Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership is helping businesses ensure all their drivers get home safely this Christmas

Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership is partnering with Driving for Better Business (DfBB) to promote the free scheme to businesses across Warwickshire this Christmas to help everyone get home safely.

200 Christmas cards will be distributed to businesses across the county to raise aware of the Driving of Better Business scheme and encourage them to sign up over the Christmas period.  All the online tools and resources are free to access and, when businesses join, they’ll have access to a 7-step framework to help you cover the essentials.

Driving is often seen as a consequence of a job rather than a safety-critical aspect. It is one of the highest risk activities that most employees will ever undertake. Organisations and their managers have a legal duty to minimise that risk and ensure their drivers and other road users are safe. The programme includes essential information and legislation that commercial drivers should know from driver hours and weight limits to vehicle roadworthiness.

Warwickshire Police will also be promoting DfBB by handing out cards during multi agency operations to inform commercial drivers of their responsibilities and to pass on to their fleet managers to raise awareness of the scheme. Warwickshire Road Safety Education team will also be promoting the scheme as part of their safe and active travel offering to the workplace.

All the DfBB resources are free to access and distribute via the Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership page: www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com/warwickshire 

Simon Turner, Campaign Manager at Driving for Better Business said: “We’re proud to be working with the Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership, and sending out Christmas Cards to local businesses is a really imaginative way of engaging them. The benefits that stem from good management of work-related driver safety don’t just include fewer incidents and collisions – businesses are also likely to see reduced costs for maintenance, insurance and fuel to name a few. These are efficiencies that could prove very valuable in the coming year."

Philip Seccombe, Police and Crime Commissioner and Chair of the Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership, said: “By sending out these Christmas cards we hope to catch the attention of business owners and fleet managers to really underline the point that everyone has a part to play in making our roads safer.  It’s one of a wide range of activities that Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership is undertaking to help meet the ambitious but achievable goal of reducing the number of people who are killed or seriously injured on our roads by 50% by 2030.”

Councillor Wallace Redford, Warwickshire County Council Portfolio Holder for Transport and planning said: “This is a really important campaign at this time of year with the roads busier and cold weather leading to less-than-optimal driving conditions it’s essential that anyone who managers a fleet of vehicles and their drivers take safety concerns seriously. I hope as many businesses as possible take-up the opportunity of this free training.”

Buddy the elf is also helping ensure everyone gets home safe this Christmas. Buddy is doing daily Elf on the Shelf updates on the partnership’s social media, giving road safety hints and tips on how you can ensure your friends stay safe over the Christmas period.  

Follow the Partnership on @WarksRoadSafety (Twitter) and @WarwickshireRoadSafety (Facebook) to see Buddy’s journey.

About Driving for Better Business

Driving for work is one of the highest-risk activities that many employees undertake, whether they drive a commercial vehicle, a company car or make occasional work journeys in their own vehicle. As the gig economy continues to grow, this also means those who ride for work as well as those who drive.

Driving for Better Business is a free to access government-backed National Highways programme, delivered in partnership with RoadSafe, to help employers in the private and public sectors reduce work-related road risk, protecting staff who drive or ride for work, and others who they may share the road with.

Our mission is to improve the levels of compliance for all those who drive or ride for work by demonstrating the significant business benefits of managing work-related road risk more effectively.

https://www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com/

For DfBB media enquiries please contact Becky Hadley at Hadstrong https://hadstrong.com Mobile: 07733 054839, email: [email protected]