff.'

Notes to Editors:

There are a record number of events nationwide for this year’s Workers’ Memorial Day. The TUC website lists 28 April events from Dounreay on the north-east tip of Scotland to Plymouth on the south-west coast of England. This includes, in London, a special temporary exhibition at Congress House, the TUC’s HQ by f reelance photographer Molly Cooper, which aims to expose the high incidence of deaths, injuries, and unsafe practices that make up everyday life within the building trade. The exhibition is showing until Saturday 1 May. Also in the capital, Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London is hosting a rally to remember Londoners killed at work. Following a request from UCATT, construction companies across the north of England have agreed to hold a one minute silence on site as a way of remembering construction workers who have died at work.

For a full listing of all the events taking place to mark Workers’ Memorial Day, visit the health and safety area of the TUC’s website http://www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/tuc-7914-f0.cfm#tuc-7914-3

A pdf of the TUC leaflet ‘Work-related road safety’ is available at: http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/roadsafety.pdf (large document so may take moment to download)

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Contacts:

Media enquiries: Liz Chinchen 020 7467 1248 or 07699 744115 (pager) or email media@tuc.org.uk

Press release (800 words) issued 28 Apr 2004