SynX Blog

The Health and Safety Authority of Ireland has recently published the dates of the next Transport Safety Seminars, which will take place in early May 2019.

The HSA will be hosting a series of free half-day morning seminars. The objective of these seminars is to inform and educate employers about how to implement safe driving for work practices and key transport and vehicle risk topics. The seminars will be of particular interest and benefit to employers, self-employed, transport, safety and fleet managers who operate vehicles in all work sectors. At the seminars, delegates will hear examples from companies who effectively manage driving for work.

The provisional dates of the seminars are as follows:

May 1st, 2019 – Cork

May 2nd, 2019 – Kilkenny

May 8th, 2019 – Galway

May 9th, 2019 – Dublin

Don’t forget to save the dates.

Booking details will follow soon at hsa.ie, but if you wish to get a taste of the presentations and the case studies included in the seminars, you can have a look at the detailed presentations of the 2018 seminars edition in this HSA list or in this Driving for Work events and seminars page.

Christmas time, as we all know, is a festive period that concludes with New Year’s celebrations. So while we want to wish you a great 2019 and realise that the general mood at this time of year is typically jolly, there is something rather serious that should never be forgotten: never ever drink and drive.

A research published by the Telegraph during the summer, found out that, unfortunately, not only do fuels power fleets, but drug and alcohol consumption is to some extent fuelling a percentage of drivers within the industry. According to Alere Toxicology (a company who specialises in drug testing), one in every thirty (3.3%) of employees is likely to have drugs in their system at any time; and the data shared by The Institute of Alcohol Studies state that each day in the UK, 200,000 people turn up to work nursing a hangover.

The data provided has obvious consequences on road safety: the UK Government states that 9,050 people have been killed or injured when one driver involved was over the drink drive limit, with a total number of 6,080 collisions, some of those behind the wheel were employees engaged in work related activities.

As the festive period is once more upon us, the tendency to celebrate and drink more increases markedly and drivers might become more complacent—companies need to be alerted to the risks and have a solid policy in place dealing with the use of drugs and alcohol behind the wheel.

In some countries, the legal limit or the penalties have changed in an attempt by the authorities to make the roads safer: in Ireland, in October of this year, The Road Traffic (Amendment) Act 2018 was put into force, and drink drivers detected with a blood alcohol concentration between 50mg and 80mg will be disqualified from driving for three months and fined €200. In this case, the amendment increases the penalties so that drink drivers will now lose their license for three months based on a blood alcohol content that was lower than the law allowed previously.

Drink driving campaigns are in force all over the world, with Ireland focusing particularly on the ‘morning after’ drivers still likely to be affected by the alcohol consumed from the night before. According to data shared by An Garda Siochana and the Road Safety Authority, some 11 per cent of fatal collisions in which a driver had consumed alcohol took place between 7am and 11am.

Past campaigns also covered the importance of not encouraging friends to drink, like this “Think” one from last year, known as “Mates matter” and “A mate doesn’t let a mate drink drive”. The central theme can be also be found in the different designated driver campaigns running in other countries (here we are looking at the Irish campaign) but all concentrate on the importance of appointing a designated driver for a night of celebrations (who can benefit from the free non-alcoholic drinks on offer as an incentive offered by pubs in various locations that are participating in the Coca Cola campaign, where the driver will ‘give the gift of a lift’).

If a member of your staff is on the road with alcohol, it means unsafe roads, a higher possibility of injury and collision and liability of the company for any accident that a drunk driver can cause. Make sure you have drink driving monitoring in place if you want to run a safe fleet this Christmas.

Our latest article from the A to Z of fleet management series is directed at some of the more inconspicuous stakeholders. And as such, we are pretty sure we will catch the attention of those who often work in this important area, but are usually “behind the scenes”. Yes, health and safety officers, we are talking about you!

Health and safety, or, in other words, occupational health and safety, or again workplace health and safety, is concerned with the effect that the specific workplace environment and the tasks required in the day-to-day running of a business has upon anyone with which it comes into contact, and this applies wherever it is operating in a commercial capacity: this includes employees, possibly family members, customers or a more extended group of people. Take a moment to consider how this applies for businesses that operate vehicles.

Dealing with the protection of employees and other categories of people does not only involve a series of preventive actions to be implemented in order to prevent the health and safety of those involved being compromised, but those actions also need to be informed by the regulations that specifically apply to that particular sector, task, category of worker and, of course, depends on the country where the business is operating. This is why when we consider health and safety we are also considering legal compliance.

But what’s the story with health and safety officers? It seems in a lot of cases, as happens with fleet managers, when it comes to smaller businesses, health and safety officers with specific workplace health and safety responsibilities do not in fact exist. Conversely, for larger companies that have a greater pool of vehicles, there is usually a dedicated health and safety officer who is also partly sharing responsibilities with a fleet director. Particularly in these cases, the health and safety officer is a sort of a legal reference for the company and can best advise when new regulations come into effect or when different processes are being adopted by a company and they are expected to oversee whether they adhere to local/global law and health and safety at work regulations. In smaller companies, the person responsible for the role in absence of a dedicated health and safety officer is often the owner, the fleet director in some cases or the human resources department.

When it comes to decision-making about health and safety, it is very unlikely that health and safety officers alone implement processes that involve risk assessment, training or best practices that should be integrated into work practices. There is generally cooperation within all departments, so the contribution of the health and safety officer is key to understanding what can legally be done in some cases, but in others management might want to prevail over some choices, even though their directives might not be fully compliant.

Running vehicles at work should instead be regarded with the utmost importance as it continues to be one of the most frequent causes of injuries or fatalities. About half of the incidents reported to happen in transport in the workplaces every year still make up an extremely significant percentage and seems to indicate that the role and advice of the health and safety officer is still not taken seriously enough. Sites and workplace, drivers and vehicles need to be managed in the safest way possible while complying with the existing legislation. As usual, if you are not clear how this can be realised, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Dashboard cameras are becoming more and more commonplace and companies who aim at improving the safety of their employees and want an extra level of precaution are starting to implement them within their fleets. Up until now, insurance companies had not openly supported the use of dash cams, but that is all about to change.

According to an online article published in the Independent on the 18th of November, the insurance company Axa has offered a 10% discount on premiums for customers who install a dash cam. Axa Ireland has partnered up with the camera manufacturer Nextbase who will provide the necessary dash cams, also for a discount, when bought through high-street retailers such as Halfords. It is extremely likely that other insurance companies will now follow suit with similar offers to encourage drivers and fleets to install dash cams on their vehicles.

This development was reported in Ireland, where it seems to be strongly connected to a series of joint strategies by the Gardaí, the Irish police force, which shares responsibilities in road safety with the RSA (Road Safety Authority) of Ireland. Recently, the road safety team has coordinated a series of actions aimed at tackling the issue of uninsured drivers in Ireland, which is currently calculated to be 150,000 cases. In order to solve the issue, a special system has been setup so that Gardaí will be able to immediately see if a vehicle is insured or not by means of special handheld devices. The system will depend upon a national database of cars and insurance cover and is expected to be up and running by the end of 2018.

In the UK, the first insurance company to establish some sort of favourable terms for customers who have dash cams fitted seems to have come from Swiftcover back in 2014, and some other insurance companies have subsequently followed their example.

But what about the other benefits of dash cams? Notwithstanding the discounts, fitting a vehicle with a dash cam can make a huge difference for both end users and companies who rely on drivers: according to studies held in the UK by the RAC, 25% of the interviewed on the matter claim that dash cam footage would be extremely helpful in improving driving style. Dash cams are also pretty useful when it comes to establishing the ultimate responsibility for a collision or an incident, as you can often get conclusive evidence of how an incident plays out over time. Moreover, if you are entitled to a no-claims discount, a dash cam could help you retain it if the responsibility of the other drivers is proved via the footage.

According to the AA’s director of Consumer Affairs, Conor Faughnan (interviewed in April by the Independent): “Where they are useful [dash cams], though, is in settling liability after the fact. They can be very useful in resolving disputes or establishing exactly how a crash occurred and in reducing fake crashes or insurance scams”. The move by Axa seems also to be part of the wider plan to eliminate fraudulent injury claims.

Dash cams can definitely help your driving team and fleet to improve their global safety and reduce the costs to your business (not necessarily only those related to insurance). If you want to learn more, we are here to help.

The ETSC (European Transport Safety Council) has recently issued a new report focussing on the role of fleet telematics in the improvement of risk assessment for companies whose commercial activity depends on vehicles. The study, entitled “Using Telematics In Professional Vehicle Fleets” was published October, 2018 and focusses on the positive role of this technology for companies dependent on vehicles.

According to numbers published by the ETSC, more than 25,000 people lost their lives during the whole of 2017 on European roads and around 135,000 suffered injuries deriving from collisions. All in all, it has been estimated that around 40% of the people involved in those accidents were driving for work: 40% of the fatal collisions were in fact work-related.

Governments have taken different measures towards safer roads, adapting their legislation and helping road safety organisations to implement new schemes and programmes with the common aim of reducing those numbers. In this environment, the use of fleet telematics as systems able to capture vehicle data is no longer seen as a tool providing evidence only in the event of a collision, because of its ability to reconstruct what happened leading up to it, but is increasingly being used to monitor driver behaviour. Telematics offers a wide array of data that can potentially be used not only as a risk management tool, but also to identify fleet-wide issues or to improve the sales side of a business.

According to the ETSC, this powerful tool can minimise risks within a fleet by adopting different types of approaches:

• Some road safety issues can in fact be global, such as speeding, which has an impact on both professional drivers and any other road user.
  
• Then there are driver-specific issues that relate to a particular member of staff and can be monitored in real time. Strengths, weaknesses and areas of concern can be worked on for all drivers, and the publication makes the specific example of drivers particularly prone to speeding or less than perfect driving which might be attributed to poor eyesight.
  
• Finally, some issues highlighted within the fleet might actually be related to the wider company and help with the organisation of business practices through policies or the implementation of superior processes; for example, in the loading and unloading of vehicles, the prevention of idling and fatigue and in order to identify risky patterns.
  
  

To make the best use of telematics data, the ETSC publication offers a number of suggestions:

• Collecting data should be carried out correctly and regularly. The data obtained thanks to the technology available might be converted into a more relevant format for drivers, and such collections should be done on a regular basis over a reasonable length of time so as to fully realise the benefits of the system. The continuous collection of data and its analysis will not only help implement positive improvements but also assess behaviours and eventually modify them if inappropriate.
  
• It is important to have a risk assessment programme that focusses on the most important issues and that does not let the benefits go due to the abundance of data available.
  
  
• Regarding data protection, it is important that the implementation of telematics follows the legal guidelines of the country where it is implemented and pays special attention to the drivers. Staff need to be informed about the data collected, the potential use of it and should be in a position to discuss this usage.
  
  

• It is fundamental that everyone in the business is involved in the telematics process and shares joint responsibility for its success, as a team.

Tyresafe, a charity based and active in the UK, has launched this year’s Tyre Safety month—a campaign that has been a yearly fixture since 2010—in order to raise awareness on the importance of correct tyre maintenance and on the dangers of driving with defective tyres. The campaign is scheduled every year for the whole month of October, and 2018 has been no exception: this year the campaign tries to sensitize road users and fleets, in a humorous way, with a video that has been circulating since the beginning of the month. It is a gentle reminder of the key rules for checking tyres in the form of an amusing and informative version of a Smashie and Nicey style countdown of the top hits, but with musically themed tyre safety tips. Check it out:

 
According to the studies carried out by the charity, summer months are particularly challenging in terms of tyre safety. Fleets tend to be more prepared in winter months as the weather can become severe and there is an increasing chance of foggy/snowy/rainy days, while they seem more indulgent in the summertime despite the weather not being particularly warm in the UK. The research work carried out by Tyresafe also deals with the important role of properly maintained tyres not only in fleet safety but also in reducing fuel consumption.

But what are then the songs and tips suggested by Tyresafe which all fleets should remind themselves of when it comes to safe tyres and tyres checks? Here you have what should hopefully become your favourite hit collection!

1. “Every Check You Take”—this song title suggests that in order to obtain optimal vehicle handling, avoid risks on the road, prevent premature wear and tear, and optimise fuel consumption, tyre checks should be performed on a regular basis. If you still haven’t got a tyre check process in place we suggest you do so: you can even take advantage of the opportunity of our Maintain trial and set up regular tyre checks to be performed via our app—contact us if you want to learn more about it!
   
   
2. “How Deep Is Your Tread”—tyre tread depth is an important criteria to be checked not only for safety reasons (as grip on the road can only be guaranteed with the appropriate depth, pressure and inflation) but also as there are legal limits that need to be respected. Cars, Vans and LCVs are subject to the same tyre law and must have a minimum of 1.6mm of tread across the central three quarters of the tyre around its entire circumference; while for trucks, tyres must have a minimum of 1mm of tread in a continuous band throughout the central three-quarters of the tread width and over the whole circumference of the tyre. Loading of the vehicle has a greater impact on the tread, which should be checked on a regular basis to ensure that legal limits are respected and to prevent the risk of losing adherence to the road.
   
   
3. “Get Into The Groove”—this refers to a particular test suggested to anyone who has a vehicle needing to comply to the 1.6 mm tread criteria: using a 20p coin, which it is necessary to insert into the tread, you will immediately see if your tyre is compliant—if you insert the coin and can see its border, the tyres probably won’t be compliant, so a more thorough check would be needed.
   
   
4. “Under Pressure”—tyre pressure should be checked every month or on an even more regular basis according to your maintenance department’s recommendations, especially if your vehicles are constantly loaded or are working a great deal. You can check the ideal tyre pressure for your vehicle in the manufacturer’s manual which will also have guidelines on the correct pressure when loaded.
   
   
5. “I Will Always Check You”—this last song suggests carrying out checks not only when it is time for the “regular checks”. It is better to be proactive. When you do your walkaround checks, for example, make sure to verify if there is any stone or object in the tread and check the general condition of the tyre and examine it for cuts or bulges, which could indicate possible internal damage.

As we often repeat, there is generally ever increasing emphasis on the importance of fleet compliance and safety. What was initially seen as merely just a box-ticking exercise has recently started to get the attention it deserves as clumsy attempts at cost-saving that compromise safety and compliance must no longer be an option for fleets. But safety and compliance are not only impacted by a company’s investment in risk assessment or wise processes to keep vehicles and fleet documents compliant, there is another huge factor that can definitely make a difference for a safe/unsafe or compliant/uncompliant fleet—we are talking about drivers being fit to drive.

Apart from the necessary certifications, licenses and qualifications that fleet drivers should have in order to perform their daily tasks, their health status is also extremely important as it definitely has consequences on their ability to drive and might be considered in some cases as responsible for driving behaviours bearing similarities to those of impaired driving.

Fleet driver eyesight has been under particular scrutiny recently as a police crackdown was enacted in the UK in the Thames Valley, Hampshire and West Midlands regions during the first days of September; and the last week of September has also been the UK’s National Eye Health Week.

The crackdown during the whole month of September consisted of the police stopping drivers at the roadside and checking their sight was good enough to correctly read a vehicle plate from 20 meters. Anyone not passing the test would have their licence revoked by the DVSA in an attempt to increase the safety of all road users and decrease the risks associated with drivers not having the standard of eyesight necessary for safe driving; for example, not spotting an obstacle on time, not having appropriate reaction times, which can result in dramatic consequences.

Venson, a consultant firm dealing with companies’ duty of care and compliance in fleet management, has shared the results of a study during the same period dealing with drivers’ eyesight. According to their findings, one out of four motorists interviewed were not confident at all they would pass the test posed in the new police crackdown—reading a number plate from 20 meters. Only 39% of the total respondents have expressed confidence in doing it.

According to the current legal settings ruling in the EU, employees who drive for work must have regular eyesight tests, and their employer has a duty of care to confirm drivers are physically able to do their job safely. The consequences include the possibility of prosecution and licence revocation for anyone who breaches the rules.

Drowsy driving is another issue potentially impacting on global road safety and on companies regularly relying on driving as part of their business practices. The effects of driver fatigue are partly similar to those of poor eyesight, with reduced reaction times being key, but also inability to focus, forgetting to take the correct exit on the road or getting lost without realising and constantly drifting from one lane to the other. In other news from the last few days, a research group is currently working on a new type of blood test, the stated aim of which is to detect if drivers have skipped a night’s sleep.

September has not only been the back-to-school month for companies whose business relies on vehicles, but also a period for balancing the different activities associated with their commercial operation and reviewing their readiness in terms of roadworthiness, safety and compliance.

A study on compliance inspections carried out on drivers’ hours and an RSA investigation on bus conditions in Ireland have revealed that the number of inspections into the verification of fleet compliance is considerable to the extent that companies need to have a preventive compliance strategy and never compromise safety in order to generate savings. But another inspection campaign, conducted this time by the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) of Ireland, targeting risk assessment processes, has revealed that 48% of Irish companies do not have a vehicle risk programme covering risk assessment related to their activities.

This latter campaign focussed on dedicated inspections carried out between April 9 and April 20, 2018 and published in September. In that period of time 145 inspections focussing on transport and vehicles risk have been conducted in different activity sectors, with Transport and Storage, Manufacturing and Wholesale and Retail being the most prominent. A second round of 149 inspections was conducted up until June and also counted in the results.

Driving for work was actually considered in 229 out of a total of 294 inspections as a relevant activity, but only for 49% of these companies was driving for work actually addressed in their safety statement. Despite working with vehicles being considered a high risk activity, a considerable proportion of workplaces still do not fully appreciate the statistical evidence, while a consistently high percentage (46%) of fatal incidents are connected with vehicle use.

Despite the stress made by all organisations involved and the results yielded by the different studies and the actions taken by these road safety and health and safety authorities, a lot more commitment is needed by employers in order to tackle risks related to the use of vehicles, as well as more effort needed in the management of such activities.

During the whole month of October, free driving for work seminars will be conducted by the RSA and the HSA in collaboration with An Garda Síochána, to outline legal requirements for companies regarding fleet and vehicle management, including information on best practices and how to manage drivers and provide guidance in risk management. The first two appointments were on the 4th and 5th of October, but there are two more left, they are for the 24th of October in Fota Island Resort in Cork and the 27th in Leopardstown Pavilion in Dublin.

Imagine you run a fleet of vehicles or have to manage employees that drive as part of their job, as most of our readers do, what would happen if one of your drivers was caught speeding 42 times in a row?

You might assume this is some kind of “What if?” game session, where players pose questions about hypothetical situations to stimulate creativity and thought. But we are some way from any kind of thought exercise this time; we are talking about a real life situation reported by the international press in the last few days of August.

Heimo Wallner, a baker living in the Klagenfurt area in the region of Carinthia, Austria, has been fined a total of €3,000/£2,700 for speeding on the same road 42 times in a row, caught by the same speed recorder every day on his journey back from work, at around 3 am.

The incredible fine had totted-up, according to his explanation, because he had not seen the signs advising of the 30 km/h-18.5mph limit on that particular road and would drive at an average speed of 50km/h-31mph. The case is made even more incredible when the fine became very real as Wallner got his first speeding ticket in May and later realised there were probably a lot more to come—which eventually happened: the first ticket took a month to arrive and he eventually racked up 42 penalties in total. As each offence would be treated separately, Wallner concluded it would be too difficult to challenge them individually and decided to pay all 42 penalties in one go to avoid dealing with the long and expensive challenge procedure.

According to the reported news, Wallner did manage to get €300 removed from the penalty total, but still had to wave his holiday plans goodbye in order to foot the bill. A new infrared camera that does not emit light when taking pictures caught him, hence why he never noticed the camera position while driving in the dark. 

Despite the news making some people chuckle at the astonishing number of speeding fines accumulated by one individual, this is definitely a record you would never want any of your drivers to beat or even come anything close to. It has likely happened to some of you—having to face speeding tickets now and again—but surely (hopefully!) nothing like on this scale.

There are some particular points of this news item that are significant, and you should take note of to avoid them happening in your fleet:

• This driver practiced speeding, and he continued to do so until he received the first penalty

• He only realised one month after the first event that his driving behaviour has directly resulted in a penalty, notwithstanding the safety issues he might easily have fallen foul of by exceeding the speed limit by more than 20 km/h

• Once he realised the first infraction, the uncomfortable reality dawned on him that he may have run up many more penalties—which is exactly what happened.

What would be the costs in terms of safety, compliance, penalties and reputation for your company in such a situation? It’s unimaginable. We are quite sure you would not want to wait to get the first speeding ticket before monitoring the driving style of your team and have them practice safe driving...

Despite August being a relatively quiet and relaxed period for some sectors, this certainly doesn’t mean that incidents don’t happen: it’s actually a good time of the year, rather than taking your eye of the ball, to evaluate everything and make sure the safety of your fleet is still right up to scratch (which it should be all year long, really) in order to prevent the unwelcome possibility of a safety breach.

During the month of August, two breaking stories concerning the transport sector have demonstrated once again that safety reminders are never too frequent; ongoing investigations will determine if safety breaches have been the main causes of these incidents or not (it certainly seems to be the case for at least for one of them) and what could have been done in order to prevent the events from happening. Too often, incidents regarding fleets could have been prevented with a sound safety strategy.

In the first case, a transport and storage company, H Walton Ltd, was sentenced in mid-August of this year for safety breaches connected to an event on August 9, 2017, in which one of their drivers suffered injuries leading to the loss of an arm. The episode was probably caused by a malfunctioning interlocking device of the trailer, and the emergency stop device for the discharge mechanism of the vehicle was also found not to be working after an HSE investigation. According to the inspectors, vehicles of this kind are fitted with these devices in order to prevent similar incidents, but regular checks to ensure that those safety devices were working properly had not been carried out, despite being part of the regular checks specifically prescribed for these vehicles.

Still in the month of August, a fatal collision between an HGV belonging to haulage company Eddie Stobart and a pedestrian, who allegedly was thought to have initially been driving a Volkswagen Caddy van before pulling over and exiting his vehicle, occurred in the Droitwich M5 area. At the moment, the investigating authorities think the death might have occurred as a result of a road rage incident that escalated between the two parties. It is thought that the man in his 60s died after being struck by the HGV driven by a 50 year old Eddie Stobart employee. Police are appealing for witnesses in order to clarify the causes of the collision, particularly anyone who might actually have dashcam footage of the event.

If in the first case it seems to be quite evident that a failing vehicle inspection procedure has been among the chief causes of the event, and that it could have been prevented by arranging regular safety vehicle checks. In the second case, authorities will have to verify what happened first. But in order to not be caught unprepared, make sure you have a sound safety and compliance process in your fleet; and never get too complacent about carrying out these procedures simply by rote if they really need to be updated to meet the required levels of safety.

If you need to know how to implement a comprehensive fleet safety strategy where vehicle checks and compliance are guaranteed (and your peace of mind), do not hesitate to contact us.