RoadSafe magazine highlights occupational road risk management best practice

The very latest best practice advice and information on managing occupational road risk is featured in the newly published Spring 2007 RoadSafe magazine.

Distributed to 12,000 corporate fleet decision-makers and company directors as well as road safety professionals, vehicle manufacturers and fleet suppliers, and at-work road safety opinion formers and influencers, including politicians, the new issue is the first to be published by newly launched Swordfish Publishing.

RoadSafe, which is supported by the Department for Transport, is an automotive-led charity which aims to reduce the more than 3,000 people killed on the UK’s roads annually and the almost 300,000 injured including an estimated 200 road deaths and serious injuries each week involving someone at work.

The Spring issue features:

The new Department for Transport ‘Driving for Work Business Champions Programme’, which is being managed by RoadSafe and was officially launched at this month’s Commercial Vehicle Show in Birmingham. The campaign aims to spread advice and good practice and encourage business leaders to communicate directly with fellow employers about the benefits of managing work-related road safety.

The Government’s first ‘Driving for Work’ campaign, which is initially targeted at van drivers and has been launched under the safety-focused Think! banner.

The pan-European campaign to promote business and consumer awareness of life-saving electronic stability control, which is being launched in Rome on May 8 by eSafety Aware!, a European Commission-backed organisation, whose members include RoadSafe.

April 2007’s United Nations Global Road Safety Week, which is focused on putting road safety on the international political agenda by highlighting that more than 1.2 million people are killed and 20 to 50 million more injured annually on the world’s roads.

Corporate road safety initiatives by some of Britain’s leading companies and organisations including BT, Sainsbury’s and Pickfords.

An interview with one of Britain’s top policemen, South Yorkshire Chief Constable and RoadSafe board member Meredydd Hughes, who says ignorance is no excuse for company bosses and fleet operators to evade their occupational road risk responsibilities.

Why thousands of business drivers across Britain are being given a ‘Permit to Drive’ as recognition that their ability behind the wheel has been assessed and meets best practice standards.

In addition, the magazine, which is focused on ‘Driving for Better Business’, also highlights new safety initiatives from vehicle manufacturers, opinion columns from road safety industry leaders, new legislation emanating from both Whitehall and Brussels designed to cut the toll of death and injury on the roads, and the latest in safety breakthroughs in the world of commercial vehicles and motorcycles.

RoadSafe magazine continues to be edited by Ashley Martin, a journalist with some 27 years experience, who has edited the publication for the past four years and is a former editor of industry weekly, Fleet News. He is also a director of Swordfish Publishing, alongside Steve Carman, a long-standing motoring journalist and automotive PR executive, and Mark Robinson, a former automotive journalist who now provides a wide range of media support services to an array of motor industry companies.

RoadSafe director Adrian Walsh said: “Managing occupational road risk effectively and efficiently drives down business costs as illustrated throughout the new issue of RoadSafe magazine.

“The importance of companies taking their road safety responsibilities seriously is illustrated with the launch of two major Government-backed campaigns.

“We hope that those campaigns alongside all the other the articles in the magazine provides the thousands of small, medium and large companies that have so far failed to take their corporate safety responsibility seriously with the incentive to get to grips with managing the safety of their at-work drivers and simultaneously reap financial, moral and ethical rewards.”