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Driving for Work Legislation: What Every Employer Needs to Know

Road traffic law governs the driver, but health and safety law also reaches the decisions made behind the journey.

There is no single ‘driving for work act’ containing every employer obligation. Instead, workplace road risk sits across health and safety law, road traffic law and, in the most serious circumstances, corporate criminal liability. That can make the subject appear complicated, but the central expectation is straightforward: employers must manage foreseeable work-related driving risks so far as is reasonably practicable.

This article provides a practical overview for employers in Great Britain. It is not a substitute for legal advice, and organisations operating specialist vehicles, passenger services or across national borders may face additional requirements.

Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974

Section 2 places a general duty on employers to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of employees at work. Section 3 extends protection to people who are not employees but may be affected by the undertaking, highly relevant when work vehicles share the road with passengers, pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists.

The HSE is explicit that health and safety law applies to work activities on the road in the same way as it does at a fixed site. Employers cannot treat a public road as a boundary beyond which their management responsibilities disappear.

Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999

These Regulations require suitable and sufficient assessment of risks to employees and others arising from work activities. They also support practical arrangements for planning, organising, controlling, monitoring and reviewing preventive measures, together with access to competent assistance and appropriate information and training.

For driving, this means assessing the driver, vehicle and journey rather than relying on a generic statement that ‘all drivers must obey the Highway Code’. The assessment should be proportionate to the operation and should lead to controls that are implemented and reviewed. Organisations with five or more employees must record significant findings via a risk assessment and have a written driver safety policy in place that is adequately communicated to staff.

Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER)

PUWER is relevant because vehicles provided for work are also work equipment. Company cars, vans and minibuses fall within its scope: employers must ensure they are suitable for the task, maintained in a safe condition and, where necessary, inspected. HSE guidance explains that more specific road traffic legislation takes precedence when these vehicles are used on public roads or in public places.

Regulation 9 also requires adequate health and safety training for people who use work equipment and those who supervise or manage its use. A driving licence alone does not establish competence for every vehicle or work task. Employers should identify any gaps and provide proportionate familiarisation, instruction and training covering safe use, relevant risks and precautions. The training needed depends on the vehicle, the work and the individual’s existing competence.

Road traffic and vehicle law

Drivers remain personally responsible for complying with road traffic law, including rules on speed, mobile phones, alcohol and drugs, seat belts, licensing and dangerous or careless driving. Vehicles must be appropriately taxed where required, insured, maintained and roadworthy. Additional regimes apply to areas such as drivers’ hours, operator licensing, vehicle weights and passenger transport.

Employers should not assume that the driver’s legal responsibility absolves the business. If working practices encourage unsafe decisions to be made, the business is liable insofar as they will have failed in their duty of care.

Corporate and individual consequences

The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 may apply where the way an organisation’s activities are managed or organised causes a death. This amounts to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care, and senior management failure is a substantial element. Other health and safety offences may apply without a death occurring; they are concerned with exposure to risk, not only the final outcome.

Depending on the facts, individuals may also face road traffic charges or health and safety consequences. Beyond prosecution, a collision can produce civil claims, insurance difficulties, regulatory scrutiny, lost contracts and severe reputational damage.

What compliance looks like

A defensible system identifies everyone who drives for work, verifies licences and insurance, assesses risk, provides suitable vehicles and training, manages fatigue and distraction, sets realistic schedules, records checks and defects, investigates incidents and monitors performance.

Documentation is important, but evidence that arrangements are actually followed is more persuasive than a polished policy alone.

Employers should also keep their legal register and policy under review. Guidance, vehicle technology, working arrangements and organisational responsibilities change, and a document written several years ago may no longer reflect the operational requirements of the business.

Assign a competent person, a road safety ‘Champian’ to monitor relevant developments and translate them into practical action. Where uncertainty involves specialist licensing, passenger transport, drivers’ hours, cross-border work or a serious incident, obtain appropriate professional advice rather than relying on custom, hearsay or an internet checklist.

Legislation should not be viewed simply as a threat. It provides a framework for preventing harm and building a more reliable operation. The real test is whether decisions made by the organisation support lawful, safe driving in practice. If an investigator examined your schedules, training records, vehicle checks, licence controls and management communications today, what story would the evidence tell?

Who Is Responsible for Driver Safety in Your Organisation?

Driver safety is a shared responsibility, but shared must never mean unclear.

Ask who is responsible for workplace driver safety and the quickest answer is often ‘the driver’. Drivers certainly carry serious personal responsibilities: they must obey road traffic law, drive within their competence, report anything that affects their fitness or entitlement, and take reasonable care of themselves and others. But that is only part of the picture.

Work-related driving is created, organised and influenced by the business. Senior leaders approve resources and priorities; managers allocate work and set deadlines; fleet teams choose and maintain vehicles; health and safety advisers establish systems; and drivers put those arrangements into practice. Effective management depends on each person understanding what they own, and being held accountable for it.

The board and senior leadership

Ultimate accountability begins at the top. Directors should ensure that occupational road risk is included within the organisation’s health and safety arrangements, that competent advice is available and that adequate resources are provided. They should receive meaningful performance information, question adverse trends and ensure that serious incidents lead to action.

Leadership is visible in the priorities the organisation rewards. If commercial targets consistently outrank safe journey planning, drivers will notice. Leaders must make clear that no appointment, delivery or sales call is important enough to justify speeding, distraction, fatigue or an unsafe vehicle.

Line managers and operational planners

Line managers often exert the greatest daily influence. They determine workload, routes, shift patterns, deadlines and contact expectations. They should check that employees are authorised and fit for the task, allow enough time for journeys and breaks, respond appropriately to concerns, and avoid contacting people while they may be driving.

Crucially, managers need training too. It is unrealistic to expect a supervisor to manage road risk well if they have never been shown how scheduling, fatigue, vehicle choice and management behaviour affect driving. Driver training alone cannot compensate for unsafe management decisions.

Fleet, HR and health and safety functions

Fleet teams typically manage vehicle selection, maintenance, defects, insurance and data. HR may oversee recruitment, licence declarations, health information and disciplinary processes. Health and safety professionals may coordinate risk assessments, policies, audits and investigations. These functions must work together rather than create separate fragments of a system.

Clear escalation routes are essential. Who acts when a licence check reveals points? Who decides whether medication or a medical condition requires further advice? Who removes an unsafe vehicle from service? Who reviews a collision and follows up actions? If the answer is uncertain, risk can sit unattended between departments.

The driver’s responsibilities

Drivers must cooperate with their employer’s arrangements, follow policy, complete checks, report defects and incidents, use vehicles correctly and speak up when conditions are unsafe. They should never assume that using their own vehicle transfers all responsibility away from the organisation. Equally, organisational controls do not remove the driver’s duty to comply with road traffic law.

Employees also need psychological safety: confidence that they can report fatigue, defects, workload pressure or a near miss without being dismissed as difficult. Silence conceals risk; open reporting allows it to be managed.

Make accountability explicit

A useful responsibility map should name the role responsible for authorisation, licence checks, risk assessment, training, vehicle maintenance, grey-fleet evidence, journey planning, incident investigation, data review and policy approval. Deputies and escalation points should also be identified. This turns a vague collective duty into an operating system.

An effective way to test the map is to follow one ordinary journey from start to finish. Who approved the driver, confirmed the vehicle, planned the work, monitored completion and dealt with any problem? Then repeat the exercise for a privately owned car and an occasional driver. These simple walkthroughs expose duplicated effort and missing ownership. The finished responsibilities should be documented in role descriptions and procedures, supported with authority and resources, and reviewed whenever the organisation, fleet or work pattern changes.

Responsibility should be reinforced through objectives, induction, refresher training, audits and leadership review. The question is not simply who receives blame after a collision, but who had the ability to prevent it beforehand. If a serious incident occurred tomorrow, could everyone in your organisation explain, without hesitation, what they were responsible for doing to keep that driver and the public safe?

What Could a Serious Health and Safety Failure Cost Your Business?

Health and safety failures can have devastating human consequences. They can also expose an organisation to substantial financial penalties, reputational damage and operational disruption.

For businesses whose employees drive for work, these responsibilities do not stop at the workplace gate. The Health and Safety Executive state that health and safety law applies to work activities on the road in the same way as it does on a fixed site.

Employers must therefore manage the risks associated with the driver, the vehicle and the journey.

How are health and safety fines calculated?

When sentencing an organisation in England and Wales, the court first assesses the seriousness of the offence by considering:

The organisation’s level of culpability
The seriousness of the harm risked
The likelihood of that harm occurring
Whether multiple people were exposed
Whether the breach significantly contributed to actual harm

The court then considers the organisation’s annual turnover to identify the relevant sentencing table and starting point fine. Aggravating and mitigating circumstances, profitability and the organisation’s wider financial position can all affect the final penalty.

Importantly, a health and safety prosecution does not necessarily depend on somebody being injured. The offence can arise from creating or failing to control a significant risk of harm.

What might a medium-culpability breach cost?

As a broad illustration, the Sentencing Council gives the following starting points for an offence assessed as medium culpability and Harm Category 2:

Organisation size	Annual turnover	Starting point fine
Micro	Up to £2 million	£30,000
Small	£2 million–£10 million	£54,000
Medium	£10 million–£50 million	£240,000
Large	£50 million or more	£600,000

These are starting points, not automatic or fixed penalties. The final fine may be adjusted upwards or downwards according to the specific circumstances of the case.

Although the guidance does not calculate fines using a fixed percentage of turnover, these examples can broadly represent around 0.5% to 3% of turnover, depending on where the organisation sits within its turnover band.

For general awareness, a figure of approximately 1% to 2.5% of annual turnover may help illustrate the possible scale of a significant, medium-culpability breach. However, it must not be presented as a statutory formula or a reliable prediction of the fine in an individual case.

When the risk is more serious

Where an offence involves high culpability and Harm Category 1—which can include creating a high likelihood of death or life-changing injury—the starting points rise considerably:

Organisation size	Starting point	Sentencing range
Small	£250,000	£170,000–£1 million
Medium	£950,000	£600,000–£2.5 million
Large	£2.4 million	£1.5 million–£6 million

For very large organisations, the court may go beyond the range provided for large businesses where this is necessary to achieve a proportionate sentence. There is no fixed turnover threshold that automatically defines an organisation as “very large”.

Fines for relevant corporate breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 can be unlimited. The court must ensure that the penalty is sufficiently substantial to have a genuine economic impact and to reinforce the importance of compliance at management and shareholder level.

This article provides general information and should not be treated as legal advice. Sentencing decisions depend on the individual facts and circumstances of each case.

What does this mean for businesses with employees who drive?

If employees drive cars, vans or other vehicles for work, relying on a valid driving licence and vehicle insurance is not enough. Employers should be able to demonstrate that work-related road risk is being properly managed.

This should include:

A suitable driver risk assessment
A clear and communicated driver safety policy
Appropriate licence and vehicle checks
Driver induction and ongoing training
Safe journey planning and realistic schedules
Procedures for reporting defects, incidents and concerns
Evidence that arrangements are monitored and reviewed

Failing to manage these risks can expose employees, passengers and other road users to harm. It can also leave the business unable to demonstrate that it has taken reasonably practicable steps to meet its duty of care.

Prevention costs less than failure

Effective driver risk management is not simply about avoiding prosecution. It protects people, supports legal compliance, reduces collisions and helps control insurance, repair, downtime and reputational costs.

The key question is not whether your organisation can afford to manage driver safety properly, it’s whether it can afford the consequences of failing to do so!

Driving for Work: Is Your Business Meeting Its Duty of Care?

For many organisations, driving is simply viewed as a necessary part of doing business. Yet it may be one of the most dangerous activities employees undertake during their working day.

Employees visit customers, travel between sites, make deliveries, attend meetings or transport equipment. According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), health and safety law applies to work-related driving in the same way that it applies to activities carried out in a fixed workplace. If an employee drives or rides on the road as part of their work, their employer must manage the associated health and safety risks.

The important question is: can your business demonstrate that it is doing so?

Duty of care does not end at the workplace gates

Employers have a legal duty to take reasonably practicable steps to protect employees and others who may be affected by their work activities. When people drive for work, this responsibility extends beyond the office, warehouse or factory and onto the public road.

Road traffic law places responsibilities on the individual driver. However, this does not remove the employer’s wider duty to manage occupational road risk.

An organisation should consider whether its drivers are competent, authorised, properly licensed and fit to drive. It must also consider whether vehicles are safe and suitable, and whether journeys are planned in a way that avoids unnecessary risk.

These responsibilities apply to more than professional drivers. They can include sales representatives, engineers, carers, managers, tradespeople and anyone else who drives as part of their job, even if they only make occasional business journeys.

They also apply when employees use their own vehicles for work. This is commonly known as the ‘grey fleet’. An employer should not assume that a privately owned vehicle is automatically roadworthy, correctly insured or suitable for the journey.

What does effective driver risk management look like?

Managing work-related road risk does not need to become an unnecessarily complicated exercise. However, it does require more than a paragraph in a general health and safety policy.

A robust approach should address three connected areas: the driver, the vehicle and the journey.

Drivers should hold the correct licence and receive appropriate information, instruction and training. Their driving history, experience, health, eyesight and fitness to drive should also be considered. Procedures should explain how employees report penalty points, collisions, medical conditions and medicines that could affect their driving.

Vehicles should be legal, roadworthy and suitable for the work. Clear arrangements are needed for routine maintenance, daily safety checks and defect reporting. This includes vehicles owned or leased by the organisation as well as employees’ own vehicles used on business.

Journeys should be planned realistically. Schedules must allow sufficient time for traffic, breaks and safe driving. Employers should avoid creating deadlines or workloads that encourage speeding, distraction, fatigue or other unsafe behaviour.

The HSE recommends that employers manage these areas as part of their normal health and safety arrangements, supported by effective leadership, consultation and regular review.

Why driver training matters

A valid driving licence confirms that someone has met the required standard to drive a particular category of vehicle. It does not necessarily mean they understand the additional demands of driving for work.

Business drivers may spend long periods behind the wheel, operate unfamiliar vehicles, carry loads, travel in poor weather or work to demanding schedules. Van drivers must also understand issues such as vehicle dimensions, blind spots, payloads, load security, the different speed limits that apply on certain roads and longer stopping distances.

Effective driver training helps employees recognise these risks and make safer decisions. It reinforces expectations concerning speed, mobile phones, fatigue, vehicle checks, defensive driving and collision reporting.

Training also sends a powerful message: driver safety matters to the organisation. When supported by managers and reinforced through policy, communication and monitoring, it can help create a lasting culture of safer driving.

The value goes beyond compliance

Good driver risk management is not simply about satisfying a legal requirement. It can deliver measurable commercial benefits.

Fewer collisions can mean reduced repair costs, insurance claims, vehicle downtime, missed appointments and disruption. Safer and more efficient driving can also reduce fuel consumption, tyre wear and maintenance expenditure.

Most importantly, it helps protect employees, passengers and other road users from preventable harm. It also protects the organisation’s reputation and demonstrates that senior leaders take their responsibilities seriously.

Following a serious collision, investigators will examine more than the actions of the driver. They will ask what the employer did to assess and mitigate the risk, i.e. check the driver, maintain the vehicle, plan the journey and provide suitable training.

At that point, verbal assurances that safety was taken seriously will carry far less weight than clear policies, completed checks, training records and evidence of active management.

Is it time to take a closer look?

Start by reviewing who drives for your organisation, what they drive and why they travel. Examine your policies, risk assessments, licence-checking arrangements, training records, vehicle procedures and incident data. Most importantly, check whether the measures written on paper are consistently followed in practice.

Driver safety is not an issue to address only after something has gone wrong. It is a foreseeable workplace risk that every responsible organisation should manage proactively.

If a serious work-related road collision happened tomorrow, could your business confidently demonstrate that it had done everything reasonably practicable to prevent it?

Winter Driving Safety: Essential Tips for the Season

As temperatures begin to plummet and days shorten, winter brings with it a host of unique challenges for drivers. With ice, heavy rain, and snow potentially creating hazardous road conditions, it is crucial to prepare thoroughly for safe travel during the colder months, so here are a few vital winter driving tips to keep you safe on the road.

1. Prioritise Car Maintenance

Before venturing out, ensure your vehicle is winter-ready. A well-maintained vehicle is less prone to breakdowns and accidents in adverse weather. Check your tyres for sufficient tread depth; the UK legal minimum is 1.6mm, but more is better for wet and icy conditions. Regularly inspect and top up fluids such as screen-wash to prevent vision impairment from road grime. A properly serviced vehicle not only runs efficiently but enhances your safety by preventing mechanical failures.

2. Mind Your Speed and Distance

Wet surfaces significantly reduce tyre grip, doubling stopping distances. To compensate, maintain a larger gap from the vehicle ahead. Use the classic two-second rule in dry conditions but extend this to at least four seconds on wet roads for added safety. Always approach turns and junctions at a reduced speed to avoid skidding.

3. Handle Snow and Ice with Care

Driving in snow requires patience and foresight. Start your journey early and avoid harsh acceleration or braking, which could lead to skidding. If you encounter an ice patch, gently lift your foot off the accelerator without applying the brakes, allowing the vehicle to slow naturally.

4. Visibility Matters

Short winter days and poor weather conditions can impair visibility. Regularly clean your windscreen, windows, and mirrors for maximum clarity. Ensure that your lights are functioning correctly, as they are crucial for being seen and seeing others. It’s worth noting that automatic lights may not activate in daytime fog or heavy rain—manually switch them on to ensure proper visibility.

5. Cautiously Navigate Waterlogged Roads

Driving through standing water can be deceptively dangerous. If faced with a flooded road, proceed at a slow and steady pace, ideally staying in the centre where water tends to be shallower. Sudden acceleration through water can create a bow wave, potentially flooding the engine or compromising vehicle control. After traversing a waterlogged section, test your brakes gently to ensure they are working properly.

6. Watch for Fatigue

Cold weather can lead to longer journey times, which may increase driver fatigue. Rest regularly during long trips and stay alert to signs of drowsiness. If you feel tired, take a break, pulling over to a safe place for a short rest could prevent an accident.

7. Pack a Winter Emergency Kit

Be prepared for unexpected situations. Equip your vehicle with essentials such as a blanket, water, snacks, a torch, de-icer, an ice scraper, and a first-aid kit. These items can be a lifeline if your vehicle breaks down or you become stuck, and don’t forget, a fully charged mobile phone or even better, a spare charger and lead.

Final Thoughts

Winter driving can be unpredictable, but taking preventive measures will help ensure your journeys are as safe as possible. From proper car maintenance to defensive driving techniques, checking local weather reports and setting off earlier are sensible and proactive approaches that can make all the difference during the colder months.

Stay safe, drive smart, and prepare for every trip this winter.

Driving for Work: Who Says It’s a Legal Requirement to Manage?

That’s a question I get asked time and time again, and for many, the idea that there is a legal requirement to manage driver safety comes as a bit of a surprise.

I’ll explain…

When and employee drives on behalf of their employer, excluding their commute to and from their normal place of work, their vehicle becomes their workplace and therefore the duty of care requirements to manage the safety and wellbeing of their staff is the responsibility of the employer, it falls under the Health & Safety at work act and a few other pieces of legislation.

This applies to all sorts of organisations, not just businesses, but charities, educational establishments, volunteer groups, in fact, any organisation that has people who drive in order to carry out work on behalf of that organisation. This includes employees as well as those providing their time as a volunteer.

The Health and Safety Executive have for many years published guidelines, explaining to employers exactly what they need in place to meet these duty of care obligations, but, this is an area of health and safety that is all too often neglected, not deliberately, but because…

You don’t know what you don’t know…

I get that; however, ignorance of the law will never stack up in Court!
If an employee gets involved in a serious road traffic incident, investigations may well come the employers way, this is when they will discover the hard way, what they should have had in place.

Should it be deduced that their arrangements for managing driver safety were inadequate, the organisation could end up in Court…

Fines for a breach in health and safety are based on a percentage of turnover, typical starting point fines are 20% of turnover…

Who has that kind of money stashed away, as a ‘just in case’?

Or for the more serious cases, a custodial sentence under the Corporate Manslaughter Act, it’s the person at the top, the controlling mind of the organisation that will have to take one for the team, a prison sentence is not a nice one to have to take!

But we don’t have anyone who drives a company vehicle, they all drive their own vehicle, so we are okay, right?

Nope, sorry to burst that bubble, as far as the law is concerned, you have the same duty of care towards those who drive their own vehicle for work as you do for those who drive company provided vehicles, it’s referred to as your grey fleet, I’ll cover this in more detail in another blog.

So, here’s the basics…

If you have five or more employees, and any of those drive a vehicle as part of their job, regardless of how frequent, or whether it’s in their own vehicle or one supplied by the organisation, driver safety must be managed and documented.

Have you got it covered?

If you want to know whether you cover driver safety adequately, click HERE to go to my website media page, on there is a short video, about 6 minutes, it shows what happens when the Police come knocking on your door following an incident involving one of your employees.

As you watch this video, imagine you are the MD being interviewed by the Police Officer, would you (right now) be able to provide him with everything he is asking for, or, would you be running around like a headless chicken?

Let’s talk!

If you feeling a tad concerned, let’s have a chat, I’ll explain how easy it is and without breaking the bank, how you could have everything in place so you could say ‘yes’ to that Police officer.

Thank you to Road Safe NI Charity for allowing me to use this video.

It’s Our Fifth Birthday

We are celebrating our fifth birthday.

Adrian Hide Consultancy was launched by road safety expert Adrian Hide in 2018 and since then it’s gone from strength to strength.

Based in Cheadle, Staffordshire we specialise in delivering a range of face to face and on-line road safety courses for businesses who have staff that drive for work purposes, as well as consultancy services, and driver risk management support and advice.

Since it was launched, Adrian has trained more than 500 drivers and has worked with nearly 40 businesses to introduce robust driver risk management programmes.

He also works in partnership with Road Safe Northern Ireland, MDEL Fleet management as well as a team of different insurance brokers.

During his time in business Adrian’s biggest challenge was surviving lockdown where he had almost 18 months without any client facing work. He used that time to create a number of online driver training courses, including Safer Van Driving, Eco-Safe Driving (for business car drivers) and Electric Vehicles – (a course for those new to driving electric vehicles) – all of which are continuing to run very successfully today.

Adrian has more than 30 years road safety experience, including 13 as an approved driving instructor, 13 with Staffordshire County Council, the last seven of which he headed up road safety training and education for the whole county. He then worked with a private road safety company for around six years.

Adrian said: “I have spent my entire career working in road safety and it’s something I am passionate about. When I set the business up my aim was to help make the roads safer by giving businesses the tools to keep their drivers safe when they were behind the wheel – whether that was through training or helping create driver risk management programmes. That’s still the case today. Essentially, I want to help businesses manage the risks associated with their on-road driving activities, ensuring that the business, its people and its reputation are protected.

“I love my job and working with the fantastic businesses I do but it hasn’t always been easy. Lockdown was difficult because a lot of my business involved delivering face to face training. I had to move quickly and look at different ways of delivering my services. I invested in equipment and set about creating and developing a range of on-line training courses. Thankfully it paid off and the on-line training sessions are now part of my offering so that businesses have a choice of face to face or virtual.

“My clients and their needs come first – trust, honesty, transparency and integrity are very important to me and I think that’s why the business has gone from strength to strength. I’m delighted to be celebrating the company’s 5^thbirthday, but I couldn’t have done it without the fantastic client base I have. I’m really looking forward to the next five and seeing where the journey takes me,” he added.

Adrian Hide Consultancy offer a range of face to face and on-line road safety courses, as well as consultancy services, and driver risk management support and advice. For more information, please go to: www.adrianhideconsultancy.co.uk, call 07973 337251 or email hello@adriahideconsultancy.co.uk

Safer Van Driving

You probably know that it’s perfectly legal to drive a van on a car licence, but did you know there are other things to bear in mind, if you’re getting behind the wheel of a van?

And if you have a team of van drivers working for you, and you’re not sure of the extra precautions they should be taking to stay safe on the roads, can you be sure they’re aware of them too?

Here are just a few things to think about that might not have crossed your mind:

If you’re driving a van on a national speed limit road, vans are restricted to 10 mph less than a car – we’re always surprised by the amount of people that we train who don’t know that.
Watch out for the maximum permitted weight. Van drivers need to understand how to read a VIN plate as that’s where its maximum carrying weight will be listed.
Always allow for extra stopping distance – especially in wet or icy conditions: Vans are typically heavier and larger than cars, which means they require more time and distance to come to a complete standstill.

Secure your load – if you’re carrying loads in your van, make sure they’re properly secured, and the weight is distributed to avoid shifting or tipping while you’re driving.
Don’t forget about height restrictions – vans are often taller than cars so if you’re driving through tunnels, underpasses or bridges, or even carparks with height restrictions, take these into consideration.
Blind spots – vans typically have larger blind spots than cars, so it’s important to take extra care when checking your mirrors and blind spots before changing lanes or making a turn.
Adjust your driving style – vans have a higher centre of gravity than cars, which means they are more prone to tipping over in sharp turns or on uneven terrain. Take things more slowly so you can avoid the pitfalls.
Long wheelbase vans need more turning space when entering or leaving junctions with tight corners, be especially careful that your van doesn’t put pedestrians in danger when in such situations.

Silence is golden, or is it? If you’re driving an electric van, be mindful that they are super quiet at low speeds which can pose a danger to pedestrians.
And last but not least – always be aware of your surroundings. As we’ve said vans have larger blind spots than cars, so make sure you’re always vigilant to what’s going on around you and keep an eye out for other road users, particularly pedestrians and cyclists – so you can be as safe as possible. If you can – reverse into parking bays.

Employers shouldn’t take it for granted that van drivers know all of this. Unless they’ve received specific training, there’s a danger that some essential knowledge might be missing. If the driver gets involved in a serious accident, the police will almost certainly ask the business to evidence what training was provided. If this happened to one of your drivers, could you demonstrate the right level of training had been given, if at all? If alarm bells are ringing, don’t worry we can help. Our online Safer Van Driving course explains everything a van driver needs to know and it’ll help you as an employer meet your duty of care requirements. Get in touch to find out more.

Are Your Drivers Being Distracted By Their Mobile Phones?

Unfortunately – all too often stories hit the press where people have been injured or even killed on the roads – because the driver was using a mobile phone at the time.

That’s despite the law changing last year so that as well as sending a message or making a call on a handheld phone – drivers are now not allowed to take photos film videos, play games or scroll through music.

If they do get caught doing any of the above, they can face up to six points on their license and a £200 fine – that’s as well as the potential risk to other road users, pedestrians, cyclists and the like.

But the law didn’t affect hands free devices – that’s whether your mobile is in a cradle or connected via Bluetooth, despite evidence-based research showing that the distraction factor of using a mobile phone while behind the wheel is almost as great for hands-free calls as it is for hand-held calls.

It’s because of the cognitive processes needed to listen, think, and talk while you’re engaging in a high-demand task, like driving. Another startling fact is that the impairment factor is similar to that of being just over the drink drive limit – how scary is that? *

Most of us would think that having a conversation hands-free on the phone is the same as chatting to a passenger sitting next to you, but it’s actually very different. The caller won’t know what the situation is that you are driving in – they can carry on speaking and not know that someone’s pulled out in front of you, or there’s a pedestrian trying to cross the road, meaning you need to be fully concentrating. A passenger though can visibly see that you need to focus and will go quiet so you can concentrate and focus.

In today’s fast paced society – there is a tendency to believe that we can multitask, when in fact in reality we switch from task to task. That means that your attention will switch from the driving task to that of dealing with the call. Distracted drivers see 50% less hazards than drivers who are paying full attention to the road. Again – scary stuff.

Can you be sure your drivers aren’t being distracted by their mobile phones? Have you referenced it in your Driver Risk Policy? Do you even have one? If not, we can help. We can also help with driver safety training.

To find out more about mobile phones and the law go to the Government’s website: LINK

*Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) study “How dangerous is driving with a mobile phone? Benchmarking the impairment to alcohol” by P C Burns, A Parkes, S Burton, R K Smith (TRL Limited) and D Burch. The research found that the reaction time of texting drivers is 2.8 times more than those on the drink-drive limit. For using a hand-held phone, the reaction time is 3.5 times more than those at the drink-drive limit.

Adrian Answers Our Questions About EV Range

If you talk to anyone about electric vehicles, especially if they’re thinking of making the switch from diesel or petrol to an EV – one thing that always comes up is their range. We thought we’d delve a little deeper by asking Adrian to explain more…