MORR™ : An International Comparisons Review
Australia - New South Wales (NSW)
In NSW, the State Government is taking the lead by making fleet safety part of its platform for improving road safety over the next ten years (‘Road Safety 2010 – a framework for saving 2000 lives by the year 2010 in New South Wales”). Some brief examples of best practice workplace road safety include how fleet safety has become part of mainstream occupational health program in Australia’s largest telecommunications company.
An analysis of the registered vehicle database in NSW shows that about 20% or approximately 800,000 vehicles of the total fleet are registered for fleet or organisational purposes (8% of which are in government use). Fleet vehicles comprise of about 50% of total new vehicle sales. Of the total vehicles sales, fleet comprises about 20% of light and small vehicles, about 55% of medium, 75% of upper medium and 50% of prestige cars.
The RTA (Roads and Traffic Authority) began focusing on fleet safety in the early 1990s in tandem with developments in the private sector in companies like 3M and Telstra. In 1994, the RTA developed a fleet safety policy brochure (Safe Driving Policy for Fleet Operators) which provided advice.
A new slant on fleet safety was examined in a 1996 Parliamentary Report by the Staysafe Committee. In response to increasing recognition of workplace driving as a road safety opportunity, the NSW Parliament’s Standing Committee on road safety conducted a review into workplace driving safety. This was document in the report titled “Drivers as Workers, Vehicles as workplaces: Issues on Fleet Management” (Parliament of NSW Joint Standing Committee on Road Safety Report – Staysafe 36 – Report No. 9/51 – 1996). The report identified the fact that driving is a workplace safety issue for all organisations that operate registered vehicles and that there were requirements according to the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
The significance of workplace driving safety is supported by a national study into work-related fatalities between 1989 to 1992 (“Work related traumatic fatalities in Australia 1989 to 1992” – National Occupational Health and Safety Commission – December 1998). This noted that vehicle accidents were by far the most common mechanism involved in fatal accidents, accounting for 37% of all working deaths, and virtually all commuting deaths. The study of 2400 work related fatalities in Australia identified that 630 deaths happened during travel to and from work, and another 540 involved using vehicles as part of the job. The number of people killed in work related motor vehicle accidents is about as many as die from all other causes in the workplace (paper delivered by W. Anderson. B. Plowman at Annual Conference of Queensland Division of Safety Institute of Australia – Cairns August 99). Actions include focus on implementation of fleet safety policies in State Government Agencies.
By enabling organisations to take a major role in changing driver behaviour, the RTA is more readily able to reach its target audience of workplace drivers. The NSW RTA recently funded the development of a pilot fleet safety program in a group of municipal Councils in the south of Sydney. This was a precursor to further initiatives in fleet safety for organisations in government, profit and not for profit sectors e.g. award winning Fleetsafe Project in the Southern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (SSROC – comprises of 12 councils, operating 2700 vehicles, employing 5900 regular and occasional drivers, and spending over $1.2m in annual repair costs and nearly $1m in insurance premiums). More information on the Fleetsafe Project can be found in the Sochon papers. The Fleetsafe Report provides councils with an explicit framework to use in establishing a new driving safety culture.
Fleet safety program considerations include safety as a purchase consideration for vehicles especially in the second hand market, new safety standards for Government vehicles (safety features e.g. airbags). Funded Best practice – the Queensland Department of Transport provided assistance to volunteer organisations to develop and implement fleet safety policies. They were able to point to those organisations as best practice examples. More work has to be done to assist SMEs to develop fleet safety programs, and particularly to identify savings and other benefits.
The Queensland Government has employed a detailed Work Book incorporating the idea of self assessment against key criteria for the award of a gold, silver or bronze rating. Well over 200 companies are already using the workbook.
Road and Traffic Authority – NSW Australia - www.rta.nsw.gov.au/
Coverage of work-related fatalities in Australia by compensation and occupational H&S agencies by T Driscoll, R Mitchell, J Mandryk, S Healey, L Hendrie, B Hull (article in Occupational and environmental medicine, vol 60, No.3, March 2003, BMJ Publishing Group, Kent, UK) found that the OHS agencies had minimal coverage of work-related deaths that occurred on the road (to workers (8%) or commuters (3%), whereas the compensation system covered these deaths better than those of workers in incidents that occurred in a workplace (65% versus 53%). There was virtually no coverage of bystanders (less than 8%) by either type of agency. These statistics were compared against coroners’ reports which has wider coverage and which in theory includes all work-related fatalities, but which is poorly accessible and doesn’t contain all information about prevention, etc.
Contact Dr TR Driscoll, Elmatom Pty Ltd, NSW, Australia, elmatom@optushome.com.au
|
RoSPA is a registered charity: Registered Charity No: 207823 Patron: Her Majesty the Queen RoSPA Head Office: Edgbaston Park, 353 Bristol Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham B5 7ST, UK |
 |