The Journey

Journey planning and scheduling is essential in ensuring the safety of your employees who drive for work. Investing time in ensuring that journey planning is implemented as a component of your safe driving policy, will ensure that where possible, routes are planned thoroughly, schedules are realistic, and sufficient time is allocated to complete journeys safely.

Focus on the specific characteristics of your drivers’ journeys. Most collisions happen in built up or urban environments while most fatalities occur on rural roads. Relatively few collisions happen on motorways, however the consequences are often far greater due the higher speeds.

Employers should also look at whether journeys often pass schools, involve negotiating hazardous junctions or frequently take drivers past accident black spots. Time of day and weather patterns are also important factors. Effective scheduling of work or meetings and journey planning is essential to minimise the temptation to speed due to time pressure.

Of course, with advances in modern technology such as video conferencing, drivers are able to avoid many journeys completely, which also reduces one of the biggest causes of driver distraction and collisions, the perceived need to use a mobile phone whilst driving.

  • Every journey should be a managed journey.
  • Require those responsible for journey planning, such as line managers, transport managers and drivers, to take account of:
    • Road type: accident rates are lowest on motorways and dual carriageways.
    • Hazards: road works, accident “black spots”.
    • Traffic densities: time journeys to avoid peak traffic hours.
    • High-risk features such as schools or busy shopping centres.
  • Planning journeys prior to departure will help to select the safest and most efficient route. The length, width, weight and height of the vehicle will sometimes dictate the route.
  • Always plan an alternative route to allow for accidents or bad weather conditions.
  • When possible, plan well in advance and allow time before the start for safety checks.

  • Where possible eliminate or reduce journeys and mileage.
  • If you have staff driving to and from meetings by car consider if the meeting’s goal can be achieved by using remote communications such as telephone, email or video-conferencing. Substitute road journeys for these where appropriate.
  • If your business is haulage, journeys on the road are inevitable. However, some transport companies are now increasingly using rail freight for some long-distance hauls. This might depend on load and destination.

  • Looking at lives lost per kilometre travelled, roads are a far more dangerous mode of transport than rail or plane.
  • Choose alternative transport modes or combine modes, e.g. drive/fly, drive/train where possible. This might also allow time for working on a laptop or making mobile phone calls.
  • If you are hosting a meeting for people who are travelling from other locations, make sure you provide them with a range of appropriate travel options.

  • Attempting to cover excessive distances in single unbroken journeys by road is a significant cause of driver fatigue leading to accidents. There should be clear limits on maximum driving per day, per week, per month and per year.
  • Support maximum mileages with clear policies that encourage staff to take overnight stops, or ensure that the driving can be shared.

Drivers’ hours

  • If your drivers operate under the European Union drivers’ hours and tachograph rules, they are subject to working time provisions within the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations (self-employed drivers are exempt until 2009). Drivers of vehicles which are exempt from the EU drivers’ hours normally fall within the scope of separate UK domestic legislation on drivers’ hours and are subject to certain aspects of the main working time regulations (see DTI website for more details).
  • You need to establish what rules and regulations apply to the work your drivers are undertaking and ensure that they maintain proper tachograph records.
  • Further information on drivers’ hours can be obtained from the VOSA website.

  • Devise safe schedules and routes.  Journey scheduling and routing should take account of factors such as:
    • Road type, hazards (e.g. low bridges)
    • Traffic densities (e.g. congestion) and hold-ups (e.g. road works)
    • Anticipated delays at destination
    • Adverse weather
    • Accident black spots and high risk areas such as towns and winding rural roads
    • Speed limits.
  • Night time driving should be reduced or prohibited if possible; ideally driving should be avoided in the high risk hours when a driver is most likely to fall asleep (early morning, between midnight and 6am and early afternoon between 2pm and 4 pm).
  • Try to avoid busy routes at the beginning of the shift.
  • Schedules should allow time for unexpected delays; move away from strict time routing.
  • Monitor and plan for annual leave to reduce driver shortages.

  • Organisations should set “in-house” maximums for unbroken driving hours.
  • Breaks and break locations should be planned prior to starting journeys.
  • No driver should be required to drive continuously for more than 2 hours without at least a 15 minute break.
  • The drivers’ hours for professional drivers are the statutory maximum.

  • Discourage driving at night and in adverse weather conditions whenever possible, particularly where there is reduced visibility, high winds or where road surfaces become hazardous due to ice, snow, flooding or where there is a danger of drivers becoming stranded in remote locations.
  • If journeys cannot be avoided, e.g. for the delivery of goods or services, they must be thoroughly prepared. Weather reports and warnings should be considered when planning the routes and throughout the journey. E.g. avoid locations such as high level bridges on the route after a gale warning.
  • Advise drivers to carry out safety checks of the vehicle, including light, reflectors, windscreen wipers and water.

Incidents during reversing manoeuvres are frequent.

  • To reduce the likelihood of reversing incidents in your company:
    • Fit additional mirrors, cameras or reversing sensors on large vehicles to improve visibility.
    • Make sure that vehicle reversing sites are clearly marked with warning signs and cordoned off with barriers if necessary.
    • Ensure that banksmen you may use are properly trained, wear reflective clothing and know where to stand in safety.
    • Carry out regular assessments of the reversing risks and implement any necessary measures.
  • Advise and train your drivers to:
    • Avoid reversing where possible.
    • Reduce the distance they need to reverse if reversing can’t be avoided.
    • Avoid three point turns in side roads. It is usually safer to drive to the next roundabout.
    • Keep their mirrors clean and use them.
    • Avoid reversing where there are pedestrians.
    • Be aware of blind spots and small objects that may be out of sight.
    • Get out of the vehicle and check if they are uncertain.
    • Agree a signal for “stop” if they ask somebody to help them reverse.
    • Stop immediately if a banksman disappears from view.
    • Never rely on an alarm to clear an area of pedestrians or other road users.
  • Advise car and van drivers to reverse into parking spaces, not out of them.
  • Advise truck and bus drivers to follow on-site manoeuvring procedures.

  • Introduce clear rules and operating procedures to deal with emergencies such as accidents or breakdowns and include them in the driver handbook.
  • Ensure that all vehicles are fitted with a basic first aid kit, a fire extinguisher, an emergency triangle, a correctly-inflated spare tyre, a disposable camera and blank accident report forms.
  • Ensure that all vehicles driven on behalf of your company (including private vehicles used for business purposes) have breakdown cover.
  • Require drivers to follow company procedures for reporting crashes.
  • Advise drivers:
    • To avoid stopping in a dangerous place, e.g. at a roundabout, if at all possible.
    • Not to remain in the vehicle if it breaks down on a motorway; advise drivers to park the vehicle well to the left on the hard shoulder, to summon assistance and to wait off the road, ideally behind the crash barrier.
    • To put a warning triangle on the road at least 45 metres(147 feet) behind their broken-down vehicle on the same side of the road, or use other permitted warning devices if they have them. Always take great care when placing or retrieving warning devices and never use them on motorways.
    • To warn other traffic by using hazard warning lights if the vehicle is causing an obstruction.
    • To call the breakdown services and never attempt to fix the vehicle themselves.
    • To call the emergency services if they are involved in an accident that obstructs the highway, is serious or involves injury.
    • To ensure they have followed the company’s procedure for recording information about the crash.

  • 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.