The safety culture of companies is not always equally good developed and organized. As a result insufficient attention is paid to a prevention policy about road safety measures within the company. Professional drivers aren't encouraged to follow additional skills, not to drive under influence, healthy living,…. Nevertheless professional road transport accounts for a large number of accidents. The second chapter discusses the measures that companies can take to increase the road safety of their employees. Thus an additional training can be given to maximize their skills and to better assess risk. Training for drivers is not only a way to reduce accidents but it can also aim to create more responsibility, to ensure that road safety becomes an issue, to do team building and to create a positive attitude towards safety measures. It is also important to give the right training. The GDEmatrix has training divided into five hierarchical levels: basic manoeuvres, managing traffic situations, context of driving, objectives / skills for life and the organizational environment. Another measure is to monitor the health of workers. This measure is difficult to implement because health belongs to the privacy of the employee. However it is shown that good health leads to fewer absences of employees, less accidents and thus less material and physical damage, improved morale and improved productivity. A third measure is fatigue. Fatigue creates a slower response, reduce steering performance, lower estimate of the distance from the vehicle ahead and an increased risk for mental daydream. Research shows that problems with fatigue are greater for younger drivers. The last measure that is being discussed is driving under the influence of alcohol. This appears to be no big problem for professional drivers. Still companies do well to ensure that this does not happen. In the third chapter the costs of an accident are discussed. In an accident, there are both direct and indirect costs to the company. Examples of direct costs are repair costs, cost of emergency, Rehabilitation costs, increase in insurance premium,…. Examples of indirect costs are the time of the fleet manager for the paperwork, reassignment of staff to cope with the absence, may appoint a replacement, bad publicity,…. The fourth chapter deals with the safety culture. The philosophy of safety management is largely based on the American management theory and the assumption that accidents are mainly caused by human errors or failures. Therefore a safe organization is designed by creating a management system that specifies the targets; distribute, plans, organizes and controls responsibility according to safety. Creating a safety culture requires not only a stronger institutional pressure, but also a change in attitudes and a genuine commitment to companies. It is important that everyone cooperates to improve the health and safety at work. This commitment must start at the top of the management of the organization. Besides the literature there is also a practical study conducted. A total of 200 truck and van drivers were interviewed. These respondents were divided into four categories, namely truck drivers of large companies, truck drivers of small companies, van drivers of large companies and van drivers of small companies. The questionnaire consisted of questions about the safety culture of their company and about questions of individual safety attitude and behaviour. The safety culture was measured by the 25 propositions of the safety index developed by Global Aviation Network. The results of this survey shows that the mean safety index for the four different categories don't differ much. The averages are between 93.32 and 96.90. Regarding the individual attitude there is a link between the safety index and the use of the seat belt, as well as keeping to the speed with a private vehicle. Employees who work for a company with a high safety index have a better individual attitude towards the use of the seat belt and the speed of their private vehicle. A high safety index also leads to lower absenteeism. There was also examined whether employees are put under pressure to fatigue driving and speeding. The replies of the respondents indicate that workers in large companies in both cases are put more under pressure than employees of small companies. The last part of the practical study is a comparison between the results of the examination of Bjornskau and Longva and this study. (Author/publisher)
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