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Roads continue to kill off the record

Road safety campaigners and industry representatives have challenged the government to start official reporting of work related road crashes. The call came after road safety minister Paul Clark told a road safety conference this month: 'Work related driving remains a great concern to all of us involved in road safety because around 75 per cent of all work-related deaths are out on the road.' He added: 'Research tells us that up to a third of all road accidents involve someone who is driving for work. Our broad brush estimate is that this means some 800 deaths every year - about 15 every week.' The minister also indicated that employer decisions could be behind some of these deaths. 'I'm the first to recognise that businesses are facing big challenges in the current economic climate. But pushing employees who drive to work longer and harder isn't acceptable because their driving behaviour can be adversely affected,' he said. However, when he was questioned at the event, organised by road safety charity Brake, about extending the at-work incident reporting system RIDDOR to include road death and injury, he said there were no plans to do so. Brake's Fleet Safety Forum is calling for the government to extend the RIDDOR system to require companies to report road death and injury. The call was supported by Brent Mitchell, of Balfour Beatty Utility Solutions. He said 'not only should RIDDOR incorporate work related road crashes, but it should also be extended outside of work hours, to include driving to and from work.' When HSE released its latest workplace fatality figures in October 2009 (Risks 430), it said: 'Statistics show there has been a significant reduction in the numbers of people killed, injured or suffering work related ill-health from April 2008 to March 2009... Workplace fatal injuries fell from 233 in 2007/08 to a record low of 180 in 2008/09.' However, as the minister indicates, the HSE is basing this on a small fraction of the work-related deaths total. Workplace deaths in marine and air accidents are not included in the HSE statistics either.

Paul Clark's speech to the Brake Fleet Safety Forum conference. Brake.

Briefing document (400 words) issued 12 Mar 2010