City Building Engineering Services (CBES) has partnered with National Highways’ Driving for Better Business campaign to promote road safety and risk management.

Duncan McNicol, head of risk & compliance at CBES

CBES has 800 employees managing over 3,000 sites in the UK, with its engineers and technicians driving more than 350 vans, plus around 120 grey fleet vehicles.

Duncan McNicol, head of risk & compliance at CBES, said: “We have our brand name on the side of the vehicle and we work with well-known customers. We cannot afford the reputational damage from unsafe driving. However, fundamentally it’s about keeping everyone safe.”

The business is already taking broad sweeping actions to reduce risk – including ambitious goals and telematics use, key safety metrics for the whole organisation and action to recognise and reward great performance by drivers. It’s also now making use of the assets through Driving for Better Business, which is exhibiting at this April’s Great British Fleet Event.

Duncan McNichol said: “I like the tools and resources Driving for Better Business makes available to facilitate communication and dialogue with our drivers. We do a lot of safety-based education and the toolbox talks and videos fit well within that. We use one a month to support other messaging, as well as when topical, such as driving in bad weather.

​“We approach fleet safety like we do with other business risk areas: we review performance, analyse the data for trends and act accordingly. If we do have a collision, within minutes we have details of the vehicle movements and speed, and we can speak to the driver and the customer. My team and the wider fleet team will always investigate what has happened in an incident – but you can’t do that effectively unless you have those foundations of technology, cultural safety and candour.”

National Highways’ Driving for Better Business lead, Anne-Marie Penny said: “Partnering with organisations that share our vision is inspiring and I’m especially pleased to welcome CBES to the Driving for Better Business family to work together promoting good practice in road risk management, helping everyone to get home safe and well.

“By becoming a partner, CBESs will have access to a range of free resources, guides and tools. These will help deliver significant reductions in its operating costs, such as collision repair; maintenance; fleet insurance and excesses; third-party claims; fuel use and emissions; business mileage claims; replacement staff and vehicles; and the sheer costs of employee time.”