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BRAKE’S FLEET SAFETY FORUM LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN
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The Fleet Safety Forum, a division of Brake, the road safety charity, is calling on fleets to ensure their drivers aren’t under the influence of alcohol or drugs behind the wheel with a new campaign called ‘Face Facts’.
Fleet managers can order a poster and e-guidance campaign pack alerting drivers and managers to the dangers of drink and drug driving, and explaining how to identify and prevent drink and drug driving in fleets.
The hard hitting poster, ‘Face Facts’, shows a driver’s face split in half, on the one side unaffected by drugs or alcohol, and on the other side exhibiting the tell tale signs of drugs or alcohol. The poster has been produced with sponsorship from drug screening and testing company Dtec International and is the first in a series of new posters that will raise awareness of the seven ‘golden rules’ of Brake’s Pledge2DriveSafely. The e-guidance explains how to identify drink and drug abuses in the workplace through screening and testing procedures and how to create a culture of zero tolerance of alcohol and drugs.
Brake research [1] shows at-work drivers are a high risk group for drink and drug driving:
• More than twice as many at-work drivers admit to drinking three or more units of alcohol before driving compared with drivers who don’t drive for work (14% of at-work drivers compared with 6% of other drivers).
• A third of at-work drivers (33%) admitted driving first thing after having drunk a lot of alcohol the night before, compared to a fifth of other drivers (21%).
• One in 33 drivers (3%) admit drug driving.
Despite being widely considered taboo by the public, drink and drug driving is still a huge killer on our roads. More than 11,000 people in the UK were killed or hurt by drink or drug drivers in 2008. That’s equivalent to thirty people every day. More than one in ten road deaths is caused by a driver over the legal alcohol limit. In the UK, 269 people were killed by drivers over the drink drive limit in 2008 [2] and additional deaths are caused by drivers who have drunk alcohol but are under the drink drive limit, which is a high limit compared with most other European countries.
Although accurate drug driving figures aren’t available, research suggests that similar numbers of deaths may be due to illegal drug drivers. Researchers at transport research agency TRL found 17% of drivers who die in road crashes (almost one in five) have traces of illegal drugs in their system that may have affected their driving. TRL also found almost 6% of drivers (one in 17 drivers) who die in road crashes have traces of medicinal drugs that may have affected their driving. [3]
The Face Facts campaign pack is available for free to the first 50 companies who order it. The pack is also provided free of charge to members of Brake’s Fleet Safety Forum, the charity’s not-for-profit service helping companies stop crashes involving their vehicles through better road risk management. Subscription costs from just £90 per year and fleet managers can subscribe online at www.fleetsafetyforum.org.
Multiple copies of the poster can be ordered for £2.50 each + p&p. Contact Brake on 01484 559909 or admin@brake.org.uk to order.
Roz Cumming, Fleet Safety Forum Manager at Brake, says: “Drink and drug driving remains a sad reality that fleet managers need to do all they can to tackle – while some are, many still aren’t. It might be the ‘elephant in the room’ in your company; you just don’t know until you address it. This new campaign pack is a valuable first step in reminding your drivers of the dangers, and showing them your organisation is serious about stamping out the problem through risk management practices.”
Ean Lewin, Managing Director at Dtec International Ltd, says: “Drug driving in the UK really is a hidden menace. Traffic police in other European countries are allowed to screen for drugs at the roadside and have a 10-fold greater success with prosecutions for drug driving, which clearly indicates that we are missing the problem. In the work place, there is a simple, proven solution to the perceived complex problem of drugs and alcohol at work, which is to use simple devices such as the DrugWipe to screen employees who drive. A good number of companies have been benefiting for many years from a safer workplace with reduced crash rates. For companies, this simple solution is highly acceptable to staff and unions as well as helping management meet their duty of care under Corporate Manslaughter legislation, and being positively funded by fewer repairs to vehicles getting dints and bumps for ‘no explained reason.’ You too can help save lives now.”
[1] The Green Flag Report on Safe Driving part seven: At-Work Drivers, Brake 2007. The report is based on the results of several surveys, which questioned 4,640 drivers about their attitudes towards driving and behaviour on roads, including 2,510 at-work drivers
[2] Road Casualties Great Britain 2008, Department for Transport, Contributory Factor tables
[3] R J Tunbridge, M Keigan and F J James, The incidence of drugs and alcohol in road accident fatalities,TRL Report 495, Prepared for Road Safety Division, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (2001)
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| Date: |
25-May-2010
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