AT Fleet NewsNet, there is one topic I get more emails about than any other – requests from fleet decision-makers asking where they can find official guidance on how they can ensure their staff are driving their vehicles within the law during the working day.

It’s heartening that Fleet News’ ongoing efforts to ensure the message about work-related road safety are hitting home. But the downside is that for many of our readers, the trail runs dry when they look further into the issue.

The trail should lead here – www.dft.gov.uk, the website of the Department for Transport. From the homepage, head straight for the Search box on the left and type in ‘work-related road safety’. The results page displays 49 documents, many of which will make essential reading.

Many of them are in pdf format so you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer to open them.

The first two reports on the page deal directly with fleet driver safety.

The first is a research document from the Transport Research Laboratory on the increased accident rates of company car drivers. The second report ‘Safety Culture and Work-Related Road Accidents’ offers more practical guidance on what the DfT recommends companies can do to minimise at-work accident risk.

The report runs to 134 pages. Some of the material is quite technical and ‘dry’ but, like many of the documents here, you will sleep more soundly if you read and act on them. The DfT website hosts ‘Driving At Work’, a vital fleet guide, and also gives information on speeding laws, vehicle taxation and mobile phone use.

There are also consultation documents on the Transport Energy clean vehicle grant scheme and a current debate on proposals for a tolled dual carriageway between Birmingham and Manchester. I would recommend making this site one of your favourites – you could need it soon. Jeremy Bennett

The lowdown

We like

A must-read for any responsible fleet manager. It could save a life.

We don't like

The DfT doesn’t promote the information on this site enough