The 'must haves'

Choose vehicles with a high safety rating

The following features are recommended for new car buyers:

• Electronic Stability Control – systems that use sensors to detect and prevent a car going out of control
• four-star minimum NCAP crash rating – safety ratings based on crash test results (see www.landtransport.govt.nz/vehicles/ancap/ and www.euroncap.com)
• head-protecting side or 'curtain' airbags.

When you buy, hire or equip company vehicles, you should also consider:

• an easily visible colour
• good rearward visibility / rear-view camera
• active safety belt reminders
• active head restraints to reduce whiplash
• a three-point safety belt and head restraint for the centre rear seat
• automatic daytime running lights
• speed warning devices.

Fleet buyers are also advised to consider alcohol interlocks. These prevent a car being started if any alcohol is detected when the driver blows into a breath-testing device.

Maintain your company vehicles

Short cuts in vehicle maintenance can cost lives. Vehicle faults were reported as a contributing factor in around 470 of all crashes during 2006. Most common were worn tyres, punctures, faulty brakes and insecure loads.

You could be charged by the police for any part of the vehicle that is below warrant of fitness standard (even if it has a current WoF) and fined up to $2000 for operating an unsafe vehicle. Well-maintained vehicles also use fuel more efficiently.

Vehicle maintenance should consider:

• manufacturer's requirements – you must follow maintenance schedules, otherwise your vehicle warranty may not be valid
• tyre checks – tyres are cited in over half of those fatal crashes where vehicle defects are a contributing factor so tyre pressure and tread depth should be checked regularly (your policy should specify whose responsibility this is)
• safety belt checks – look for fading, fraying, cuts and flexibility
• rust – on the main structural parts of any vehicle rust can be dangerous and should be repaired immediately; rust removed early also stops spreading and saves money
• exhaust system – regularly inspected, this protects the occupants from carbon monoxide poisoning
• servicing – a qualified mechanic should regularly service all vehicles
• special equipment – all vehicles should be fitted with a fire extinguisher, a first aid kit, a torch and an emergency triangle.

You should also provide a safe, obstacle-free area for vehicle servicing and parking.

Create safer drivers through training and education

Consider who needs what level of training eg staff who drive a company or pool vehicle, inexperienced drivers, staff recently involved in accidents or offences, and those who drive their own vehicles to work.

Choose the best driving programme for your money. Courses vary from driver seminars to practical advanced driver training courses.

Overseas experience suggests that companies should keep up regular training sessions – one-off sessions are not adequate.

Courses to consider:

• Your own internal courses – regular staff meetings to discuss driving issues can help develop and maintain a road safety culture.
• Corporate defensive driving courses – teaching drivers to identify dangerous situations and make adjustments to avoid a crash.
• Individually designed courses – delivered by individual providers to suit specific staff needs.
• Courses for special vehicles, e.g. 4WD, forklifts.
• First aid courses.
• Transporting dangerous goods courses.
• Driver assessment courses – 40-minute driving sessions, carried out by a Land Transport NZ-approved driving instructor, to assess a driver's hazard identification, and search, control and traffic observing skills. After assessment, training requirements and programmes can be recommended.

A list of approved course providers is available on the Land Transport NZ website.

For a list of driving instructors refer to your Yellow Pages. For more information about accredited training courses and programmes visit the website for Tranzqual ITO, the industry training organisation for logistics.

Address driver fatigue

This is a major cause of fatal crashes. Your policy must encourage work schedules that include regular breaks and are planned realistically so that the drivers arrive at their destination safely and feeling refreshed. There must also be sufficient recovery time between journeys.

Fatigue is tiredness, weariness or exhaustion. Fatigue can impair driving long before you 'nod off' at the wheel. The most common effects of fatigue on driving are:

• difficulty keeping your car within a lane
• drifting off the road
• more frequent and unnecessary changes in speed
• not reacting in time to avoid a dangerous situation.

Fatigue has the potential to affect all staff whether they drive as part of their job or simply drive to and from work. When you are fatigued:

• your reactions are slower and ability to concentrate is reduced
• it takes longer to understand what is happening around you at work or on the road
• it can contribute to feeling the discomfort from pain or injury.

Under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992, employers have a responsibility to ensure a safe work environment. This includes a system to assess and control whether fatigue is a significant hazard in their place of work, particularly when employees use a vehicle in the course of their work.

Commercial drivers

New work time requirements for commercial transport service drivers apply from 1 October 2007. One of the main changes is that all hours spent working are counted as work time (not just time spent driving). If you employ commercial drivers, you have a legal responsibility to ensure they comply with the new requirements (including ensuring that hours worked are recorded in logbooks or other approved systems).

Work time limits for commercial drivers:

• In general, commercial drivers must take a break of at least 30 minutes after 5 1/2 hours of work time - no matter what type of work takes place during that period.
• Drivers can work a maximum of 13 hours in any 24-hour period. They must then take a break of at least 10 hours (as well as the standard half-hour breaks required every 5 1/2 hours)
• Drivers can accumulate work time of up to 70 hours before they must take a break of at least 24 hours.

See Land Transport NZ's Work time and logbooks guide for more information on the new requirements.

While not a legal requirement, it is recommended that driving between midnight and 6 am be kept to a minimum.

Even if a driver is within the maximum hours, they can still become fatigued. To manage fatigue, you need to consider the home and work environment. Use strategies in combination, and customise them to suit individuals and situations. Fatigue can only be managed effectively if organisations work together with their staff.

Non-commercial drivers

If your staff are not used to constant driving and/or are not getting adequate, quality sleep their tolerance to fatigue may be lower. You should make allowances for this and not expect them to drive to the limits for commercial drivers. Ten-minute breaks every two hours are recommended as well as a good sleep the night before a long trip. Driving between midnight and 6 am is not recommended.

Staff should know how to recognise the signs of tiredness in themselves and others. These are:

• sore or heavy eyes
• constant yawning
• daydreaming
• varying vehicle speed or poor lane driving for no reason.

Drivers should know about:

• time management – planning their trip and allowing plenty of time
• getting plenty of sleep before a long journey
• taking a short nap of around 20 minutes if they're sleepy
• taking naps in the passenger seat, in a safe place with the doors locked
• eating sensibly during a long journey
• sharing the driving.

Managers should:

• plan meetings or events to start later and end earlier to accommodate staff travelling long distances to attend
• consider offering an overnight stay if meeting times can't be adjusted for safety
• encourage the use of taxis or arrange transport if fatigue has been identified as a risk.

At home, drivers should be encouraged to:

• avoid eating or drinking too much before bed
• avoid alcohol, caffeine and cigarettes before bed
• take naps - even and 20-40 minute 'power nap' helps
• take responsibility and communicate if they are fatigued.

Quick tips

• The only cure for fatigue is quality sleep. Considering both the home and work environment is important because there may be out-of-work factors making your staff fatigued.
• Record incident, crash and near-miss data and link this to work design and time-of-day factors.
• Find ways to rotate work and vary tasks to minimise fatigue. What people are rostered to work and what they actually work needs to be managed.
• Consider the provision of rest facilities, nutritious food and access to drinking water.

Address driver distraction

Driving is a complicated task requiring continuous concentration. Overseas studies have shown that anything that diverts a driver's attention for more than a second can significantly increase the likelihood of a crash, near-crash or incident.
Distracting factors include external distractions such as looking at road signs or scenery, and internal distractions such as talking with passengers, eating or drinking and using cellphones or other electronic devices. Reaching for an object such as a ringing cellphone or a dropped object is particularly dangerous - increasing crash risk by up to eight times.

To minimise distraction while driving, encourage staff to:

• switch off cellphones when driving
• ask passengers to be quiet if the driver is having difficulty concentrating
• ensure windscreens and mirrors are clean and adjust in-vehicle controls (including radio/stereo) before setting off
• if unfamiliar with the route, check on a map before commencing the journey or encourage drivers to pull over when checking routes
• ensure goods carried are properly secured (see Land Transport NZ's Loading and towing safely brochure)
• take regular breaks rather than eating, drinking or smoking while driving.

(The Smoke-free Environments Act 1990 allows smoking in a work vehicle if everyone using that vehicle gives written consent. However, to protect the health and safety of your staff, it is recommended that all work vehicles are smoke-free and that smoking while driving is prohibited.)

Discourage the use of cellphones while driving

Research shows that using a hands-free car kit is no safer than using a handheld cellphone, as the conversation itself can be very distracting.

A ringing cellphone is also a distraction - therefore the safest policy is to recommend cellphones are turned off while driving.

Where staff need to stay in contact on the road, they should pull over when it is safe to stop before returning a call. If an employee does choose to answer a call, conversations should be kept brief, eg 'I am driving, I will call you back in 10 minutes'. Staff should be encouraged to choose when and where it is safe to talk on the phone, rather than letting the timing of their calls be dictated by the ringing phone.

Texting while driving should be strictly prohibited.

The facts

In 2006, diverted attention contributed to 11 percent of all crashes, including 26 fatal crashes, 192 serious injury crashes and 1023 minor injury crashes. As with fatigue, research indicates the number of crashes in which distraction is a factor is likely to be under-recorded.

Prohibit speeding

Speeding, another major cause of crashes, must be prohibited. Not only can you save lives, you save on fuel consumption and cost. Your safe driving policy should help lower speed by:

• making sure staff have adequate time to travel between destinations
• making staff responsible for their own speeding tickets
• making speeding a disciplinary issue
• providing regular educational sessions on driver responsibility
• ensuring managers communicate that meeting deadlines is not worth speeding.

Speeding is not just about exceeding the speed limit. It can also be about driving too fast for the conditions, eg wet or icy roads, heavy traffic, cornering.

Prohibit drink-driving and other drugs

Driving under the influence of drink, drugs or medication that affects driving ability must be prohibited. To help cut drink-driving:

• be a responsible host and provide food and non-alcoholic drinks at functions
• provide courtesy vans from work functions
• encourage the use of taxis and designated drivers
• provide regular educational sessions in driver responsibility.

The facts

During 2006:

• alcohol-affected drivers contributed to 29 percent of fatal crashes and 14 percent of injury crashes
• excessive speed probably contributed to 31 percent of fatal crashes and 16 percent of injury crashes.

Promote the use of safety belts and other safety features

To ensure safety belt wearing:

• do not pay fines on behalf of staff
• give incentives to increase safety belt wearing
• hold educational sessions in driver responsibility and risk.

Safety belts are now part of warrant of fitness and certificate of fitness checks. A damaged or worn safety belt can break or stretch in a crash. Safety belts can be affected by:

• deterioration from UV light
• fraying from rubbing on fittings
• cuts or holes in the fabric
• changes in flexibility or suppleness.

Quick tips

• Want to know which are the safest vehicles to buy or hire? See the safety performance of new vehicles from the Australasian New Car Assessment Programme (ANCAP) on the Land Transport NZ website. Choose vehicles with the highest ANCAP score within your budget. See also the used car safety ratings for older vehicles.
• Buy air-conditioned vehicles if your drivers will be travelling in hot and damp weather – it helps to combat fatigue and demists windows. However, be aware that it's not always the most fuel-efficient way to cool a car.
• Light-coloured vehicles are easier to see.
• Buying vehicles with extra safety features, and maintaining them well, will improve their re-sale value.
• It's not enough to obtain a warrant of fitness or a certificate of fitness and then forget about vehicle maintenance for six months or a year. This is the minimum standard that should be met. If vehicles are travelling long distances, they should get more frequent servicing.

The facts

Wearing a safety belt increases the chances of staff surviving a crash by 40 percent. Front and rear safety belts must be used at all times – it's the law. The fine for not wearing a safety belt is $150.

In the 12 months to March 2007, 77 people were killed not wearing safety belts. At least 22 of those lives would have been saved if they had worn the belts available.

Read case studies

• Case study: Massey combats driver fatigue
• Case study: LG Anderson gets its staff on board

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Last updated: 12 September 2007