A majority of fleets want the rules changed so road crashes involving at-work drivers would be reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), according to a Fleet News poll.

They argue that including work-related road accidents in the HSE’s workplace injury and incident reporting system, RIDDOR, would establish the precise scale of the problem.

Meanwhile, that would lead to more action to tackle the problem and result in more lives being saved and injuries being reduced.

However, road safety minister Paul Clark has said he will not change the rules to include crashes involving at-work drivers, despite acknowledging that 75% of all at-work related deaths occur on the road (Fleet News, March 18).

“It is totally illogical that road, air and marine-related at-work deaths are excluded from the HSE data,” said Steve Johnson, of AA DriveTech.

“Only when these exemptions are removed will there be sufficient focus and momentum to reduce these needless deaths, most of which are related to the lack of genuine risk assessment in the workplace.”

The minister argued that he had to get the balance right in terms of what statistics he made available to avoid increased bureaucracy and the potential criticism that would entail.

David Gill, of JMC IT, agrees. “I thought we were trying to reduce red tape,” he said. “Are people incapable of a common sense approach that doesn’t require form filling in triplicate or do people think job creation at HSE is a gallant thing to do right now?”

The Fleet News poll revealed 64% wanted the accident reporting rules changed, while 36% did not. Go to www.fleetnews.co.uk for the latest online poll.

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