Deadly toll of grey fleet

A new survey has found that nearly a quarter of casualties on UK roads involve people driving for work.

The study, carried out on behalf of Highways England and Roadsafe, found that 21% of all people killed or injured on UK roads occur in driving-for-work collisions, while nearly a third (29%) of all fatalities involve people driving for work.

The study found that in 2018, 520 people died in collisions involving a driver or rider driving for work, but only 12% of them were working drivers or riders. Five per cent of the fatalities were passengers of a driver driving for work, while 83% of those killed were non-working road-users.

It warned of a lethal ‘lack of attention to work-related road safety’ by policymakers, suggesting that people working in the gig economy in particular falls outside the strict regulations governing other occupational drivers, such as driver training, restrictions around driving hours and roadworthiness of vehicles

Nick Starling, chair of the Transport Safety Commission Work Related Road Safety Forum, said: “As a society, we rely on those driving for work. Twenty-nine per cent of all fatalities, 24% of the seriously injured, and 21% of all casualties are sustained when someone involved in an injury collision is driving for work. Vans and drivers are not subject to the same strict regulation of driver training, drivers’ hours restrictions and roadworthiness testing as HGVs and buses/coaches, while the number of vans on the road and people working in the gig economy continues to rise.

“This report highlights the importance of stakeholders across all sectors working together to understand and manage the risk better.”

The study calls for further investigation into who is driving for work, the type of vehicles used, the type of roads used, who is being injured and the numbers working in transport in the gig economy. It says that strategic stakeholders must work together to drive down the death toll.