IOSH Urges Companies to Follow British Gas Safety Route!
December 12th, 2011, 2:37 pm
A five-year plan on road safety implemented by British Gas has paid off rich dividends. British Gas had taken up a 5-year programme with the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), to reduce the number of incidents of their employees. The fuel company used to spend around £7 million on damages on their own and third party vehicles, apart from the £14 million on fuel. With their fleet of over 10000 vans, 2000 company cars and as many private cars, it is no wonder!
With an eye to reducing these costs and staff safety, British Gas went into their safety programme. Their aim was to improve incident statistics as well as create general safety awareness among their staff. Quite a number of measures were brought into effect including vehicle maintenance and training in safe driving. Licenses were regularly checked and an electronic license check introduced. On the vehicle itself, speed limiters to check fuel were included, fuel was monitored and vehicles were checked for roadworthiness. Risk assessment on existing and employable drivers, especially younger drivers was regularly carried out. This along with periodic incident analysis facilitated them to make up a cool 30% reduction in incidents. Damage incident rate to the company’s vehicles is far less than the fleet industry average by 0.177.
With British Gas standardized, the IOSH is now going all out to get the other companies with large fleets to take up the highly successful road safety programme.
IOSH Courses offer all the advice and information needed for managers to successfully manage appropriate policies and procedures and improve upon management skills to help find the best ways to lead and promote health and safety, and therefore meet its legal obligations. – click IOSH Managing Safely- for information on courses accredited by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health.