ICON puts safety in road transport FIRST
There are too many accidents involving vehicles being used on business. And it’s not just on Britain's roads that people are dying in accidents involving vehicles. Health & Safety Executive statistics indicate that excluding road traffic accidents, a significant proportion of injuries and fatalities involve vehicles.
The Traffic Commissioners have long believed that prevention through proper management and regular training is key to reducing this horrific annual waste. They have also made it clear that they will clamp down hard on drivers or operators who put at risk the safety of other road users.
If something goes wrong and someone is killed or injured in a vehicle related incident, it is increasingly the directors of the company involved who are being held to account. So managing vehicle safety is an essential management challenge.
There is no shortage of advice about what road transport operators should be doing to avoid the risk of accidents. What many operators find challenging is how to turn that advice into a series of practical actions relevant to their own particular business. That’s the challenge that ICON has been developed to tackle.
ICON starts where the guidance stops
ICON is straightforward, easy to implement, and enables transport operators to readily place safety at the heart of their transport business. ICON has been developed to:
- Provide the road transport industry with a standard against which vehicle safety can be measured
- Reduce the number of vehicle related deaths by improving road safety
- Protect operators’ livelihoods by enabling them to prove that they have proper arrangements for complying with Operator Licence Undertakings
- Offer professional businesses a safety solution which improves profitability
- Provide peace of mind and a solid defence should a serious accident result in actual, or threatened, criminal prosecution
Implementing the ICON programme allows directors to focus on the future of their business in the knowledge that they have done all that can reasonably be expected of them to minimise risks resulting from the operation of vehicles - and if necessary, they can prove it.