Holiday season road safety tips for employers
Road safety doesn’t take holidays. Especially not in December, which is one of the most dangerous times of the year to be on the road.
You can show your seasonal spirit by helping your employees who drive for work get home safe at the end of every shift. It shows you value them and their well-being. The safe practices employees learn will also help them when they drive for pleasure, including when you allow them to drive your organization’s vehicles for personal use.
Here’s why this is so important: Your drivers and their passengers are at risk every time they get behind the wheel. Crashes are the leading cause of work-related traumatic death in BC.
ICBC reports an average of more than 1,900 crashes annually over the holidays. Claims for injuries during work-related driving increase every December, according to WorkSafeBC.
Employees may be fatigued, distracted, or stressed due to seasonal stress and celebrations. Ice, snow, rain, fog, cold, reduced visibility, and fewer daylight hours challenge all drivers, no matter how much experience they have.
Here are some tips you can use to help reduce the risk of your drivers crashing and being injured or killed over the holidays.
1. Know your safety responsibilities
Keeping your staff safe is good business. It’s also your legal responsibility. You need to ensure employees who drive for work:
- Are aware of driving hazards and know how to assess risks
- Are properly trained for winter driving conditions
- Have the equipment and supervision they need to stay safe
To help fulfill your responsibilities, review our Winter Driving Safety Tool Kit for Employers.
2. Know who drives for work in your organization
It’s easy to see full-time drivers. But you may also have workers who drive part time or only occasionally as part of their job. Do office staff sometimes pick up supplies? Do reps drive to make sales calls? Do staff travel to client homes or work sites? If so, they’re work drivers too.
3. Shift driving attitudes and schedules
Encourage your drivers to think “How can I get to my destination safely?” rather than “How do I get there the fastest?” Adjust schedules where possible to give them more time to reach their destinations, and to drive during daylight. The extra time is worth it. Employees hurt in vehicle-related incidents tend to be off the job for longer and the resulting claims tend to cost more. Plus, losing workers to injury makes staff shortages even worse.
4. Prepare your drivers
Review your winter driving safety policy and procedures with them, including trip planning. Provide winter driving safety training to everyone who gets behind the wheel for any work-related reason. Give them our guide on what workers need to know. Steer them to DriveBC.ca for road and weather reports. Remind drivers to slow down and increase their following distance to at least 4 seconds.
5. Winterize vehicles
The basics include a set of 4 matched winter tires and a maintenance check-up. Create an emergency kit using our winter driving survival checklist for each work vehicle.
For more information on winter driving safety, visit ShiftIntoWinter.ca. The 14th annual campaign is managed by Road Safety at Work, supported by the Winter Driving Safety Alliance, and funded by WorkSafeBC, Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, and ICBC.
From all of us at Road Safety at Work, the best of the holiday season to you and your families.