Recently, there has been some important theoretical discussion about the organisational practices that contribute to safe driving behaviour and reduce work-related road traffic injury. In order for industry to be able to review current practices, modify and adopt new practices that will act to reduce work-related driving risk, researchers must find an effective means of communicating with industry.
This report is the first of a series to emerge from a recently completed government funded research project. It represents the first step in the establishment of a “translation task force” with the aim to communicate key messages and encourage policy and practice change. This first report maps current practice in workplace road safety against an established best practice (i.e., benchmarking) framework. A total of n =83 senior managers from a range of organisations in Victoria and New South Wales, within Australia, were recruited to participate in an interview.
The interviews discussed each organisations’ practices, policies and procedures around work-related driving. Overall, the results suggested there were opportunities for a greater level of maturity in the implementation of workplace road safety practices in the areas of road safety management, safer mobility, safer vehicles, safer road users and post-crash response.
Recommendations focus on clarifying roles and responsibilities in the management of workplace road safety as well as the role of human-computer interaction in increasing safe driver behaviour. Finally some important key actions emerged from an interactive stakeholder workshop that provided an opportunity to discuss and address gaps and limitations in the current approach to reducing death and injury in this critical safety domain.