Road deaths linked to work vehicles

UP TO 100 people who die in road crashes each year are drivers of vehicles being used for work, a conference on work-related collisions was told yesterday.

The number, more then one-third of the Republic’s annual road deaths, could be up to 5 per cent higher if deaths in off-road vehicles such as those used on construction sites were included.

The conference, jointly hosted by the Road Safety Authority (RSA) and the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), heard that vehicles were the biggest cause of work-related deaths and a significant contributor to work-related injuries.

Details of a new awareness campaign for employers and a range of measures to tackle the problem of commercial operators who fail to meet safety criteria were also given.

The measures include:

The compilation of a blacklist of commercial vehicle owners who are repeat, or in Garda opinion high-risk, offenders.

The compilation of a database to show underperforming testing centres for commercial vehicles.

Proposals for a fixed-fine system for offences to avoid the need to prosecute each case.

Enforcement of drivers’ hours and tachograph regulations.

The development of inspection areas in proposed new motorway rest areas.

Under an initiative launched earlier this year, gardaí, members of the RSA, the HSA and Customs officials have been targeting commercial vehicles to ensure compliance.

Supt Declan O’Brien of the Garda Traffic Bureau said enforcement of regulations and detection of offenders had been rising significantly in recent years.

The “supreme benchmark” was the numbers of road fatalities that had fallen over the last five years to 279 deaths.

The figures for this year were down 14 on the similar period last year, which would indicate that enforcement was being effective.

One of the most important issues in road safety was driver behaviour, particularly in relation to speed, and in this regard, high-visibility road checks were paramount.

He said the vast majority of detections of unsafe commercial vehicles occurred from Monday to Friday at about 8am to 4pm, in line with busy times on the roads for goods vehicles.

Several haulage companies had committed multiple road transport offences and would in future be targeted, he said.

But according to HSA chief executive Martin O’Halloran, worker deaths and injuries are not confined to buses and lorries.

People who drive company cars have 30-40 per cent more collisions than other drivers and the risk increases for those who have to travel more than 40,000km per year.

RSA chief executive Noel Brett said the safety agencies had developed guidelines for employers, providing an overview of their obligations under law.

These were available on the authority’s website at www.rsa.ie