By RAM Tracking on 5 Oct 2018

Employers have a duty of care to their employees, which means that they are legally obligated to take all the steps reasonably possible to ensure the health, driver safety and wellbeing of their employees in the workplace. This includes driving in a work-related capacity.

Breach of this duty can result in criminal prosecution with substantial fines and have a knock-on effect on a company’s brand and reputation - especially if the worst scenario occurs and the company are to face a prosecution for corporate manslaughter.

With more than 150 crashes in business related vehicles daily as well as 14,000 road deaths and serious injuries involving people driving for work purposes, businesses have been turning to dash cams to further instil this corporate duty of care and reduce these numbers. Dash cams, or dashboard cameras, can help companies in this respect by helping to:

1. Track vehicles effectively

Dash cams can help enhance duty of care as they provide employers with physical evidence to ensure that employees are driving safely when on shift, ensuring they aren't being a defensive driver. Not only will employers have this evidence to review, they will also be able to provide this footage to authorities should the instance occur.

2. Provide video evidence in case of an accident

Companies can prove that drivers are adhering to company’s duty of care policies or carry out the suitable repercussions if not.

3. Improve driver training programmes

By having access to footage of drivers out and about, employers can access the overall risk performance of their fleet and highlight areas which will need to improve on in training.

4. Many dash cams have added features

For example, some dash cams – such as our RAM Live – allow you to set custom email notifications, so you can get instant real time alerts in the event of a harsh break, acceleration or swerve, speeding event or incident/collision. It also has a driver facing camera meaning fleet managers can further ensure duty of care to drivers as they would be able to see further bad driver behaviour such as driving whilst tired, eating whilst driving, being a safe driver and using a mobile phone without a hands-free device whilst behind the wheel.

The added benefits live streaming

A live streaming dash cam is possibly one of the most effective way to establish corporate duty of care to drivers, as inappropriate driving and breaches of company’s duty of care policy can be captured and pulled up on quicker. For example, employers don’t have to wait until the end of the working day or week to manually download and review driver behaviour. They can view the footage in real time and pull up bad driver behaviour sooner, possibly preventing an incident that could result in putting a driver in danger, a prosecution and detrimental damage to a company’s reputation.