Podcast highlights: Rail Industry Road Safety Week specials

We’ve spoken with three special guests to get some key insights on minimising road risk in the line of work. Two are industry colleagues, and one is a member of the Metropolitan Police. 

From first-hand experience of a road traffic collision (RTC) to life-saving best practice, here are the highlights from our chats with Dave Whelan, Jamie Mills, and Rik Wenham.

How the ‘perfect storm’ led to this survivor’s RTC

In the first episode, we heard from Dave Whelan. Dave is a train manager at GB Railfreight. He shared his personal experience of a work-related road traffic accident. 

Dave described the circumstances leading to the accident. These included:

• driving a hire car he was unfamiliar with
• navigating a motorway closure at 2am
• dealing with undiagnosed and unmanaged sleep apnoea.

He also discussed his recovery process, which included finally getting his sleep apnoea diagnosis and treatment. This is a condition he’d had for 30 or so years.

Dave ended by stressing the importance of proper preparation and familiarisation with vehicles. He also praised the support he received from GBRf in helping get his diagnosis and implementing new safety measures at the organisation.

Supporting a line report through an RTC

In the second episode, we spoke with Jamie Mills. Jamie is a section manager at Network Rail. He shared his experience of managing an employee who had a road traffic accident at work. The cause in this case was a microsleep.

He discussed the immediate support he provided to the employee. He also covered the implementation of the ‘Golden Hour’ process to monitor their condition in the longer-term. 

To prevent incidents like this, Jamie highlighted the importance of ensuring good-quality sleep as much as possible. But he recognised that this is difficult to manage as a line manager. 

Finally, he touched on some new safety measures implemented at Network Rail in the wake of this incident. These include:

• a new rule that no one drives alone
• the fact that NR now allows employees to report fatigue before beginning their shifts.

Police tips on keeping your drivers safe

In the third and final episode of our miniseries, we spoke with Rik Wenham. Rik is an investigator in the Commercial Vehicle Unit with the Metropolitan Police. 

He discussed the critical processes involved in responding to and investigating RTCs. He also emphasised the importance of effective intervention in preventing tragedies, sharing a poignant story about a fatality that could have been prevented with more timely intervention. 

He also highlighted the importance of collaboration with transport managers to ensure thorough investigations and support for drivers involved in accidents.

Rik concluded by offering some advice to managers:

• They should ensure that they give drivers time to do walk-around checks on their vehicles before setting off. 
• Vehicle training must be relevant to the job and interesting.