By Caitlin Taylor, Road Safety Manager, RoSPA
Most organisations would never let an employee operate heavy machinery without training, a risk assessment and regular checks. Yet many will hand over the keys to a pool car, or accept that staff drive their own vehicles on business, after little more than a glance at a driving licence. For a large part of the workforce, the vehicle is the most dangerous piece of work equipment they will ever use.
New figures from the Department for Transport show the scale of the problem. An estimated 583 people were killed in collisions involving driving for work in 2025, and driving for work was associated with 38% of all road fatalities and 33% of all serious casualties. The harm reaches well beyond the drivers themselves: 1,902 pedestrians were killed or seriously injured in collisions involving driving for work.
These estimates are still being refined. Journey purpose information is not known for all vehicles recorded in police collision data, so the DfT uses modelling to fill the gaps. The true figure could be higher. And because collisions on public roads generally fall outside RIDDOR reporting, these deaths rarely appear in the workplace fatality figures that safety professionals track and report to their boards.
Through my work leading ScORSA, the Scottish Occupational Road Safety Alliance, I see a consistent pattern across organisations. Businesses with excellent site safety still treat driving as something that happens outside work, even when it is plainly part of the job. Our ScORSA members are dedicated to closing that gap, one of the biggest opportunities in workplace safety today.
Driving is a work activity, and the law treats it that way
The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires employers to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of their employees and of others affected by their work. That includes other road users. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require a suitable and sufficient risk assessment of work activities, and driving is a work activity.
HSE’s guidance, Driving at work: Managing work-related road safety, is clear that road risk should be managed in the same way as any other health and safety risk. These duties apply whether the vehicle is a company car, a hire vehicle or an employee’s own car. So-called “grey fleet” drivers are often the least visible and least managed group. Where serious management failings contribute to a death, organisations can face prosecution for corporate manslaughter, or corporate homicide in Scotland.
The risk factors that come up again and again
Collisions rarely have a single cause, but four factors appear repeatedly in work-related incidents.
Fatigue
Long shifts, early starts and long drives home at the end of the day are a dangerous combination. Sleepiness peaks in the early hours of the morning and again in mid-afternoon, and a tired driver can slip into microsleeps without realising it. The DfT data shows that the proportion of work-related collisions rises rapidly from around 06:00 and stays relatively high throughout the working day. Caffeine and a short nap buy a little time, but the only real cure for fatigue is sleep. Work schedules need to allow for it.
Distractions
Using a hand-held phone while driving is illegal, but hands-free calls still take a driver’s mind off the road. The research consistently shows that the mental distraction of a conversation matters more than where your hands are. The organisational culture is often the root problem. If managers expect calls to be answered on the move, drivers will answer them.
Vehicle condition
Worn tyres, faulty lights and poor brakes all raise the risk of a collision, and winter adds its own demands. Employers usually have good oversight of fleet vehicles but very little of privately owned cars used for work. That includes whether they are roadworthy, have a valid MOT and are insured for business use.
Journey planning
Unrealistic schedules push drivers to speed, skip breaks and keep going when they should stop. The Highway Code recommends a break of at least 15 minutes every two hours. Good planning also starts with a simple question: does this journey need to happen at all, or could a video call or train do the job?
Fitting road risk into your safety management system
The good news is that organisations don’t need a separate system for road risk. The same Plan, Do, Check, Act approach used for other hazards works well.
1. Start with a risk assessment built around three elements: the driver, the vehicle and the journey.
Who is driving, and are they fit, trained and licensed? Is the vehicle suitable and maintained? Is the journey necessary, and is it planned so it can be done safely?
2. Then treat collisions and near misses the way you would treat an incident on site.
Record them, investigate them and learn from them. Many organisations don’t know how many collisions their staff have while driving for work, which makes improvement almost impossible.
3. Data can help, but only if it is used fairly.
Telematics works best when it is presented to drivers as a tool that protects them, for example by providing evidence when they are not at fault, rather than as surveillance. That means involving staff early, being transparent about what is collected and why, and completing a data protection impact assessment where UK GDPR requires one.
The Safe System Approach
Underpinning all of this is the Safe System approach, which accepts that people make mistakes. The aim is not to demand perfect drivers. It is to build enough layers of protection, through safer journeys, safer vehicles and better management, that one human error does not end in death or serious injury.
Practical actions to take now for safer workplace driving
- Include driving for work explicitly in your risk assessments, covering the driver, the vehicle and the journey.
- Put a clear driving for work policy in place, and make sure staff and managers know what it says.
- Check licences, vehicle roadworthiness and business insurance, including for employees’ own cars.
- Set a rule that staff are not called when you know they are driving, and model it from the top.
- Build realistic journey times and breaks into schedules, and limit driving after long shifts.
- Record and investigate every collision and near miss, and share what you learn.
- Give drivers a simple way to assess whether they are fit to drive before a journey.
Organisations don’t need to start from scratch. HSE’s guidance is a good foundation, and ScORSA offers free resources for employers, including a fatigue self-assessment checklist drivers can complete before setting off. A set of mini policy templates that organisations can adapt to their own circumstances is also coming soon.
A risk that deserves the same attention as any other
Driving is often the most dangerous thing employees do at work, yet it remains one of the least managed. The organisations that make real progress are those that stop treating the road as someone else’s problem and bring it into the heart of their safety culture. The tools, guidance and legal framework already exist. What is often missing is the decision to treat a journey with the same seriousness as any other work task.
About the Author: Caitlin Taylor
Caitlin Taylor is Road Safety Manager at RoSPA and leads ScORSA, the Scottish Occupational Road Safety Alliance, a Transport Scotland-funded programme supporting more than 1,200 member organisations to manage occupational road risk. She previously worked for Brake’s National Road Victim Service.
References
Reported road casualties Great Britain: involving driving for work – GOV.UK
Homepage | ScORSA – Scottish Occupational Road Safety Alliance
Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974
Employers – driving and riding safely for work – Overview – HSE
ScORSA Best Practice Guide to Managing Occupational Road Risk by RoSPA – Flipsnack
ScORSA Driver Fatigue Self-Assessment Checklist by RoSPA – Flipsnack
