Are fleet managers responsible for commuting?

At a recent conference on driving for business, one issue dominated the thinking of all the fleet managers present: should they be responsible for commuting?

They have good reason to be concerned about this issue.

Although statistics in the UK showing the relation of commuting collisions to other occupational accidents are patchy, as not all police forces collect data about the purposes of journeys at accident scenes, figures from the rest of Europe are sobering.

In Belgium, France, Finland and Germany, deaths from commuting – mainly in road transport collisions – stand at around 45% of all occupational deaths and between 10 and 15% of all occupational incidents, according to a report from German insurer Munich Re.

Dr Will Murray, research director at Interactive Driving Systems, says: “Driving represents the biggest occupational risk for most companies, and commuters are at greater risk than any other non-vocational driver.

"More police die driving to and from work than die fighting crime. And more fire-fighters die driving to and from work than die fighting fire.”

The legal case for UK companies having to manage commuting is weak.

While standard Health and Safety legislation – and by extension corporate manslaughter laws – make it incumbent upon companies and individuals to ensure the safety of the public and employees, commuting is not specifically covered by the ‘driving at work’ HSE legislation unless the commuter is heading to an unfamiliar location.

However, managers must ensure that employees’ working hours and conditions do not leave them unfit to drive.

A successful prosecution has already been brought against a Cambridgeshire produce company whose worker died in a collision outside working hours.

The company was found not to have ensured that staff were not working beyond the point of exhaustion, rendering them unfit to drive.

Equally, the insurance angle is not as compelling in the UK as in other European countries, which have a different system of worker compensation.

Most commuting will be covered by the employee’s personal car insurance, as occupational insurance in the UK rarely includes this.

Although the legal and insurance cases for managers taking responsibility for minimising commuting risk is sketchy, there are several reasons why including commuting within occupational risk assessments makes sense.

There is a strong business case, including protection of key workers, protection of assets, environmental and CSR benefits and lower costs.

The company’s brand and reputation can also be enhanced by an excellent worker safety regime and damaged by any kind of incident.

“There is an argument about whether employers can do anything to protect commuters, but the evidence is that, yes they certainly can,” says Murray.

Perhaps the most compelling reason to manage the commute is that health and safety is all about protection of the individual, whether an employee, a visitor or a member of the public.

If that is accepted as a progressive and sensible ethos, then it makes no sense to leave workers vulnerable and unsupported at the riskiest period in their day.