Collision Investigations are Catalysts for Change

Most collision investigations go no further than questioning the driver, according to MD of Road Safety Smart and incident investigator Andrew Drewary – and this means missing vital contributor factors embedded in the organisation.

Andrew has managed the investigation and analysis of over 40,000 road collisions over the past 21 years. He says that most organisations go wrong in one of three ways: they do not investigate anything; they only investigate collisions, not near misses; and their investigation rarely goes beyond talking to the driver.

“A good manager makes a good driver,” Andrew told delegates to National Highways inaugural conference, Commercial Vehicle Safety on the Strategic Road Network. “Road safety is about good management, not good luck!”

This means that focusing on the driver and ignoring the operational context, the managers, company policies and all the other influences on his behaviour will make an investigation a fruitless process.

“98% of investigations identify the driver as at fault, and so nothing in the organisation changes. Investigations should be a catalyst for change,” he says. “We learn more from investigating near misses because they allow us to make changes which prevent the major collisions.”

Investigations should not be looking for fault, but for solutions. “They hold the solutions to the problems your fleet organisation has,” he says. “Good investigations underpin a safety culture. They show what drivers do well. They elicit information drivers will confide in investigators. And they stress test every policy, process and part of your operation.”

Investigations should happen for every near miss and collision, he says. It does not matter:

• Whether anyone was injured

• Whether anyone has brought a claim

• Whether or not the employed driver was at fault

• Whether or not an actual collision took place.

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