Keep your company vehicle workplace safe

Traditionally, safety hasn’t been top of mind when organisations add cars to their fleets. No one sets out to buy a below-par vehicle but the purchasing criteria tend to be focused elsewhere. Up-front price, running costs, brand image and fitness for purpose are the factors most fleet owners will spend time analysing.

However, there are several important reasons why you should add vehicle safety to the list. One of them is even written into the law.

 

Your company vehicle is a workplace

The new Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA), which came into force in April 2016, defines company vehicles as workplaces. This means the rules that apply to your office or production site also apply to the vehicles you provide to the employees who need them. 

Under the Act, businesses have the primary responsibility for the safety of their workers and others they influence or direct (i.e. contractors). The HWSA has also placed the responsibility on ‘officers’ – which includes company directors, partners, board members and chief executives – to undertake due diligence to ensure the business understands and is meeting its health and safety obligations.

How does this affect the way you manage your fleet? There are driver safety measures you can implement such as mobile phone usage policies or driver training. As the HSWA matures, the standard of the vehicles you provide will come under increasing scrutiny.

Following an accident, will an employer be prosecuted for failing to supply an appropriate vehicle to an employee whose role requires her to do a lot of highway driving? Will features such as ABS and reversing cameras be deemed necessary for drivers on company business?

Since the Act only came into force in 2015, these are early days indeed. But you don’t want to become the test case for a prosecution over endangering health and safety by requiring drivers to use a sub-standard vehicle.

 

Measure safe behaviours – then manage them

Legislation can tell you what you need to do. But how do you actually instil a culture of safety?

Enter the exciting new technology of telematics.

Companies such as LogbookMe have developed simple, yet effective plug-and-play devices that provide fascinating insights into driver and vehicle performance. Secure hardware is installed in a fleet’s vehicles, recording and transmitting encrypted data on locations, routes and operational performance.

With such a system you can see whether a driver has a penchant for aggressive acceleration, harsh braking and sudden cornering. As well as adding to your fuel bill and maintenance burdens, such behaviours could indicate a propensity to take risks on the road.

The point is not to name and shame but identify and improve behaviour. Most employers see this as an opportunity to use telematics reports to open conversations with at-risk drivers and provide them with the tools to manage their behaviour themselves.

 

The cost of an accident

After dropping steadily until 2013, there has been a worrying trend upwards in the road toll. Road deaths per 100,000 declined from 8.6 in 2010 to 5.8 in 2013. But this has since risen to 6.5 per 100,000 in 2014 and 7.0 in 2015.

The National Road Safety Committee has this to say: “More vehicles, increased travel, and population increases all contribute to a greater overall exposure to risk. The trend is projected to continue increasing, so reducing deaths and serious injuries requires extra and more effective effort, and a willingness to explore new approaches.”

Quite apart from the personal suffering caused by the death of a family member, there are sobering financial implications. Between 2010 and 2015, 1,834 people died on New Zealand roads, at a social cost of $7.3 billion, and over 12,550 were seriously injured. The combined social cost of deaths and serious injuries was estimated at $16.4 billion.

ACC figures back this up. They show a total of 1,930 claims for work-related motor vehicle accidents last year, including 1,081 claims for work-related injuries for people either driving or travelling in a car.

“It won’t happen to me” is the default mindset many of us adopt when mulling over these figures. It’s a comforting assumption for business owners and managers, too. However, losing a team member to an avoidable accident could seriously disrupt your operations – not to mention your team’s morale.

In the light of all this, choosing vehicles that offer a higher level of protection could turn out to be a sensible investment in business efficiency.

It’s a factor that becomes even more critical when you look at the age of the cars on our roads.

 

Age is not just a number

New Zealand has one of the oldest vehicle fleets in the developed world. While a flood of new registrations has caused the average vehicle age to plateau over the last few years, we still have a disproportionately high number of second-hand Japanese imports and 1990s models hanging in there.

This matters a lot because older cars are significantly more dangerous. In a recent ANCAP (Australasian New Car Assessment Programme) test, a 1998 Toyota Corolla and its 2015-built counterpart (which has a 5 star ANCAP safety rating) were crashed in a simulated off-set head-on collision. The earlier model sustained much greater damage because it was built before the introduction of the frontal impact rule that sets minimum safety standards for cars sold in New Zealand. It's also not equipped with life-saving airbags.

The facts support this one-off observation. NZTA data show that vehicles built before 2000 – which amount to 40 percent of New Zealand’s cars and SUVS – account for 57 percent of fatalities. By contrast, cars built between 2010 and 2015 – which is 17 percent of New Zealand vehicles – represent just 10 percent of road deaths.

If you are still weighing up the cost of newer versus the older vehicles, consider the potential saving in running costs. While you may pay more initially for a late-model vehicle, the difference in fuel economy and maintenance costs could tip the equation back towards a more modern car.

The upside in running a modern vehicle extends far beyond direct costs. Far-sighted employers will spot the chance to send a signal to their team. Equipping staff with vehicles that meet the latest safety standards tells them you value them. Perhaps even more importantly, it says you see them as people with families that should be cherished and protected.

If the stated purpose of modern health and safety legislation is to send every worker home safe at the end of each day, the vehicles they travel in should be part of this safety culture.

 

Further reading

Health and Safety legislation

www.worksafe.govt.nz

 

Telematics technology to measure and manage driver behaviour

https://www.fleetpartners.co.nz/business/fleet-management/telematics

http://www.eroad.co.nz

 

National Road Safety Committee report

http://www.saferjourneys.govt.nz/assets/Safer-journeys-files/Safer-Journey-Action-Plan-2016-2020.pdf

 

New and used car safety ratings

http://rightcar.govt.nz

https://www.ancap.com.au/safety-ratings