The Question:
Are workplace safe driving incentives creating the wrong behaviour? This Q&A explores whether incentives encourage safe driving and are effective in changing behaviour on our roads, particularly when driving for work.
Why It Matters:
Incentives are a common method organisations employ to improve safe driving behaviour among workers. Whether incentives are effective impacts an organisation’s safety performance and, in turn, their competitiveness. How and which incentives are implemented influences how well they work.
The Issue Explained:
Driving for work is one of the riskiest activities workers undertake in their working day, with the operation of vehicles for work vastly over-represented in crashes and injuries. Safe Work Australia figures show more than two thirds of worker fatalities in the previous 14 years involved vehicles. People injured in a work-related vehicle crash also require more time off work to recover from injury compared to other work-related injuries.
People driving for work may also be considered more at risk than private vehicle drivers, partly because work drivers on average drive almost twice the annual kilometres of non-work drivers. So organisations and work drivers need to be more diligent in implementing proven risk management strategies and mitigation processes.
Incentive schemes, which provide tangible incentives to encourage safe driving behaviour, are one way many organisations address work driving safety.
