Gerry Greene and Colin Brennan attended a Driving for Work Seminar hosted by the Health & Safety Authority, An Garda Siochana and the Road Safety Authority on the 18th October in Carrick an Shannon.
The seminar focused on the responsibilities of the employer and the employee when utilising a company vehicle for work purposes.

What the law requires

Health and Safety law applies to driving for work in the same way as for all work activities. As an employer, you should have a safety management system in place for managing all work related risks. Driving for work risks should be managed as part of this system.
You must also make sure your employees are:

• legally entitled to drive the vehicle they are using,
• using a vehicle that is safe and roadworthy,
• trained, competent and fit to drive their vehicle safely, and
• using their vehicle safely

The RSA underlined the importance of companies to have a clear and coherent policy governing employee usage of company vehicles. The policy should:

• Make Drivers aware of the main risks they face or create when driving for work
• Make sure that employees who drive vehicles in the course of their work demonstrate safe, efficient driving skills and other good safety habits at all times.
• Ensure all company vehicles are maintained in a safe, clean and roadworthy condition to ensure the maximum safety of the drivers, occupants and other road users, and reduce the impacts of company vehicles on the new environment- this also applies to personal vehicles used for work purposes.

The RSA underlined their intention to carry out spot inspections on companies with fleets of 1 or more commercial vehicles on the road. As part of these inspections, the RSA are looking for a procedure in place of daily vehicle inspections on all commercial vehicles.

In recognition of this, Mobil I recently released a Driver App which contains a Vehicle inspection Checklist.

This is now available on Android & iPhone:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bis.mstgo
https://itunes.apple.com/ie/app/mst-go/id1174329025?mt=8