Tool Kit
Investigating Driving-Related Incidents
Even with the best planning, driving-related incidents can happen. When they do, an investigation can help your organization understand what went wrong and what can be done to prevent them in the future. Learn more about the benefits of investigations and how to conduct them.
Why employers should investigate driving-related incidents
Collisions and the injuries they cause are traumatic for the people involved. The consequences for their employers can be disastrous, too. The police, insurance companies, and WorkSafeBC may investigate. If they do, their focus is to determine if there was criminal wrongdoing, establish fault and assign liability, or see if the employer met safety requirements.
Employer-led investigations are different. They focus on discovering the factors that led to the incident (what happened, and why) and then finding and fixing the associated gaps in the safety system.
You may find, for example, you need to tighten up your driver training practices, trip planning process, or vehicle maintenance practices.
The business case for investigations
Driving-related incidents can also hurt an organization’s bottom line in several ways. Use our Motor Vehicle Incident Calculator to see how much money a collision could cost your organization.
You may, for example, need to find and hire a temporary replacement while the injured employee recovers. That’s not easy in today’s labour market. Plus, you’ll have to orient and train the new hire.
You might experience lower productivity as the new hire gets up to speed. You may face an expensive vehicle repair bill and insurance premium increases. Long repair waits can cause lengthy delays. And finding a replacement vehicle could take a while.
Your organization may be exposed to liabilities and suffer harm to your business reputation, because of the incident itself or your reduced ability to serve customers.
How driving-related incidents can affect your business
Here’s an example of how an investigation can protect your bottom line.
The fictitious Awesome Ad Agency (A3) is a small company with 5 vehicles. Their sales reps drive to visit customers throughout the region. Up until last winter, A3 had not experienced a driving-related incident. In November, an employee was injured in a collision on their way to see a client.
| Expense |
Cost |
| Lost productivity (injured employee missed work) | $6,500 |
| Hiring temporary replacement employee | $2,500 |
| Renting temporary replacement vehicle | $1,500 |
| Lost sales | $11,500 |
| Insurance premium increases | $2,500 |
| Deductibles | $1,500 |
| Total | $26,000 |
The A3 team discovered the following factors contributed to the incident:
- Trip planning deficiencies. No one checked the road and weather conditions so they did not know about the forecast storm.
- Inadequate tires. The vehicle had all-season tires rather than winter tires.
- Lack of driving skills. The employee did not have the driving skills or experience necessary for the storm conditions they encountered.
As a result of the findings, the agency promptly invested $8,000 in the following actions to help prevent future incidents:
- Updated vehicle maintenance policy.
- Installed winter tires on their 5 vehicles.
- Provided winter driving training for employees who drive for work.
- Reviewed their trip planning practices, made improvements, and emphasized the need to follow the procedures.
A3 supervisors and drivers used their improved trip planning practices to avoid a few winter storms from January through April. There were no further incidents or near misses. Employees credit the corrective actions for their success.
Even if the operational improvements prevented only one $26,000 incident, that’s an excellent return on investment.
What to include in an investigation policy
Successful investigations require planning so you can act quickly and effectively when an incident occurs. To be ready, have a policy and procedures that explain the steps, roles, and responsibilities of the employees who will be involved in investigations. Be sure to teach them what they need to do.
Depending on resources and capacity, it might not be realistic to investigate all incidents. Your management team and safety committee should jointly develop a policy that describes which incidents to investigate and the scope of each investigation.
For example, your policy might say:
When any work vehicle(s) owned by the organization or one of our employees is involved, we will investigate:
- All incidents that result in injuries requiring medical treatment for an employee or non-employee, or result in more than one shift of lost work time
- All near misses that had the potential for serious injuries
- All incidents that result in property or environmental damage greater than $30,000
Investigations will focus on:
- Identifying basic causes
- Determining what can be done to eliminate or reduce those causes
- Recommending actions to prevent similar incidents or near misses
Some other areas to cover in your policy and procedures include:
If anyone is injured in a collision, it’s critical to quickly get emergency resources to the scene. Drivers and passengers need to know what to do. Your response team, managers, supervisors, and the people who will take part in the investigation also need to know their role. Decide what actions will be taken and who will take them. Write them down in your policy and procedures.
At least once a year, review your emergency response with employees. Better yet, use a mock incident to test your system. It can help you identify any gaps.
Depending on the consequences, you may be legally required to report an incident to the police, ICBC, and WorkSafeBC. In your policy and procedures, specify who will make those reports. You also need to decide when and how reports are to be made to management in your organization. Options include:
- Incidents in which anyone is injured, or that result in more than $25,000 in property damage, must be reported immediately to the senior manager.
- All near misses that had the potential for serious injury must be reported to a supervisor.
If an employee is injured, family members deserve to know the facts as soon as you have them. Co-workers will probably be concerned too. In some cases, the media may have questions. Know what information your organization will share and who will assemble and communicate it.
For most incidents, police are eager to get traffic moving again as soon as possible. That means some of the information you’ll need for an investigation can disappear quickly. People who saw what happened often walk or drive away soon after the incident.
Your policy needs to explain who will collect information at the site of the incident. To make sure they have the tools and supplies they need, review our collision investigation equipment checklist.
Choose your investigation team now, before an incident occurs. To ensure you have the expertise you need, consider the following people:
- Someone who has incident investigation training and knows the process for reporting and corrective action.
- Someone familiar with the driving your employees do and who will offer practical perspectives, questions, and ideas.
- A management representative who understands the business and its interests.
- A member of the joint health and safety committee or a worker representative.
It’s a good idea to have a back-up investigator in case one of the team members is unavailable.
For some incidents and for small organizations, the team might be one or 2 people. Incidents that result in fatalities, serious injuries, or significant property or environmental damage require greater diligence. You might want to hire an outside investigator.
Conducting an incident investigation
Organizations of any size can use our Motor Vehicle Incident Investigations Guide (PDF). It provides a step-by-step approach and includes examples of questions to ask and information to seek.
The guide can be used on its own or with our Investigating Motor Vehicle Incidents Online Course.
To create an accurate record of the information, use our Motor Vehicle Near Miss Report and Incident Investigation Form (PDF).
Collecting information about an incident
It’s important to decide who will gather the information you need. The person needs to have the necessary training and tools. An employee at the scene is often the best choice if they are not shaken up or injured. Other options include a manager, other employee, or a qualified third party that you send to the scene.
Consider the following when assigning a person to collect information:
Anyone on scene can be exposed to hazards such as traffic, downed power lines, hazardous substances, injuries that are traumatic to see, etc. Avoid exposing your employee to them until the site has been made safe.
Also consider the potential risks of collecting incident information. For example, anyone who drives to investigate a collision caused by bad weather or road conditions could be exposed to those same poor conditions.
How long would it take to get to the site? Unless there is a fatality, most scenes are cleaned up in an hour or less. Information that is critical to an investigation can quickly disappear. That’s why it’s advantageous to have an employee who is at the scene gather basic information (names of people involved, insurance information, etc.) and take pictures.
Don’t presume you will be able to get police or other reports in a timely manner. Agencies can’t release information that may jeopardize an ongoing investigation or violate privacy requirements. There may be no report to share since police do not attend nor investigate all incidents. If police don’t attend, it is unlikely other agencies will investigate.
Why employers should investigate near misses
Near misses are narrowly avoided driving incidents that had the potential for injury or damage. They’re warning signs. Investigating them can show you how to prevent a similar incident in the future.
Here are some examples of near misses:
- The driver falls asleep at the wheel and the car wanders toward the ditch. They wake up before leaving the road in time to recover control.
- The driver hits a large puddle and starts to hydroplane to the right, heading for a cyclist. Before they can regain control, the cyclist gets out of the way.
- A car changes lanes right in front of the driver, forcing them to brake hard to avoid a collision.
Many near misses go unreported by drivers. But any near miss that had the potential to cause serious injury or property damage should be reported and looked into. Next time, the driver may not be as fortunate.
Tips for building a near miss reporting system
A simple reporting process makes employees more likely to report near misses. If the process is difficult or they’re concerned about the consequences, they may not come forward.
Use these tips to encourage reporting:
- Tell them why near miss reporting is important and how you will follow up.
- Consider allowing anonymous reporting so employees don’t fear penalties or retribution.
- Train employees in how to report and provide periodic training refreshers.
- Celebrate your program’s success.
How to talk with staff about near misses
Don’t have a formal reporting system? There’s plenty to learn from informal, collaborative discussions.
Take time during staff or tailgate meetings to ask employees to share their near miss driving stories. Even if it didn’t happen while they were working, there’s value in sharing the experience with others. Ask what happened, what they think went wrong, and what they’ll do to prevent something like that from happening again.