Supermarket’s home delivery division wins top RoSPA award

Tesco Dotcom has won the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents’ top award for managing occupational road risk for the second time in three years.

The company was presented with the RoSPA MORR Trophy at a ceremony in Birmingham last night (May 14).

It was selected to win the trophy in recognition of its continuous, comprehensive and systematic approach to MORR.

Tesco Dotcom has a wide-ranging management approach, which does not just focus on training drivers, although that is an important part of its system. It clearly demonstrates senior leadership in MORR, involving several levels of management at both head office and individual store level.

It also works hard to achieve the active involvement of its workforce and has extensive monitoring and reporting processes and detailed, pro-active accident investigation systems.

In addition, the judging panel highlighted Tesco Dotcom’s heavy investment in vehicle selection and the fact that the use of hands-free mobile phones is now banned while employees are driving for work.

The RoSPA MORR Trophy was presented as part of the safety charity’s annual Occupational Health and Safety Awards, sponsored by NEBOSH (The National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health).

Colas Limited, of Crawley, and ScottishPower Fleet Business, of Glasgow, were both highly commended in the MORR category.

Three firms were commended: AWE Plc, of Reading; Royal Mail Vehicle Services, of Chesterfield; and Wolseley UK, of Leamington Spa.

An additional 17 businesses and organisations were presented with gold, silver or bronze achievement awards for managing occupational road risk.

Tom Mullarkey, RoSPA chief executive, said: “RoSPA encourages firms to manage occupational road risk as they would any other aspect of health and safety – by taking a systematic approach rather than implementing one-off interventions.

“The fact that Tesco Dotcom won this award in 2007 and now again in 2009 shows that the company takes seriously the safety of its employees and others on the road.

“We congratulate Tesco Dotcom and our other MORR award winners for the commitment they have shown to this important issue and we encourage other businesses and organisations to follow their lead.”

RoSPA's mission is to save lives and reduce injuries.

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