A report on ‘Managing Young Drivers at Work‘ has recently been published by ETSC. Evidence shows that young people have the highest collision involvement of any road user group. Approximately one in four young people who die within Europe’s borders do so as a result of a road collision. This report looks into the direct and indirect factors associated with higher collision rates of young drivers at work and makes recommendations on how to assess and mitigate the specific risks associated with this group. 

A European conference on work-related road safety organised by ETSC took place in Brussels on 13 October 2014. The conference covered the business case for work-related road safety as well as a section on safety issues for van operators. ETSC’s PRAISE project‘s aim is to promote best practice in order to help employers secure high road safety standards for their employees. PRAISE is co-ordinated by the ETSC secretariat with the support of Fundación MAPFRE, the German Road Safety Council (DVR), the Belgian Road Safety Institute (IBSR)and the Dräger Foundation. The Hellenic Air Force was awarded as the Public Authority engaged on work related road safety.

As part of the PRAISE project, the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) presents annual awards in recognition of organisations that have made an outstanding commitment to improving work-related road safety. The competition aims to spur on employers throughout the EU to tackle road safety at work and it is divided into three separate categories according to the size and type of the applicant organisations: SME (Small-Medium Enterprise), Large Company and Public Authority. The winners will be chosen by an independent panel of experts appointed by ETSC. Theapplication deadline is early September and the ‘PRAISE Award’ will be presented on the 13th of October 2014 at the PRAISE Annual Conference. 

ETSC and IOAS organised a Workshop on the 18th of March 2011 in Athens and they called for Safer Driving for Work to be a Top Road Safety Priority in Greece, under the framework of Preventing Road Accidents and Injuries for the Safety of Employees (PRAISE) project. 

Work-related road safety has been highlighted at the recently released synthesis of the European Road Safety Observatory as prepared by the SafetyNet project. Work-related motor vehicle road crashes occur at the workplace and in driving associated with work (excluding commuting). Most work-related crashes involve company cars. Scientific understanding and monitoring of key problem areas, solutions and their effects on road and occupational crash injury, however, is limited and needs to be developed further.