Road safety charity Brake has celebrated the fleet sector’s commitment to road safety, with its annual UK Fleet Champions Awards ceremony.
12 awards were handed out at a ceremony on 25th September at New Dock Hall at the Royal Armouries in Leeds.
More than 270 fleet professionals attended the ceremony.
Brake has held the UK Fleet Champions Awards for more than 20 years, intending to celebrate the role of fleet organisations and suppliers in reducing road injuries and deaths, as well as pollution.
The ceremony was sponsored by Geotab and the ceremony was delivered in partnership with National Highways.
Ross Moorlock, CEO at Brake, opened the event with a call to challenge the ‘normalisation’ of road deaths and serious injuries, after figures from the Department for Transport showed that annual road deaths are declining slower than in previous years.
Moorlock said: “It is simply unacceptable that, as a society, we largely accept people being killed on our roads every day.
“All of you in this room care. You get it. You live and breathe this every day.
“But we also need to reach those who don’t – to challenge the normalisation of road death and injury that has gone on for far too long.
“These awards matter not only because they celebrate success, but because they set standards.
“This year we have made the entry and judging process even more rigorous and we are delighted to recognise those organisations and individuals who are truly leading the way.
“We’d like to thank everyone who joined us for last night’s awards and our sponsors Geotab, partners Driving for Better Business by National Highways, and our individual award category sponsors, for making it all possible.”
Winners included Cappagh Browne Utilities, CLEAN Linen and Workwear and Kelly Group, which won the Company Driver Safety Awards for small, medium and large fleets respectively.
The Public Sector Driver Safety Award was presented to Cumbria Fire and Rescue, while BUKO Traffic & Safety won the Sustainable Journeys Award.
Fleetmaster was presented with the Dr Will Murray Award for Analysis and Action.
Geotab won the Fleet Safety Innovation Award and SSE and Applied Driving was presented with the Fleet Safety Partnership Award.
The Fleet Safety Product Award was presented to Fleet Service GB.
Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service was awarded the Road Safety in the Community Award.
The Safe Vehicles Award was won by Grundon Waste Management.
Matthew Mort at Arriva Merseyside/ Arriva North West was presented with Road Risk Manager of the Year and Tony Crook at Lancashire County Council was presented with the Kevin Storey Award for Outstanding Commitment to Road Safety.
Oliver Holt, sales manager for the UK and Ireland at Geotab, said: “We’re passionate about safety so it’s been a pleasure to support Brake celebrating the fleet professionals who are working to improve standards across the industry.
“Well done to all the winners of this year’s awards and thank you to everyone who took part in this prestigious event.”
Mark Cartwright, head of the commercial vehicle incident prevention team at National Highways, said: “It’s been another fantastic night for our industry and all of us in attendance are inspired to take further action against road crashes.
“A huge congratulations to all the worthy winners and to all those nominated.”
