DRIVER safety pays - and that's the message fleet managers must take direct to their finance directors if businesses are to reap the benefits of a safety culture. Dr Will Murray, from the transport and logistics research unit at Huddersfield University, told a conference entitled Driving Business Risk Down: 'Transport safety is an organisational culture and management issue. All the driver training and assessment in the world will not improve safety if the company and management culture is not focussed on safety issues.

'Concentrating on drivers as a cause of accidents is important but organisational culture must not be overlooked, and management skills and attitude are also fundamental. Managers failing to take responsibility by not analysing their accident statistics and not taking appropriate and proactive actions are the main causes of accidents involving commercial vehicles and company cars.' Management should take action to fulfil their duty of care to employees and other members of the public by creating an 'accident free culture' based on sound data-led needs analysis.

The message fleet managers should take to their bosses was that, if they remained reactive, the results would be 'dead bodies and increased insurance premiums: being proactive and preventing accidents meant increased profits. 'Accident costs come straight from the bottom line and eat into your profits and mean you have to win more business to make up the losses. Effective risk management can stop this.'