Investigating an employee who has had a road traffic accident

Driving is one of the most dangerous work activities your employees can do, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of accidents, with more than 100 people killed or seriously injured every week in a road traffic accident involving somebody who was driving or riding for work. As a result, it is crucial as an employer that you carry out a suitable risk assessment for all your employees who drive to try to prevent accidents occurring. Also, make sure you have a clear reporting and investigations policy that sets out reporting of accidents and near misses and that you set defined roles for managers and ensures all staff are trained.

If the worst happens and one of your employees is involved in a car accident it is important that you carry out an investigation. Buy what does this entail?

The initial response

For serious accidents you will need to liaise with the police and share any evidence that you may have. If the initial investigation reveals serious failings you may need to alert the Health and Safety Executive.

Gather evidence

This should be done as soon as possible after the accident and systematically recorded. Evidence includes: photographs and video, such as dash cams, diagrams and sketches of the incident, witness statements, injury details, documents such as risk assessments, permits to drive and hours worked, emails and records of events such as near misses in the past.

Witnesses

Witnesses that are employed by you should be interviewed as soon as possible after the event and they should be told how their statement may be used in any HR or disciplinary process.

Adopt a structured approach

Create a basic timeline of events to help answer the questions of what happened, when, to whom, how and why. Also try to look at any underlying causes. It is important to find out what happened, not just in the seconds before the accident, but also in the hours, days, weeks or months beforehand.

Produce and implement recommendations

Your investigation should try to establish whether your employee’s behaviour, the driving task, the environment or your business’ working practices contributed to the crash. Recommendations will need to address each of these and it is important to be clear who is expected to take each action. Once these are identified an investigation report should be produced including a summary of events, evidence, conclusions and recommendations. Finally, all agreed recommendations should be implemented and all findings shared with staff, such as via email or staff intranet, to try to make sure lessons are learned.