Article Text
Abstract
Background Time spent on commuting is the most dangerous time of the workday. Over two million Finnish people commute on daily basis and 80% of the commuting accidents occur as pedestrians or by bicycle. Contacting working-aged people has traditionally been through paid advertising and campaigning. Promoting traffic safety at workplaces is a new approach.
Objective This project aims to co-operate with different kind of organisations and develop functional operating models in different settings. The employer’s motives are concordant with general traffic safety motives and traffic safety is an essential part of the corporate responsibility. The goal is to keep productive labour force safe, able-bodied and avoid unnecessary costs. This action activates workplaces in promoting employees traffic safety. The co-operation with five organisations at Seinäjoki region and the Finnish Traffic Safety Council started on 2015. During the years 2016 and 2017 the project is expanding nationwide. New workplaces are integrated in the project from all Finnish regions and different industries.
Results There have been multiple measures depending on the individual characteristics of the workplace and commuting. During this time inquiries and self-evaluations concerning employees’ traffic safety have been used and developed and various training approaches and safety events have been applied to raise awareness about ones’ traffic safety. Also a seasonal traffic safety planning tool has been created and there is co-operation with internal communications. This regional co-operation has created new applicable operating models for nationwide traffic safety work.
Conclusions Promoting traffic safety has motivated the occupational safety staff and management of the participating organisations and there are indications that accidents have already decreased. The most important challenge is succeeding in developing such a user friendly approaches that the occupational safety staff can use them as a part of their mundane routines.
- Traffic safety
- commuting
- operating model
- occupational safety