Prince George, B.C. – When it comes to   work related road safety,  the first  thought that comes to mind  is  traffic on resource roads.  A  free ‘At Work Road Safety’ workshop this week hopes to  show employers the full picture of  work related road safety.Road Safety  applies to more  workers than  one might think   says  Angelina Robinson, facilitator for the  workshop “The majority of employers have someone driving during some point of the workday.”  Road Safety  applies to anyone who is using a vehicle  as part of their  job   or is expensing  their mileage so that includes employers who have workers who are using their own  vehicles. “Essentially we want employers to realize their responsibility to ensure their employees are safe regardless  of whether they are in a commercial  vehicle or their own vehicle, if they are on the job and driving a vehicle, it’s the employer’s responsibility  for their safety.”

In British  Columbia,   driving incidents are the  number one cause of  workplace fatalities, on average, there are 24 deaths each year and 1290  injuries, those stats do not include the daily commute to and from the workplace.

Robinson says the goal is to help employers address road safety in the workplace, “What we are trying to do is  help them implement or improve   their road safety program, they can  dovetail road safety into their existing occupational health and safety program or  build a stand alone if they have a great deal of  driving in their workplace.”

“Only about 25%  of the employers in B.C. are currently addressing  road safety in the workplace” says Robinson.  She says  one of the main issues is that people are multi-tasking when they are driving.

It’s all about helping to create a strong safety culture” says  Robinson.   While some  people just have bad driving habits,  Robinson says  you can teach an old dog new tricks  “Driver training is only  one small aspect of an occupational health and safety road safety program, but it is important.”  Strategies could include  things like a peer assessment,  where all employees  pair up and drive together,  and the passenger  makes notes on a checklist  “They can sit down and have a coffee after the drive and say, ‘ok, this  is what I noticed with you and this is what you could do better’ it can really foster a stronger  safety culture with  everyone looking out for each other.”

She says  any  Road Safety program would typically have three components

• drivers
• journeys and
• vehicles,

“When you take a look at all three of those categories you can really flesh them out. Look at ‘journey’, is there proper preparation being done, is this person taking a look at  where they are heading, are they checking the driving conditions, are they checking the  weather?”

The  workshop is  3 1/2 hours long and it will be held at the Ramada  this Thursday from  9 am to 12:30.  While  there is no fee,  attendees  should pre register by emailing  Robinson at Angelina.robinson@roadsafetyatwork.ca.

Getting on the path to developing  a Road Safety  at  Work  program doesn’t have to  be  difficult  “The thing about Road Safety at Work is, we are here to make the journey easier for you  essentially we want to be the easy button, we want to make this available to every employer large or small”.