Road safety campaigners are calling on the Government to legislate to encourage higher road safety standards from UK businesses through a number of mandatory measures.

L-R: Racing driver Nic Hamilton and Martin Port on the Leaders for Life mission to Westminster

According to BigChange CEO Martin Port, founder of the Leaders for Life road safety at-work campaign, and Brake, tracking devices should be compulsory for all vehicles used on company business, and all organisations employing people who drive for work – including cars, commercial vehicles and ‘grey fleet’ – should have a nominated director responsible for road safety policy and reporting on KPIs such as miles driven, speeding incidents and time and distance driven.

To back up their calls, the campaigners, accompanied by racing driver Nic Hamilton, have taken their message to Westminster on a vintage Routemaster London bus.

Martin Port said: “More than 500 people a year are killed in the UK as a result of crashes involving people driving for work. While responsible business leaders are already improving road safety standards in their own organisations and we are in a position to be able to help them with that, we want Government to legislate to hold everyone who employs company drivers to the same high standards.”

Samuel Nahk, senior public affairs officer at Brake, added: “There are many things that business leaders can do to encourage safer driving at work. They can make sure drivers are not using their phones at work, that they are not exceeding the speed limit and that they are sticking to their working hours and taking the appropriate rest breaks. Leaders should also set an example to their people and make sure that everyone is working together to make our roads as safe as possible.”

The call builds on the work from the Leaders for Life campaign, which was developed by BigChange in partnership with Brake to encourage business leaders to become ambassadors for safer driving in their workplaces. The company is providing driving analysis technology free of charge to the leaders of medium and large UK businesses to help them understand and improve their own driving.