DON'T LET DRIVING FOR WORK BE A KILLER

With up to 200 fatalities and serious injuries on the roads every week involving someone driving as part of their job, the Local Authority Road Safety Officers' Associations (LARSOA), is urging everyone to take a zero tolerance approach to drivers who use their vehicles as their office.

LARSOA is calling on both drivers and employers to put lives before business when they or their staff are out on the roads.

Simon Ettinghausen, chair of LARSOA, explains: "Employers should be putting more safety measures in place. Many employees have complained that their employers expect them to be always available when they are out on the roads.

"Not only is using a hand-held mobile phone illegal but using a hands-free set can still be distracting and it only takes a momentary lapse of concentration to cause a fatal accident."

The Government's THINK! Driving for Work campaign is focusing on removing many of the hazards van drivers face, such as answering mobile phones whilst driving, eating and drinking, stress and fatigue.

In the last ten years the number of vans in the UK has increased by around a third - with the home delivery market constantly increasing this is likely to grow. There are now three million vans on the roads and 320,000 new registrations each year.

Drivers and their bosses are also being encouraged to plan journeys better in a bid to reduce speeding.

Simon says: "We would remind employers, including managers and supervisors, that they have a legal responsibility to ensure the health and safety of the people who work for them.

"We would also like to see coroners obliged to investigate what precautions could have been taken to avoid a death caused by work driving and if there were any failing management practices and policies. This whole area results in so many avoidable tragedies on the roads."

A television campaign will be running until the end of March - "If they're driving, kill the conversation" - will urge callers ringing drivers on their mobiles to consider the consequences that the driver could face as a result of answering their calls.

Simon adds: "Tough deadlines can make people make the wrong decisions and drive too fast. People driving for work should not be put under that pressure and their employers should not be calling them on their mobile phones.

The THINK! Driving for Work campaign is targeting drivers with messages throughout their working day through radio advertisements, press partnerships and ambient advertisements in service station washrooms and on cafe sandwich bags.

At the end of last month tougher penalties for using a hand-held mobile phone while driving were introduced. Drivers will now be fined £60 and have three penalty points added to their license for using a hand-held mobile phone while driving.

ABOUT LARSOA

LARSOA is a national road safety organisation representing road safety officers (RSOs) employed in local government across the UK.

LARSOA represents 185 of the 200 eligible local authorities across the UK, assisting RSOs to fulfil their statutory role to reduce the number and severity of road casualties through education, training and publicity programmes.

LARSOA publishes an up-to-date round-up of road safety news from across the UK on its website www.larsoa.org.uk .

LARSOA also aims to influence national debate - government policy and action together with public opinion. The association works to achieve national recognition for road safety issues, commissions research into behaviour which contributes to road collisions and develops national road safety campaigns.

The association assists in identifying achievable national targets to reduce the number of collisions on the country's roads.