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  • What responsibility does the employer have regarding road safety?

    24 September 2018
  • Vilket ansvar har arbetsgivaren

  • Road traffic is the most lethal environment- Who is responsible for ensuring road safety while at work?

    With road traffic as your work environment, you´re exposed both to an extra risk and responsibility. Not only for your own and your colleagues’ safety, but also for everyone else present. When you work as a taxi driver, delivery truck driver, salesman, technician, home care staff or any of the other professions that drive a car in the service, you are constantly exposed to risks in traffic. It is also a work environment where a single mistake or bad decision can cost lives. Sometimes the mistake can be made by you, sometimes by another road user. Regardless, your risk taking will affect the consequences.

    Who has the responsibility to make sure the road traffic is a safe work environment?

    The responsibility put on professional drivers and their companies

    Ultimately, the responsibility of course lies with the person driving the car. And as a professional driver you are also expected to lead by example, not least because you represent your company and its brand when you are behind the wheel. But also because you are expected to have the knowledge and experience required to drive extra safely.

    But, that you as a driver have the correct knowledge and experience required, that responsibility is on the employer to ensure. It is not enough to buy safe cars and require the drivers to follow the law, it is also required to convey the right knowledge and risk awareness to the drivers in order to prevent the risks as far as ever possible.

     

    This is what the Swedish Work Environment Authority says regarding road traffic as a work environment: “It is the employer who is responsible for minimizing the risks of ill health and accidents also for the part of the work environment that traffic constitutes. They must, among other things, examine work conditions, assess the risks that someone may be harmed, and based on the risk assessment, take measures with the aim of preventing risks as far as ever possible. The employer must, among other things, also ensure that you have sufficient knowledge of the risks in traffic. Having a valid driving license is not enough when driving for work in Sweden. ”

    In other words, the employer has a very far-reaching responsibility to minimize the risk of accidents or ill health in traffic. Allowing the company’s drivers to carry out a road safety training is a necessary step to achieve a safe work environment. There is also many benefits to reap for the company by taking responsibility for road safety and training its drivers

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