Prince George, B.C. – Business owners, managers, supervisors, health and safety practitioners and others will huddle at The Gathering Place at UNBC today to learn ways to ensure workers remain safe on B.C. roads.

The free workshop will be hosted by WorkSafeBC and run from 8:30 a.m. to noon.

“Essentially what we’re doing is helping employers to begin or improve an occupational road safety program,” says Angelina Robinson, client relationship manager with Road Safety at Work.

“Ideally, we want them to integrate into it their existing health and safety program. A great deal of employers don’t recognize the need for road safety in the workplace because for a great deal of them it is a secondary function of the job, so it gets overlooked.”

She says it’s an important issue considering on average, we have 1,260 injuries in the workplace every year because of driving during the work day.

“So, a motor vehicle related crash during work. This is not including the commute. And every year, 20 workers die (from 2011-2015) as a result of a work-related crash. That makes it the leading cause of traumatic workplace injury.”

Robinson says there will be plenty to learn during the three-and-a-half-hour session.

“First of all, I’ll give them an understanding of their legal responsibilities because a great deal of employers don’t recognize the fact that whether the employee is driving the employer’s vehicle or their own vehicle – the employer is still responsible for their safety when they’re driving.”

She adds the workshop is just “the tip of the iceberg.”

“It’s the beginning of a conversation with road safety at work. We provide ongoing complementary services as well. We have advisory services and tools and resources that are just phenomenal.”

She says those include free online courses including their road safety template.

“Many employers will just go onto the website and say okay, we need to address road safety in the workplace, where do we start? And we’ve given them a number of tools to do that.”

You can access the site by clicking here. She says there’s also still spaces available at today’s workshop for those who are interested in attending.