Royal Mail, Tesco and Zurich win fleet safety awards
Two of Britain’s best-known businesses have won prestigious Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards for fleet vehicle initiatives they have taken to cut road crashes.
Royal Mail Group and Tesco.com each won a Fleet Operator Award, sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) Fleet.
Meanwhile, leading insurer Zurich for its long-established commitment to helping businesses improve their road safety won the Fleet Service Award, sponsored by Fleet Support Group, Britain’s largest independent fleet management company, in the 2009 Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards.
The Awards were officially announced at a ceremony at London’s Park Lane Hotel (Tuesday, December 8) hosted by Prince Michael of Kent. He founded the awards 22 years ago to give public recognition to organisations and individuals throughout Britain - and more recently worldwide - who have made a major contribution to improving road safety.
Prince Michael said: “Both Royal Mail Group and Tesco.com have implemented far-reaching occupational road risk management programmes that all other businesses would do well to follow.
“Both are tremendous examples of what can be achieved in improving the safety of employees and all other road users if organisations at board level have the desire to invest in road safety.
“As well as driver safety, reducing the number of crashes involving at work drivers is also proven to save thousands and, in the case of large fleets, millions of pounds and also improves business efficiency and the image of an organisation.
“Effective management of those who drive for work is an important element of general management - if it isn’t addressed properly, the negative impact on profit can be very significant.
“Both companies are real world testimony to the ability to significantly impact costs and reduce on-road incidents and risk exposure generally by putting in place a range of interventions.”
Royal Mail Group and Tesco.com are among the almost 40 organisations that have earned ‘business champion’ status under the Government-backed ‘Driving for Better Business’ campaign, which is delivered by RoadSafe.
The ‘business champion’ fleets from across the public and private sectors have all agreed to showcase their own good practice, with the aim of encouraging other organisations to adopt sound safe driving management policies.
An estimated 150 road deaths and serious injuries a week result from crashes involving at work drivers with more employees killed and seriously injured on Britain’s roads while driving on behalf of their employer than in any other work-related activity.
Commenting on Zurich’s continuing innovative approach to fleet underwriting and risk engineering through its global Transportation Centre of Expertise, Prince Michael said: “The company works hand-in-hand with a string of high-profile clients including BT, Nestle, Wolseley, Johnson & Johnson as well as small and medium-sized fleets across the UK.
“Having first analysed a company’s risk position, Zurich has developed a wide range of tools as well as management initiatives for customers to implement to drive down their organisations’ risk exposure. There is no doubt that Zurich’ risk-led approach to fleet insurance is paying huge dividends for clients in delivering sustained improvements in at-work driving safety.
Melvyn Hodgetts, technical safety manager at Royal Mail, said: “The safety of our people is Royal Mail’s number one priority and we have implemented a series of initiatives as part of a safer driving programme that have seen the number of incidents fall by more than a quarter.
“With such a large and distinctive fleet, we have a responsibility to make sure we provide a safe environment for our people and the communities in which we operate.”
Keith Price, operations director, Tesco.com, said: “Tesco.com is proud and delighted to receive a Prince Michael Award in recognition of its contribution in managing occupational road risk.
“The safety of our drivers (customer delivery assistants) and members of the public are of paramount importance and we are continually reviewing ways to improve our position.
“Telematics has supported our commitment by continually monitoring the driving style and behaviours of our drivers but is only part of the programme that we have undertaken to ensure that they are capable and competent.
“Whilst we have made great progress by introducing our driver training programme we consider ourselves to be still very much on a journey of risk management.”
Andy Price, practice leader - motor fleet, Zurich Risk Engineering UK, said: “Zurich is delighted that our philosophy towards work-related road risk management has been recognised by the Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards judging panel.
“We believe that by taking a technically honest approach towards helping our customers identify, analyse and understand the risks that their drivers face, and by helping them select the appropriate management and/or individually-focused interventions, that this gives them the best chance of achieving a sustainable reduction in their collision rates, helping to reduce injuries and death on the road.
“Our approach has led to many of our customers achieving significant, sustainable reductions in their claims frequencies which has helped enhance their safety performance - indeed some of them aware award winners themselves – and has also reduced the direct and uninsured losses associated with every collision. This award will further demonstrate to our customers the effectiveness of our approach towards motor fleet risk management.”