Essential Duty of Care: Risk Assessment

The Health and Safety Executive is of the opinion that a failure to properly manage work-related road safety is more likely to endanger other people than a failure to properly manage other risks in the workplace.

They have published a Guide to Risk Assessment Requirements in addition to further guidance available in their Driving at Work document. Both documents outline a 5 step approach to risk assessment.

Look for Hazards that may result in harm when driving on public roads. The main areas to consider are the driver, the vehicle and the journey. It is important to ask your employees what they think, as they will have first hand experience of what actually happens in practice.

Decide who might be harmed. This will normally include the driver and any passengers, but also other road users or pedestrians. Consider whether there are any groups who may be particularly at risk e.g. young or newly qualified drivers or long distance drivers.

Evaluate the risk and decide whether existing precautions are adequate. You need to consider how likely it is that each hazard will cause harm. This will help you decide whether or not you need to do more to minimise risk. The fundamental question is whether any remaining risk is acceptable. Can a hazard be completely eliminated? If not, think about how to control the risk to reduce the possibility of harm.

• Does your policy of car allocation encourage driving as opposed to other forms of transport?
• Consider alternatives to driving e.g. train, use of telephone etc.
• Avoid situations where employees are placed under pressure e.g. unrealistic delivery schedules.
• Ensure that vehicles are maintained in line with manufacturer recommendations to ensure long term reliability.
• Check that vehicle safety equipment is fully functional e.g. seatbelts, airbags etc.
• Make sure that company policy covers important aspects of The Highway Code.

Record your findings. Employers with five or more employees have a legal obligation to record details of risk assessments. You need to be able to show that proper checks have been made, that you consulted those affected and that you dealt with the obvious hazards.

Review your assessment. Your assessment should be monitored and reviewed, and revisions made where necessary. Business is never static, so where circumstances change so also should the assessment regime. It is good practice to review your assessment on a regular basis to ensure that precautions you have taken are still controlling road-safety risks effectively.

Remember to check out our Key Points section, which details the sort of questions that must be asked.

 

	The Law		Key Points
	Developing Duty of Care		Driver Training
	Car Checks		Speeding
	Private Cars		Mobile Phones
	Risk Assessment		Sources of Information