Summary

Whether you're a small or large company, this document provides ideas that are easy to incorporate into your safe driving policy.

Remember, even small changes can make a positive difference and may save your company money.

The booklet tells you in detail why you need a safe driving policy and how to set one up. But if all you need is a quick overview of the process, a short summary of each section follows.

The preparation

Before you write a safe driving policy, you need to do some preparation.

Find out what sort of vehicles your company uses and how your drivers use them, eg driving hours, loads carried.

Then analyse your crash history to determine how much vehicle damage and personal injury are costing you and what you need to do to increase safety and save money.

Writing a policy

We've split this into two parts: the 'must haves' and the 'could haves'.

The 'must haves' are those elements that are essential to a safe driving policy. They include:

• choosing vehicles with safety features
• maintaining them properly
• using training and education programmes to develop safer drivers.

The 'could haves' are additional points that could be addressed to ensure your new policy is effective and to gain further cost benefits through efficiency. These include:

• having a focus on fuel consumption
• having incentives and rewards for safer driving
• making the safe driving policy part of the company's health and safety policy
• encouraging healthy eating, sleep, work and exercise habits that assist safe driving.

Making sure it works

A safe driving policy will only work if everyone knows about it and staff are encouraged to follow it. Management should lead by example.

Encouraging everyone to participate

• Clearly set out staff responsibilities in your safe driving policy.
• Motivate staff to follow the policy through incentives and rewards.
• Use internal communications to make sure everyone knows about the policy.
• Enhance your reputation by advertising the fact that you have a safe driving policy at every opportunity.

Keeping an eye on your policy's success

• Keep a record of crashes and driving infringements that occur after your safe driving policy has been put in place.
• Use this to analyse how well it's working and what improvements need to be made.
• Demonstrate your commitment to the policy by organising an annual review and link the results to the performance objectives of your managers or organisation.

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Last updated: 28 August 2007