What do you do every day for work that puts you at greatest risk?

Unlike those employed in coal-mining, quarrying or deep-sea fishing, the answer for most of us is perhaps surprising. The reality is that driving is the most dangerous activity that we do in the course of our working lives.

RoSPA has spent more than a decade helping employers address work-related road risk as a mainstream accident prevention issue. There are clear legal and moral reasons for such an approach, as well as a strong business case.

For many smaller firms, however, a central question looms large: how can we have the expertise to manage this risk? The good news is that plenty of help is available when it comes to managing occupational road risk (MORR).

MORR is not about one-off interventions, but is instead focused on developing a system (policies, people and procedures) that can deliver sustainable and measurable benefits. Driver training - or development - is a key part of the system.

Here at RoSPA, we believe that driver development should be based on a clear principle: the generation of self-awareness in drivers so they take responsibility for what they do.

This is in line with the Highway Code, which states that: "[its] rules do not give you the right of way in any circumstance, but they advise you when you should give way to others. Always give way if it can help to avoid an incident." To put it another way, it is all very well being right, but who is left?

The first step towards driver development is carrying out a risk assessment, perhaps using profiling software, to establish which interventions are most appropriate for individual drivers. The assessment might point to ‘e-learning' (interactive online training), a classroom theory session or perhaps something as simple as distributing copies of the revised Highway Code and encouraging staff to read it. The risk profiler might suggest that a driver would benefit from in-car training.

In line with the self-awareness and responsibility principle, the training we offer at RoSPA enables drivers to recognise where they are vulnerable and introduces simple strategies to manage risks. Our courses aim not only to help drivers avoid causing crashes, but to help them avoid the crashes that others cause.

RoSPA's one-day Defensive Driver Training, for example, begins with a classroom session and eyesight check, after which delegates are introduced to the various vehicle checks they should carry out: the emphasis being on raising awareness of why such checks are necessary so drivers actually want to do them.

This emphasis is maintained throughout the rest of the course, which includes on-the-road assessments of delegates' normal driving styles, goal-setting, demonstration drives by the RoSPA trainer, and practice sessions during which delegates are coached by the trainer.

When considering driver-training options for your firm, I would encourage you to look only at those courses that are founded on a self-awareness and responsibility principle. Behaviour and attitudes behind the wheel will only truly change if drivers understand why such a change is important.

Details of RoSPA's Driver and Fleet Solutions can be found at www.rospa.com/drivertraining/. Email fleetsolutions@rospa.com or call 0121 248 2105 for more information

Managing a fleet can be complex with cost management, environmental concerns and duty of care to company drivers requiring a great deal of time and organisation. Larger organisations will most likely employ a fleet manager but small and medium-sized businesses will not always be able to justify this expense.

Managing a fleet involves maintaining control over the acquisition of vehicles and their running costs. It is important to have a clearly defined fleet policy, which defines the types of vehicles an organisation will operate in its fleet and how they are used. As part of the fleet policy, clear reporting is needed to correctly determine running costs; using fuel cards, for example, can facilitate accurate reporting of fuel costs and fuel consumption.

At the Energy Saving Trust we believe it is possible to address environmental concerns and manage down costs. The active management of costs within a clear fleet policy will automatically reduce carbon emissions. This win/win situation means that through the implementation of simple measures, a fleet operator can make a positive impact on the environment whilst enjoying significant cost savings.

Choosing the right vehicles is an important decision. There are a number of technologies such as hybrid vehicles and biofuels that offer substantial savings in terms of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. These technologies have an important part to play in reducing CO2, and will become more prevalent with government encouraging their development through initiatives such as the RTFO (renewable transport fuel obligation), which will require 5% of all UK fuel sold on UK forecourts to come from a renewable source by 2010.

In many cases, reducing carbon emissions may come from selecting moderate vehicles within mainstream manufacturers' ranges. For example, the E220 Diesel will result in CO2 emissions of 167 g/km. This is a saving of 20% or 1.4 tonnes per year compared with the equivalent petrol model doing 20,000 miles per year. Also, the benefit in kind taxation bill to the employee is considerably reduced.

The Energy Saving Trust provides a range of advice for organisations operating small and large fleets to help achieve both cost savings and reductions in CO2 emissions. For more information or to order your free copy of ‘The essentials of fleet management - a guide for non fleet specialists', please call our helpline on 0845 602 1425 or visit our website at www.est.org.uk/transport

Small business setting up a fleet will face worries such as vehicle management and fuel consumption as well as standard or specialist breakdown cover. In addition, the introduction of corporate manslaughter legislation this summer will mean an organisation, or a senior individual within the organisation, can be prosecuted for management failures that lead to the deaths of employees. So for small firms running a fleet, the first step is to ensure that they are fulfilling their duty-of-care obligations by ensuring vehicles are roadworthy.

Whether employees are driving a company car, a vehicle purchased through a cash-for-car scheme or using their own car for business use, the new legislation will make it the employer's responsibility to ensure the vehicles are roadworthy. If companies are going to let employees use their own cars for business, it is the employer's responsibility to ensure employees are making the following essential safety checks:

• The car is roadworthy and has a current MOT (if more than three years old)

• The driver is licensed to drive

• The vehicle is insured for business use

• The car is regularly serviced

• The employee is carrying out basic maintenance checks such as oil, washer fluid, tyre pressures

• The employee has membership of a roadside recovery organisation

Small businesses must also make provision for their vehicles breaking down; something that can be costly both in terms of money and time. Over half (56%) of people driving for business break down every year compared to just 12% of private motorists. By buying into flexible breakdown and recovery services packages small businesses can help remove this administrative burden and free themselves up to run the business.

The administration of a fleet can be further managed with fuel cards with pre-agreed limits. Employees have been known to exaggerate fuel bills by as much as 25%. For a small business with no dedicated fleet manager to check fuel claims, these exaggerated claims can be hard to spot.

One solution is for fleets to introduce fuel cards with pre-agreed credit limits. This method still allows employees to claim back VAT, while helping the business maintain closer control over employees' costs. Some cards, such as the AA's Fleet Advantage, also have a credit facility to pay for car servicing enabling necessary work to be done promptly, keeping the vehicle on the road and saving the business time and money. Cards like this can also be used to produce online reports detailing where the card facility is being used and by who. So the card acts both as a credit facility and a management tool for streamlining costs.

Simply by making seemingly small changes to the way that the fleet is administered, small businesses can save both time and money on unnecessary administration and improve their efficiency through effective management tools and reporting.

For more information visit www.theaa.com

If you're serious about greening your company fleet - and with the Energy Savings Trust's latest figures indicating company cars emit about 16m tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, you should be - then data is your greatest asset.

In order to implement improvement you need to establish where your business currently stands. How much fuel does your fleet currently use? What type and how many vehicles do you operate? Where do your drivers purchase their fuel from and ultimately what level of CO2 emissions does your fleet currently emit? These statistics will give you a clearer understanding of areas which need to be focused on for improvement and what steps to take to make your fleet as green as possible without costing the earth. Importantly, it also gives you a benchmark against which to measure your progress.

Once you have established your position it then becomes more manageable to determine where you want to go as a company. How are you going to improve the business mileage of your drivers, their fuel efficiency and what vehicles you select? There is a risk on relying simply on your vehicles to achieve CO2 reductions. Vehicles will contribute, but procurement is only part of the solution. Hybrids for example, may only deliver savings on inner city travel and biofuels are still a developing technology.

There is also the grey fleet to consider. The ‘grey fleet' represents workers' own vehicles, used for business driving purposes which typically do not fall under the management of the fleet manager. As a result there is no strict system in place to monitor fuel consumption and CO2 emissions from these vehicles. Cost is often quoted as a major barrier to developing a green fleet policy, but according to the Energy Savings Trust, a company with a fleet of only 100 vehicles could save up to £90,000 a year by implementing a green fleet policy.

In the immediate term, fuel cards present the best solution to reducing CO2 and delivering costs savings. As many of you will already know, a fuel card can be supplied by a leasing provider or oil company. A fuel card is used within a business to allow drivers to purchase fuel only at the forecourts. This system removes the possibility of drivers claiming sundry items as part of a fuel purchase through typical pay and reclaim schemes.

However, more importantly, fuel cards provide valuable information which is integral to implementing and measuring an effective ‘green' fleet policy:

• Produce accurate management report

• Price per litre and miles per gallon information on individual vehicles

• Point of sale detail including volume of fuel purchased

• The data collected via a fuel card system can be used to calculate CO2 emissions produced by individual vehicles and overall fleet

• Provide accurate mileage recording facilities

Choosing the right fuel card can make a difference to your carbon footprint and monthly bottom line costs. For example, a fuel card which can be used at multiple fuel retailers including supermarkets and oil companies will be much more valuable than a limited network fuel card provider. Drivers can fill-up at more economical stations and avoid driving miles in order to purchase fuel. This impacts on fuel efficiency and reduces overall monthly fuel costs.

Moving forward, additional measures can also be taken to improve fleet efficiency. A pro-active procurement strategy which selects vehicles on their emission performance as well as sustainability and includes those opting out of the company car scheme, will provide reductions in CO2 emissions. A driver behavior policy can be implemented providing drivers with instruction on how to drive more efficiently, taking into account factors such as tyre pressure, revving and car loading. This will reduce emissions, deliver fuel efficiencies and extend the overall life of your fleet. Consequently, an enforced policy can result in decreased fuel use and reduced carbon footprint per driver.

A true green fleet will not rely on one specific factor but incorporate each of these measures. The key is to integrate a manageable green policy which covers every aspect of the company car driver and actively reinforce these policies on a regular basis to deliver on-going, sustainable improvements.

For more information see www1.arval.co.uk