Visiting drivers

Key messages

Employers need to make sure that visiting and agency drivers:

• are physically and mentally fit to drive
• are competent to do their jobs;
• hold valid and up to date qualifications; and
• understand what they have to do to ensure safe working on the site.

Questions to ask

Delivery drivers may never have visited the site before, and may only be on site for a short time. What do they need to know about your site? For example:

• workplace layout;
• where do they enter and leave the site with the vehicle?
• what are safe routes on foot around the site if they need to use the toilet, the office or the canteen
• what are the relevant safe working practices (for example, for parking and unloading).

Work as fully as possible with the employers of visiting drivers, to co-ordinate the measures you both need to take to meet their health and safety responsibilities. For example, employers should communicate to:

• provide safe access to a vehicle for loading or unloading;
• provide suitable equipment (for example, for drivers delivering at retail outlets) to unload safely; and
• make sure that vehicles and the ground they have to use are suitable for safe working.

To help visiting drivers, think about printing information on the back of order forms and invoices, for example:

• site rules;
• directions;
• maps; and
• approach information (for example, narrow routes, weak bridges).

See Delivering safely – for more information