This month, the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) announced the 2017 winners of the PRAISE awards, in recognition of outstanding efforts taken by companies to improve road safety at work.

The large company award goes to National Vehicle Distribution (NVD), a family-owned vehicle transportation and storage company in Ireland. 

Antonio Avenoso, Executive Director of ETSC said:

“This year’s inspiring award winners demonstrate that road safety of employees is not just a company’s responsibility, it also makes for good business. PRAISE award winners have shown time and again that company-wide road safety programmes reduce insurance and fleet costs, cut employee sick days and improve customer service.

The PRAISE Awards judges said:

“NVD stood out in terms of their holistic approach to driver risk management. They have a huge focus on driver selection, training and ongoing management as well as strong evidence of daily interventions of a deterrent and enforcement nature with drivers to influence behaviour. A proactive company with a focus on safety, they learn from past incidents and find solutions to avoid them in the future. They also have clear performance targets and support positive reinforcement with a bonus system for drivers.”

Niall McNally, Head of IT, Business Analysis & HR at NVD also presented the company's compelling case study at the October series of Driving for Work (#DrivingForWork) seminars, hosted by the HSA, RSA and An Garda Siochana. Niall closed by saying that some benefits accruing to the business from the implementation of their safe driving programme, were simply unplanned!

All of this follows an eventful September which saw NVD pick up a prestigious 2017 Brake Fleet Safety Award in the Company Driver Safety Award category.

Here is a full list of award winners and "highly commended" entries (which includes DriverFocus!)