Employer Toolkit
How do I assess road safety risk?
Risk management is focused on eliminating health and safety risks, and if that’s not possible, minimising the risks. A hierarchy of controls to manage the risks associated with driving is outlined to the right and is ranked highest to lowest in levels of health and safety protection. This approach can be used within your workplace to help your workers to stay safe if they need to travel for work.
What is a hazard?
A hazard is a source or a situation with the potential for harm in terms of human injury or ill-health, damage to property, damage to the environment, or a combination of these.
Hazards at work may include noisy machinery, a moving forklift, chemicals, electricity, driving, poor sitting posture, working at heights, a repetitive job, or inappropriate behaviour that adversely affects a worker’s safety and health.
What is risk?
Risk is the possibility that harm (death, injury or illness) might occur when exposed to a hazard. The level of risk reflects the likelihood of the hazard occurring and the potential consequences of the hazard.
Example
The hazard is wet weather, the risk is the possibility of losing control of your vehicle.
You can eliminate the risk by asking yourself these questions:
- do you need to drive?
- are there other ways you can achieve the required work objective/output without driving?
- can you postpone driving in the wet weather?
- are there other transport options that you can use?
If you are unable to eliminate the risk, you then need to mitigate the risk by:
- reducing your speed in wet weather
- ensuring you maintain a larger gap (crash avoidance space) between you and the vehicle in front of you
- turning on your headlights to increase your visibility to other vehicles
Note: You should never drive if there are flood / flood water warnings or flood water in the area of travel.
Hierarchy of controls
Read more Read less The hierarchy of controls is a system for controlling risks in the workplace. The hierarchy of controls is a step-by-step approach to eliminating or reducing risks and it ranks risk controls from the highest level of protection and reliability through to the lowest and least reliable protection.
Eliminating the hazard and risk is the highest level of control in the hierarchy, followed by reducing the risk through substitution, engineering controls and isolation, then reducing the risk through administrative controls. Reducing the risk with protective personal equipment (PPE) is the lowest level of control.
This graphic shows the structure of the hierarchy of controls, from most effective control to least effective.
Elimination
Read more Read less Highest level of protection and most effective control
This means to completely remove the hazard and risk so no control/s need to be implemented.
Your workers should reconsider their need to travel. For example, your workers could use audio or video conference facilities instead of travelling or remove additional trips by arranging meetings in the same location on the same day.
Substitution
Read more Read less This means to replace a hazardous situation with one that has no associated hazards or poses a lower risk.
If your workers are required to travel, consider a substitute for driving with a safer option such as public transport or air travel. You can plan your travel at Transport Info
Engineering controls and isolation
Read more Read less This means to reduce the risk by separating or isolating the driver from exposure to the hazards, changing the design of the workplace, or introducing technology or equipment to minimise the exposure and/or consequence of the hazard.
You can reduce your workers’ risk by using the latest safety technologies. For example, only purchase 5-star ANCAP (with a date stamp no more than three years old) or Used Car Safety Rating passenger and light commercial vehicles with extensive safety assist technologies which can help avoid a crash or reduce the severity of a crash if one does occur.
Always choose a new or used car with the highest safety rating that you can afford. Make sure the car you buy is fitted with as many safety features as possible for that model – it could be the difference between survival or being seriously injured or killed in a crash.
Administration
Read more Read less Low level of protection and less reliable control
You can further minimise the risk by administrative or procedural means such as the publication and implementation of standards, policies, guides and training modules to assist workers make safer decisions when driving or riding on the road.
Consider using the guidance document for developing a road safety policy, using the pre-drive checklist in all your vehicles and embedding the Road safety: Everybody’s business online learning into your workplace.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE):
Read more Read less Lowest level of protection and least reliable control
The final level in the hierarchy of controls is the application of PPE and other equipment that enhance your workers safety such as sunglasses, high-visibility vests, bicycle and motorcycle helmets and motorcycle protective clothing.