Analysis of Collisions Involving Vehicles on Journeys as Part of Work (Excluding Public Service Vehicles) in North East England, 2008 to 2012

This report investigates collisions involving people on a journey as part of work in North East England between 2008 and 2012 (excluding drivers of public service vehicles).

The report is intended to assist road safety professionals by identifying the main factors surrounding collisions that involve a vehicle driver or rider on a journey as part of work, to aid remedial action. It also provides information on dates, times and areas where casualties from these collisions are most likely to occur, who is most likely to be affected by the collision, other factors behind these collisions, and offers suggestions for the key employment sectors to communicate with.

The main reason why this report focuses on people travelling on a journey as part of work (excluding drivers of public service vehicles) is because more than one in five (21%) casualties on the north east’s roads between 2008 and 2012 were from collisions that involved at least one person who was driving for work.

To put this in perspective, over the same period only one in 20 casualties (5%) were from collisions where a drink driver was involved, yet this group seems to have much more attention placed on it while the larger group of people travelling for work can be seen to be overlooked.

The next reason for focusing on this group is that as the drivers and riders are travelling as part of their employment, their employer shares some of the responsibility for their safety and the safety of other road users affected by their employees’ actions as part of their compliance with the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

This opens up an opportunity for road safety professionals to work with employers to highlight the main problems experienced by people driving for work, and to assist them in reducing the risk to their employees (and other members of the public) when driving for work, either in a vehicle owned by the employer, or the employee’s own vehicle, which is often referred to as the ‘grey fleet’.