Safety drives all aspects of IRU's work. For decades, IRU and its members have worked together to make road transport safer for everyone, including drivers.
On World Day for Safety and Health at Work, IRU, the world road transport organisation, reinforces its focus on a safe working environment for bus, coach, taxi and truck drivers.
IRU, together with its members, strives to improve the safety of drivers at work, in line with this year’s theme, “a safe and healthy working environment is a fundamental principle and right at work.” Here are two ways.
Safer drivers
By far the vast majority of road accidents do not involve trucks or buses. In fact, buses and coaches are the safest mode of passenger transport.
With the small percentage that do involve heavy-duty vehicles being mainly due to human error (85-90%), three-quarters of which are caused by other road users, there is a strong case for skills development and professional excellence for improved safety.
For over two decades, the IRU Academy has led the way, providing targeted training programmes to all professional road workers and managers. The Road Safety at Work programme is particularly focused on training professionals managing fleets and teams.
Other programmes cover a variety of safety topics, such as safe loading operations and cargo handling, defensive driving, and crash prevention.
RoadMasters, IRU’s risk and talent management solution, puts a significant focus on safety in its passenger, goods and hydrocarbon programmes. They assess drivers at different stages of their career to identify skill gaps, measure progress, and implement targeted action.
Training, capacity-building, awareness-raising and incentives are all necessary to minimise human error and improve safety standards.
Safer parking areas
Safe and secure truck parking areas are a basic condition of drivers’ working conditions. But there is a massive global shortage.
In the European Union for example, there are only 300,000 truck parking spaces currently available, with a significant shortfall of 100,000 spaces to meet total demand.
Furthermore, only 7,000 places, less than 3% of existing parking places in the EU, are in areas certified to be safe and secure.
IRU urges policymakers to provide additional support to improve conditions in the sector by advocating for funding to build new, and upgrade existing, safe and secure parking areas.
In the EU, the revision of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) Regulation offers a unique opportunity to increase the number of safe truck parking areas.