Transport safety can be considered in two parts: ‘workplace transport’, which covers transport in and around the workplace, and on private ground, and ‘road transport’, which applies to the public highway.
Workplace transport (i.e. excluding work-related driving on the roads) accounts for some 50 deaths a year and around 5,000 RIDDOR reports, including some 1,500 major injuries (see HSE publication HSG136 Workplace Transport Safety).
Also, up to a third of all road traffic accidents involve somebody who is working at the time. This may account for over 20 fatalities and 250 serious injuries every week, see Driving at Work.
This totals over 1,000 fatalities a year for work-related transport. That’s nearly five times the total workplace fatalities, see statistics.
Transport safety covers all aspects of transport normally associated with the running of an engineering / manufacturing business including:
- internal transport — forklift trucks and any other mobile powered equipment, including hired items;
- delivery lorries, trucks and vans — including loading and unloading;
- service engineers’ vans — including related hazards (manual handling, lone working etc.); and
- cars used on company business — including definitions for some terms.