As a family business the company was launched by Mark Luck who began operating his first truck in 1929. His son Ken Luck soon became involved and became a limited company in 1977. He’s Son Mark started working in the workshop, drove a lorry and worked his way up to become director of the company. Mark Luck Ltd based in Swanley, Kent, Specialises in waste services and grab hire. We provide our services to the construction and building industry. Our fleet of vehicles engages in the supply of all types of primary aggregates, recycled aggregates and top soil. Rachel Archbutt the HR Manager, explains how the company has used FORS to make improvements on road safety. Since 2011 the company’s infrastructure has grown and improved significantly since being introduced to FORS. Mark Luck the managing director has achieved reduction in fuel use, reduced CO2 emissions and reduced fines and PCNs.
Whilst working for Crossrail, our customer compliance meant that we had to become bronze accredited to work on site. When we looked into the benefits of joining FORS it was clearly apparent that having this standard of accreditation would benefit our company and its safety procedures. FORS bronze has helped improve our policies and procedures and has given us the tools to train our drivers about vulnerable road users.
When preparing for the bronze audit we realised that we needed a comprehensive manual that had all our policies and procedures together. Passing the bronze audit first time was encouraging and set the foundation to want to achieve Silver and Gold accreditation.
Once we had achieved bronze accreditation we really made use of the tools to train our drivers. In the last twelve months we have had purpose built offices, with a training room which has meant we can do training such as E-Learning and toolbox talks onsite from the FORS website. Positive feedback from construction sites, in regards to having bronze meant that we wanted to set our safety standards even higher. Some sites required the FORS Silver, which then gave us the drive to achieve this standard. Gaining the bronze and silver FORS standard has meant that we can go onto large construction sites with a high standard of driver and vehicle compliance.
‘Being FORS accredited has contributed to improving our internal company development for collecting data and improving policies and procedures’ -Mark Luck- Director/ Transport manager.
Myself and Mark Luck have attended some of the FORS practitioners courses and found the managing work related road risk and the reducing fuel use and minimising environmental impacts extremely beneficial in improving our knowledge and training. All of our drivers have completed the safe urban driving course and the FORS E-Learning.
‘We want to achieve FORS Gold accreditation to show to all our customers that we are top of the game in the haulage industry!’ -Mark Luck Director/Transport Manager.
Once we had achieved FORS bronze, Silver was the next stage to progress Mark Luck Ltd. Silver has helped us be more aware of all the safety features that our lorries require. Progressing to silver has also highlighted the need to be aware of vulnerable road users. Having Silver has meant that as a company we have a high accreditation that would allow access on restricted sites. Being fully compliant is a major factor of the running of our company. We would encourage any company to become FORS compliant no matter how big or small it would benefit the company in so many areas.
- We have been actively educating the drivers on reducing Incidents and accidents which have decreased in the last year. We believe this is down to the high level of safety features on our Lorries and educating drivers about vulnerable road users. Parking and loading in appropriate places to reduce the company’s PCN’s has also been an area we needed to improve. It is our company policy that the driver pays for parking fines that they may occur; this has shown a considerable decrease in fines.
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MPG | Incidents/Accidents | Number of PCNs |
| Jan-Dec 2016 | 6.03 | 22 | 37 |
| Jan-Dec 2017 | 6.50 | 17 | 22 |
| Percentage improvement | 7% | 22% | 40% |
- Driver health and fitness declaration is conducted on new drivers and then every year for existing drivers. Any health problems will be addressed and information provided for drivers that have any issues. As a company we have implemented free fruit at work to encourage healthy eating amongst our workforce. We have also joined the government bike to work scheme which some of our drivers have made use of. We are actively trying to encourage our drivers to have a healthier lifestyle. We have acquired a treadmill in our training room that drivers can make use of before and after work. And we do sight tests every 6 months.
- To recruit new drivers Mark Luck attended the local college for the annual Career day to promote driving as a career in the future. We also use social media to
advertise for driving jobs. We run an apprentice scheme to recruit workshop mechanics. As a company we have a brilliant retention rate with some of our drivers working for us for over 10 years.
- We carry out a noise assessment once a year which takes into consideration noise produced from our haulage yard, noise from our vehicles and any other noise that could disturb local residents. All our vehicles have white noise reversing alarms fitted to be used at certain times.
- All of our vehicles are Euro VI standard. In the past we have tried to use bio fuel and LPG Gas. Unfortunately at this time neither was cost affective, and the fuel ended up causing more problems with blocked filters. Electric powered vehicles need more work from the manufacturers to produce a vehicle that carries the weight and material we deliver and covers the terrain of construction sites. When an efficient HGV fuel alternative is produced we would be happy to try it out. However we have been looking into other modes of transport and how they could help us to remove waste from London. Using the railway or the river could be an option for future modal shift.
In order to make continual improvements to our fleet we will be consistently training our drivers and conducting E-Learning. We want to encourage a healthier lifestyle amongst our workforce, By giving them free fruit and encouraging bike to work scheme. We hope that this will have positive influence on our workforce. We have a dedicated team of transport managers that monitors the fuel consumption, Co2 levels and incidents within of our fleet. We believe will help improve our environmental impact.
Going for Gold shows that as a company we are proactive in considering safety on and off the road. We will continue to support and promote the FORS scheme whenever possible. By achieving FORS Gold accreditation it will demonstrate to our existing and future clients the successful progress and efficiency of Mark Luck Ltd and the continued commitment to FORS standard and road safety.
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Please note: All published FORS Gold case studies have been submitted by the accredited company named above and transcribed verbatim.