Here's a look at our weekly vehicle check for employees to perform on their own or company vehicles to help improve road safety and reduce the risk of breakdowns.
In 2021 there were an estimated 27,450 killed or seriously injured casualties on British roads, and an estimated 128,209 casualties of all severities. Furthermore, an earlier task group estimated that up to a third of all road traffic accidents involve someone at work at the time! This may account for over 20 fatalities and 250 serious injuries every week.
Driving for work is one of the most dangerous things workers will do. As an employer, you must manage health and safety risks to workers who drive a vehicle on the road as part of work activity. Health and safety law applies to work activities on the road in the same way as it does on a fixed site.
As you can imagine, this is quite a big topic, and you can read more about your responsibilities on the HSE website. For this checklist, we're looking at one key area; managing vehicle safety.
This weekly vehicle checklist is designed to be used by any employee that is required to drive either their own or a company vehicle for work purposes.
Included in this checklist are all the basic vehicle safety points, but you may wish to add to it to include checks specific to your fleet of vehicles.
These are all simple, visual checks, such as all the various lights, windscreen and wipers, and perhaps the most important check that could prevent an accident; tyre pressure and tread.
Interesting side note:
The legal tyre tread depth for cars in the UK and Europe is 1.6mm across the central three-quarters of the tyre. Tyre and safety experts believe the 1.6mm legal minimum is insufficient to guarantee safety – most recommend a minimum tread depth of 3mm for tyre replacement.
Tests by UK technical organisation MIRA found that, once tyres are below 3mm, stopping distances increase dramatically.
Source: RAC
The checks included in this section of our checklist cover the workings of the vehicle, for example, the horn, brakes and condition and functionality of the seatbelts, as well as accessories, such as a fire extinguisher and first aid kit
RAC attends over 2.5 million roadside assistance call-outs each year. This equates to almost 7000 breakdowns in the UK every single day.
In the last section of our Vehicle Safety Checklist, we cover all of the basics that every vehicle driver is capable of, such as water/coolant, engine oil and screen wash etc.
Did you know that Team Member accounts on Risk Memo are absolutely free? That means your entire team could be completing this checklist straight from their phones.
To use this template you will need a Risk Memo account, you can check out our pricing by clicking here, and then copying it from our Template Library.
As always, if you have any questions or would like a demonstration of the app, start a chat on this page and we'll be happy to help.
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