Accident & Incident Investigation

  • Require and encourage drivers to report all incidents, no matter how small.
  • Introduce an incident reporting procedure that all drivers use, e.g. ask drivers to fill in "bump cards" for all incidents including a sketch of the incident location as well as the details of all parties involved.
  • Ensure that blank bump cards are kept in all vehicles (including private vehicles used for business purposes) at all times along with a disposable camera to take photos of the scene and vehicles involved.
  • Require the road risk/transport manager to interview drivers within 24 hours after an incident and to jointly complete a detailed "incident report form" about the incident, including its cause(s).
  • Record all incident information on a computer, using a database programme with "coded" columns for different types of crash information (e.g. time of day, type of vehicles, name of driver, location of incident, causes of incident). This will enable the analysis of incidents over a period of time and to identify trends (e.g. identify risky manoeuvres or high risk drivers).
  • Identify a set of standard key performance indicators (KPIs) that relate accidents to workload and that you can use to quickly pick up on performance changes (over weeks, months or years) within your company or to benchmark your company to similar companies. These could include:
    • Accidents per 100,000 miles/kms.
    • Kilometres/miles per accident.
    • Total accidents per mile driven (by vehicle type, e.g. artic, rigid, car).
    • Shifts/months per accident.
    • Accidents per vehicle or per driver.
    • Average accident cost.
    • Accidents per £100,000 of turnover.
  • Publicise and explain trends to managers and staff. Identify and put into action road risk initiatives that you think will tackle highlighted trends.
  • Regularly review your incident reporting and recording procedures. You may find, through experience that you need to obtain more information to analyse your incidents sufficiently.