The company, which operates one of the UK’s largest fleets including more than 10,000 vans, almost 1,900 company cars and 24 HGVs, has implemented numerous initiatives to reduce the risk of crashes among its workforce. In addition, almost 2,000 employees who drive their own cars on business trips are included in British Gas’s safe driving programme.

Those initiatives have seen incident rates tumble by more than 30% in five years, which has resulted in improved employee well-being, considerable financial savings, increased efficiency and reduced staff absences.

Thanks to its commitment to occupational road risk management British Gas is a Driving for Better Business campaign champion. This campaign is managed by RoadSafe.

Now Jon York, fleet operations manager at British Gas, is to use his wealth of experience to help local employers conduct risk assessments and introduce measures such as driver licence checking.

He said: 'I‘m already looking at mentoring organisations that are local to me and I’m also working with our sub-contractors on the introduction of safe driving initiatives.'

Michael Parish, programme consultant for the Driving for Better Business campaign, said: 'British Gas’s idea of mentoring local organisations to help them introduce at-work driving risk management schemes is fantastic.

'The whole idea of the business champions network is to act as advocates to promote the business benefits of managing at-work driving. As a result of the mentoring programme I hope we gain more "business champions".'