If you run a fleet of vehicles of any size in the UK and do not comply with safety standards, then you could be liable in the event of any accidents under the “Corporate Manslaughter Act, Duty of Care and Health & Safety”. This could lead to huge fines as well as a damaging effect on your company’s reputation.

Any Accident that causes a fatality ill also be investigated as an unlawful killing, with potential criminal prosecutions for manslaughter.

What Laws are we talking about here?

The main two laws to worry about here are:

• The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 – This states that employers have a duty of care towards any employees that could be harmed by business duties.
• The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 – This law comes into play when a death occurs due to failures on a management level.

What does this mean for you?

You need to do a full risk assessment and then put measures in place to reduce those risks. If you have more than 5 employers, then these measures need to be recorded and monitored (Known as an audit trail)

What if you don’t comply?

Proof of compliance to safety standards is the only way to be found “Not Guilty” should you face a Corporate Manslaughter charge. Individual directors could be held to account and the company could face massive fines.

Fines for corporate manslaughter start at £500,000+

What should you do?

Crossing your fingers and counting on luck, hoping an accident won’t happen simply won’t cut it and shouldn’t even cross the minds of company directors.

Ensure you run risk assessments and put in place measures to address those risks.

Consider driver training and vehicle safety equipment.

Installing the proper vehicle safety equipment will not only reduce the risk of accidents but can also save you money on insurance and help to win over more contracts as more and more contractors are looking for safety compliant fleets to work with.

A large portion of the business in the UK with fleets of commercial vehicles are managing risks poorly and inconsistently putting themselves and other road users at risk.

According to Tony Ashford, the H&S manager of construction contractor Alun Griffiths Contractor commenting on the state of the UKs Fleet industry ahead of Road Safety Week next week (21^st to 27^th November)

“Today’s working environment demands more and more from us all which, at times, can lead to inappropriate behaviours – use of hands-free mobile phones, exceeding the speed limit, driving for long periods without appropriate rest, inadequate training, fatigue and the like.” He said

Alun Griffiths, based in Abergavenny, has a large rail division of 130 drivers to cover its growing number of rail projects. The company currently has around 500 drivers in total across the business.

Tony explains that with such a large fleet, managing road risks is top of his priorities and the company have taken measures such has fitting safety systems to its vehicles to avoid accidents as much as possible.

“Both the emotional and financial costs to families, businesses and the wider community of an accident are catastrophic.”

The construction company also use telematics systems to get instant updates on the fleet’s movements. This will give them fast alerts to any accidents or potential risks to a vehicle/driver before they happen such as poor driving or vehicle misuse.

Other Vehicle equipment is in place to help the drivers stay safe such as Sidescans. Sidescans scan blind spots and areas to the side of vehicle like a lorry or other HGV for other road users, obstacles or pedestrians, an in-cab alarm will sound to alert drivers of potential risks within the blinds spots before an accident can occur.

Another great piece of kit available for HGVs and other commercial vehicles is the Backchat which is a speaker located on the outside of the vehicle and gives cyclist and pedestrians audio warnings of the vehicles intended movements such an impending left turn this warns a cyclist to hang back rather than go up the left side of a HGV – A problem that many HGV driver experience in London.

This risk to cyclists has become a huge issue in fleet safety in recent years as demonstrated in the videos below

“If you think safety is expensive, try an accident”

Stelios Haji-loannou, the founder of Easyjet, said that referring to the Troodos Shipping Co incident in 1991. The accident saw 6 people lose their lives and more than 50,000 tonnes of crude oil spilt into the Mediterranean Sea.

That quote should echo throughout most industries but is no less relevant to businesses with any kind of commercial vehicle. Many Fleet operators will agree that an accident involving one of their vehicles can be the worst case scenario for them particularly when they are at fault or there are serious injuries or even fatalities involved. The reality is that without proper safety systems in place, this can easily happen to your business. As if the stress and hassle of an incident like this wasn’t enough the costs involved could be huge and even the biggest of companies could find themselves in financial trouble.

100 Cyclists were killed in 2015 on the roads of Britain.

Reports have shown that a large percentage of cyclist deaths involve HGVs with substandard safety systems. Experts suggest that many of these deaths could have been avoided had the vehicles been properly equipped. Instead these companies have found themselves facing extremely costly claims and legal action.

However, it is plain to see that fleet operators are becoming more and more aware of the need to meet road safety standard such as earning FORS accreditation with compliance packages like the Fleet Focus Silver package

Most contractors now recognise safety schemes like FORS and CLOCS and most will only work with fleets that comply with these safety standards. The amount of work fleets are missing out on by not being FORS registered alone has convinced many fleets we spoke to, to pursue better vehicle safety.

FORS compliant equipment packages include blind spot detection scanners/alarms that alert the driver when something is in their blind spots as well as cameras for more visual checks. Back chat alarms are often included in these types of systems, Backchats will sound an audible warning to cyclists pedestrians and other road users and alert them to the HGVs intentions, be it a left turn or reversing.

These systems can often seem an expensive or unnecessary cost to companies with commercial vehicles. However, you only need to talk to a fleet operator that has had an accident to understand their worth not only in money saving but importantly lifesaving. These kits not only protect other potentially venerable road users but also your drivers and business.

To learn more about commercial vehicle safety systems visit www.fleetfocus.co.uk