The ORSA Statement
The Occupational Road Safety Alliance (ORSA) brings together employers, trade unions, local authorities, police forces, safety organisations and professional and trade associations. It believes, in common with the Government and the Health and Safety Commission, that employers should manage at-work road risk within the framework that they should already have in place for managing all other occupational health and safety risks.
Research commissioned by the Health and Safety Executive and others concludes that between 25% and 33% of fatal and serious road traffic incidents involve someone who was at work at the time. These figures include all categories of road users - drivers, motorcyclists and cyclists as well as pedestrians and those working at the side of the road, suggesting that between 10,175 and 13,512 people were killed or injured in at-work road incidents in 2004.
Reducing work-related road casualties will play a significant part in helping to reach the target for road casualty reduction by 2010 set by the Government. It reduces the cost of road casualties to the National Health Service and the pain and suffering caused to victims and their relatives. It also makes real economic sense for companies as road crashes cost time and money in terms of absent staff, lost production and damage to commercial reputation.
ORSA believes that all employers, large or small, private or public, should seek to develop a systematic approach to managing occupational road risk that is appropriate to their business, for example by:
- gathering and analysing key safety and risk data on their vehicles, journeys, drivers, crashes, causes and costs;
- setting and communicating clear corporate road safety objectives;
- ensuring everyone understands their role in achieving them;
- introducing targeted safety measures based on suitable risk assessment (backed by standards, targets and timescales);
- monitoring performance and learning from accidents and incidents;
- carrying out periodic performance reviews in order to feed back lessons learned.
They should commit themselves to achieving a cycle of continuous improvement in road safety performance, ensuring that this approach is underpinned by a proactive, positive road safety culture lead by all senior managers with full workforce consultation and participation.
ORSA urges all employers to sign up to this challenge to improve safety on our roads and to share their good practice with all other organisations that share the same vision.
ORSA Steering Group
September 2002
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