Wolseley UK, which operates 2,500 cars, 1,200 vans, 1,150 rigid trucks and 150 articulated trucks and trailers, has been rewarded for its excellent road safety initiatives at the Brake Road Safety Awards.

• Paul Gallemore, head of health, safety and environment, won the Road Risk Manager of the Year Large Fleet Award.

• Wolseley UK itself won the Crash analysis procedures award.

Paul Gallemore has successfully implemented a range of fleet risk management procedures since joining the company in December 2004. His first task was to shape the newly formed Fleet Safety Steering Group, which included various health and safety, transport, operations and fleet managers, as well as representatives from Zurich Risk Services, Willis and Interactive Driving Systems®.

The group has led the development of a range of initiatives over the last 18 months including the following: a new fleet safety policy, fleet safety audit from Zurich Risk Services, driver focus groups, driver eyesight testing and corrective action, safety alerts, better collision reporting and recording, more rigorous management of uninsured losses, tighter driver recruitment processes.

A detailed evaluation process also led to the bespoke implementation of a driver risk assessment and monitoring programme using the Virtual Risk Manager®, which is currently being rolled out to the first 1,000 company car, van and truck drivers to be included in the project in the UK.

Wolseley UK has also worked closely with its risk management advisors, insurance broker and insurer to improve their collision data collection and use. Using the CrashCOUNT system, provided by Interactive Driving Systems®, allows the company clear visibility on a wide range of detailed information on its vehicle collisions – to allow specific interventions to be targeted.

Paul has successfully used the collision data and outputs from the Zurich audit to highlight the levels of road risk in the organisation, and persuade the board and senior managers to invest time and funds into the fleet safety programme. This investment has been vindicated in two main ways.

• A follow-up fleet safety audit recently undertaken by Zurich Risk Services found a significant improvement in across all the key areas of fleet risk management over the past 18 months.

• Claims data shows the numbers of incidents per month have reduced for the car and commercial fleets, insurance premiums have decreased by a five-figure sum and uninsured loss recoveries have increased substantially over the past 18 months.

Bob Mason, HR Director at Wolseley UK, said ‘Paul Gallemore takes a holistic approach to all aspects of Health and Safety and engages all areas of the company as well as external experts in improving performance and reducing accidents. He fully understands the need to audit and quantify his results, has a strong grasp of risk, communicates his ideas and plans with clarity and is totally committed to the cause’.