Employers have responsibilities to manage the risks that work-related driving creates, both for their own employees and for other road users. This page sets out the framework in plain terms and shows precisely which part of it a Foresight assessment helps you evidence.
Important
This page is general information, not legal advice. Foresight Fleet Solutions is a driver risk assessment and training provider. For advice on your specific statutory duties, consult a qualified health and safety practitioner or legal adviser.
Summarised in plain English. These are the reference points most commonly cited in relation to work-related road risk; the wording below is a paraphrase, not a quotation.
Places a general duty on employers to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of their employees, and to protect others affected by their undertaking.
Why it matters to your fleet
Work-related driving is work. The general duty is not suspended because the activity takes place on a public road rather than on your premises.
Require employers to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the health and safety of employees arising out of or in connection with their work, and to put arrangements in place to manage those risks.
Why it matters to your fleet
A risk assessment covering work-related driving is expected in the same way as one covering any other significant work activity, and like any other it should be reviewed and kept current.
HSE guidance sets out a practical approach to managing work-related road risk, organised around three areas: the driver, the vehicle and the journey.
Why it matters to your fleet
Our assessment framework mirrors those same three areas, so the output maps directly onto the way HSE frames the problem.
The duty extends to employees driving company vehicles and to those using their own vehicle for business travel, commonly called the grey fleet.
Why it matters to your fleet
The grey fleet is where we most often find the documentation gap: no assessment, no evidence of vehicle condition, no insurance verification and no record of driver competence.
HSE guidance frames work-related road risk around the driver, the vehicle and the journey. A complete approach covers all three. We specialise in the first and report on what we observe of the other two.
Competence, health, licence status, attitude and fatigue.
This is where Foresight works. We assess it, score it and document it.
Suitability, condition, maintenance and safe loading.
We observe the daily check and load security during the assessment and report on both.
Routes, scheduling, distance, time pressure and weather.
We flag journey and scheduling factors observed during assessment for your review.
Very few organisations have no arrangements whatsoever. Far more have arrangements that would not withstand scrutiny, because nothing was measured or because what was found was never acted upon.
What we typically find
What the assessment gives you
A written driving-for-work policy that nobody has read
Policy acknowledgement captured at assessment, with the key requirements discussed on-road.
Licence checks done at recruitment and never again
Licence and entitlement verified at every assessment and recorded on the report.
No evidence of driver competence beyond holding a licence
A scored, dated on-road assessment per driver, with a risk classification.
Grey fleet drivers outside the risk register entirely
Grey fleet assessed to the same standard as company vehicle drivers.
Identified risk with no recorded action taken
Targeted development for Medium and High risk drivers, then re-scored.
Nothing to show an insurer, auditor or safety committee
Fleet summary reporting designed to be presented to a committee, not filed and forgotten.
Scope & disclaimer
A driver risk assessment gives you evidenced, documented insight into driver competence and behaviour. It does not, on its own, discharge an employer’s duties. A credible approach to work-related road risk also covers vehicle selection and maintenance, journey and schedule planning, driver licence checking, policy, incident reporting and investigation, and monitoring over time.
Foresight Fleet Solutions is a driver assessment and training provider. We do not provide legal advice, and nothing on this website should be relied upon as legal advice or as a statement of your specific statutory obligations. Legislation and guidance change; for advice on your duties, consult a qualified health and safety practitioner or legal adviser and refer to current HSE guidance.
Anticipating Risk. Protecting Drivers.
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