The research completed by The University of Adelaide Centre for Automotive Safety Research (CASR) showed road deaths while at work account for almost 50% of occupational deaths and 15% of Australia’s total road fatalities.

In response, RACV manager road user behaviour Melinda Congiu said: ‘By improving the safety of their vehicle fleet, businesses can help protect their employees’ lives and reduce the severity of injuries workers suffer in the event of a crash while on the job.

Ms Congiu said the showed that Australian businesses were starting to consider safety when upgrading their vehicle fleets.

‘We found that while businesses were aware of the need to purchase safe vehicles, there needed to be a systematic approach within the organisation to ensuring safety was at the forefront to achieve the best result,’ she commented.

‘Among the motivating factors for businesses to implement safe vehicle purchasing policies were reducing the cost of complying with Occupational Health and Safety laws, reducing the cost associated with vehicle crashes and employee downtime due to injury, the need to demonstrate safety leadership in the business market or a close alignment with the business’ values.’

‘A large proportion of Australia’s business vehicle fleet is operated by sole traders or small businesses, where the cost or the features of a particular vehicle dominate the purchasing choice,’ Ms Congiu said.

‘RACV is encouraging tradies and small businesses to put safety at the top of the list when purchasing a new ute or van – it is a decision that could save your life or that of your employees.’

RACV manager vehicle engineering Michael Case noted the need for vehicle manufacturers to increase the safety of commercial vehicles.

‘In recent years, there has been a number of ute and commercial vehicles which have achieved a five-star ANCAP safety rating, but a number of popular models still on the market achieve only three stars or less,’ Mr Case said.

‘Vehicles rated at less than four stars by ANCAP are not designed to work as well in crash, greatly increasing the risk of serious injury and death for the vehicle’s occupants.

‘Small and large businesses can demonstrate to vehicle manufacturers that offering the highest level of safety is a must by only purchasing models with a minimum of four stars, and preferably a five-star ANCAP rating where five-star vehicles are widely available for the class of vehicle being considered. You can find out how safe a vehicle is by logging on to ancap.com.au.’

Ms Congiu said that with most fleet vehicles resold to the private market in a relatively short period of time, increasing the number of five-star ANCAP rated vehicles in the nation’s business fleet would also improve overall safety for road users.