Tackling Potholes: A New Era for UK Roads
Many commercial vehicle drivers find themselves tangled up in road traffic accident delays on a regular basis, according to new findings from road safety initiative Driver First Assist (DFA).
According to a study recently published by DFA, nearly half - 47 per cent - of commercial drivers get caught up in delays following road accidents at least once each month. More than a quarter of these drivers - 28 per cent - find themselves stuck in accident-related tailbacks between three and five times per month.
Again, almost half (44 per cent) of those caught up in accident-related traffic jams said they were held up for between 30 minutes and an hour.
DFA has also calculated that with around 138,000 accidents on Britain's roads each year and assuming that at least one commercial vehicle driver is caught in traffic at each of these accidents, the average amount of time lost could amount to 103,000 hours per year. Needless to say, this means that UK businesses could be losing big money through lost productivity as a result.
Thankfully, however, there are ways in which the impact of road traffic accidents on business productivity can be mitigated. DFA chief executive David Higginbotham says he wants to see changes to the way in which collisions are handled in order to minimise subsequent disruption.
"Being delayed due to a road accident is stressful for everyone involved, not least for those drivers who have delivery targets to meet," he said. "But the good news is that better collision management in the first minutes after a crash can reduce deaths and serious injuries, as well as get everybody back on their way quicker."
The survey also revealed that 40 per cent of drivers questioned said they felt pressurised to make up the time lost to road accident-related delays. While 30 per cent acknowledged putting this pressure on themselves, 17 per cent said their employer had leant on them to make up the time and 16 per cent cited pressure from a combination of both employer and client.
DFA - which aims to cut the number of road fatalities through improved first-on-scene training - also believes that better education could go a long way to reducing delays related to road traffic accidents. It estimates that educating the 466,000 commercial drivers on UK roads could reduce road traffic fatalities by some 46 per cent.