Employee Risk Assessment

As with any other health and safety risk assessment, work-related road safety also needs to be assessed.

Your risk assessment should be appropriate to the circumstances of your organisation and does not have to be over complex or technical.

It should be carried out by a competent person with a practical knowledge of
the work activities being assessed.

Employers who employ less than five people do not have to record their findings, but they may find it helpful to make some notes.

Key factors to consider when making a work-related road safety risk assessment.

Step 1 - Look for hazards that may result in harm when driving on public roads. Remember to ask your employees what they think as they will have first hand experience of what happens in practice.

You need the views of those who drive extensively, but also get the views of those who only use the roads occasionally. The range of hazards will be wide and the main areas to think about are the driver, the vehicle and the journey.

Step 2 - Decide who might be harmed. In almost all cases this will be the driver, but it might also include passengers, other road users and/or pedestrians. You should also consider whether there are any groups who may be particularly at risk, such as young or newly qualified drivers and those driving long distances.

Step 3 - Evaluate the risk and decide whether existing precautions are adequate or more should be done. You need to consider how likely it is that each hazard will cause harm. This will determine whether or not you need to do more to reduce the risk. It is likely that some risks will remain even after all precautions are taken.

What you have to decide for each significant hazard is whether the remaining risk is acceptable. Ask yourself whether you can eliminate the hazard, eg hold a telephone or videoconference instead of making people travel to a meeting.

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