Roadsafe’s Driving for Better Business programme began in January 2007. The programme followed consultation between the Minister of State for Transport and the Motorists’ Forum about how employers could better prioritise road
safety for those who drive cars or vans for business. One of the key messages to come from this consultation was that motorists felt the industry should take action itself to tackle work-related safety issues rather than simply relying on legislation and road safety organisations.

The result of this was the Driving for Better Business programme, delivered by Roadsafe on behalf of the Department for Transport. The programme’s main focus is on a systematic business to business outreach programme. It identifies business champions who then go out to their fellow businesses and spread the word on their own good practice, emphasising the benefits it has brought to them rather than seeking to improve practice through legislative threats and the evangelising of exterior agencies.

Caroline Scurr, programme consultant for Roadsafe, explains: “We felt it was very important to get a positive message out there. There were a lot of scare stories floating around in relation to corporate manslaughter, and people were genuinely afraid of potentially going to prison for not getting things right. We wanted to focus on what companies can do, and the benefits that a good safety policy can bring, rather than trying to scare people into compliance, and the best way of doing that is for companies that are doing a good job to share their experiences, and highlight how good practice can bring financial gains to an organisation as well as legal and health and safety ones.”

After initial consultation, the programme was officially launched at summer 07’s Commercial Vehicle Show
with just two initial champions, and in partnership with Mercedes, which was using the same event to launch its Safety Van. Scurr explains the logistics of getting the programme up and running: “My role prior to coming to Roadsafe was as a road safety officer, so I already had experience in the field, and knew some organisations where best practice was already part of the culture. This meant that, although we started with just two champions we were able to target a good cross section of business. One was a large international supermarket chain, while the other was a small local electrical contractor. It was important to us to not only get big business on board, but to get the smaller end of the sector too, and we managed this right from the word go.”

The first six months of the programme, claims Scurr, was something of a voyage of discovery: “We worked with local authorities to recruit champions through road safety events,” she says. “On top of this, we worked alongside trade bodies like the Electrical Contractors’ Association to try and identify champions among their members. We concluded that about 20 was an ideal number of champions to work with initially. It’s a big enough number to get the message out there, but at the same time manageable enough to be able to supply them with background material and support and to give each champion the opportunity to speak at events and also develop a really close relationship with them, rather than struggling to cope with a huge number of champions and ot really get the relationship right.”

Through a rising profile at events like the CV Show, as well as the outreach work of the initial champions, Roadsafe soon met its target, and it is now well into the phase of spreading the safety message through its members speaking at conferences and business events, through the selection of case studies available on the Roadsafe website and through its magazine and regular electronic mailings, press releases and so on.

Roadsafe’s committee, meanwhile, made up of key industry figures as well as representatives from the Driving Standards Agency, the DfT and Transport for London, plus chairman John Lewis of the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association, monitors the programme’s progress and ensures the right message is being given out. Scurr says: “ The message is quite simply that effective management makes sense. That safety management leads to cost benefits as well as legal compliance. Secondary to this though, is the message that our champions can demonstrate these benefits in practice. We’re looking at risk assessment, management policies, training, maintenance, and all our champions have shown themselves to have taken top down responsibility for these areas, as well as shown a commitment to talking about good practice.

“Roadsafe itself acts as a central hub for the dissemination of this information by providing an up to date website, and also takes responsibility for dovetailing this work with the work of other road safety agencies and campaigns, plus environmental campaigns and other areas where our work is relevant. Safe driving, it should be noted, can usually be linked closely with environmentally responsible driving.”

Roadsafe currently has funding until next April, although Scurr hopes to see this extended for a further three years, and it is currently committed to recruiting a new champion every month until at least the end of its current funding. For more information about the work of Roadsafe, the Driving for Better Business programme, or if you think your organisation has what it takes to be a champion, visit the website at www.roadsafe.com.