NASC points scaffolding fleets to new National Highways truck driver toolkit

The National Access & Scaffolding Confederation (NASC) has told members about a free Truck Driver Toolkit from Driving for Better Business, the National Highways programme, which it said launched last week with Transport for West Midlands.

In a member note published on 9 November and written by Kate King, NASC said the toolkit focuses on safety and risk management and joins the programme's existing Van and Car Driver Toolkits, so most scaffolding fleets would find something to fit what they run.

National Highways' own landing page describes the resource as the HGV Driver Toolkit in its body text, while the page heading and the NASC note call it the Truck Driver Toolkit. National Highways said it was developed in partnership with Transport for West Midlands and gives practical guidance that fleet owners and drivers across the country can use.

Simon Turner MARRM, campaign manager for Driving for Better Business, said when the partnership with the West Midlands was announced: "Driving for work is as much a part of the health and safety regime as working at height or in confined spaces".

What the toolkit offers

According to National Highways, the toolkit consists of free driver information cards grouped under four aims: reducing costs, improving operating conditions, ensuring vehicles are safe and legal, and promoting driver wellbeing. All of the resources come in email PDF, print PDF and responsive webpage formats.

National Highways said road incidents are the biggest cause of work-related accidental death, and estimated that about 200 incidents involving someone at work cause injury or death on the road every week. It put the haulage moved by truck drivers at 1.59 billion tonnes a year, 89% of domestic freight.

The partnership behind the toolkit dates from April 2023, when the West Midlands Combined Authority announced that Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) and Driving for Better Business would offer free fleet-management advice to businesses. The programme takes business owners, directors and fleet managers through seven steps to better driver management, the authority said.

TfWM analysis at the time found 193 people killed or seriously injured in road casualties involving a goods vehicle in the West Midlands between 2017 and 2021. More than 60% of those casualties were pedestrians and 27% were the driver of the vehicle, TfWM said.

Darren Divall, regional road safety manager for TfWM, said: "Far too many road users are killed or injured in collisions involving someone who is at work."

NASC's own guidance

NASC used the note to restate what its own guidance, SG30:25 Management of Road Transport, covers: operator licensing, competency, driver responsibilities, working from vehicles, load securing, on-site vehicle movement, digital tachographs, and theft and terrorism prevention. Its appendices include templates for defect reports, inspection records, maintenance planning and job descriptions.

The 30-page document is aimed at employers, managers, supervisors and workers in scaffolding and access companies, and sets out protocols for safe loading and unloading of scaffolding materials. It is free to NASC members and available to purchase for non-members as a PDF download.

NASC listed the pressure points it sees in scaffolding transport: long, heavy and irregular loads that can shift in transit; time pressure and fatigue across long days and multiple sites; daily walkaround checks squeezed when schedules tighten; and, in smaller firms without dedicated fleet management, no formal road risk management at all.

The confederation said a vehicle must be safe and roadworthy at all times and that responsibility is shared between the driver and the operator.

The casualty picture

NASC cited Health and Safety Executive (HSE) figures of around 50 people killed and more than 5,000 injured each year in workplace transport accidents, with the most common causes being people struck by or falling from vehicles, objects falling from vehicles, and vehicles overturning.

HSE's latest published overview gives a different cut of the data. It recorded 126 workers killed in work-related accidents in 2025/26 under RIDDOR, of whom 24 were struck by a moving vehicle, and 25 deaths in construction. A further 104 members of the public were killed in work-related accidents in the same year. HSE said the 2025/26 figures are provisional and will be finalised in July 2027.

Survey on impairment

NASC also drew members' attention to a survey that Driving for Better Business is running with one of its partners on employers' attitudes to drug and alcohol impairment among staff who drive for work. The survey takes under five minutes, and NASC said the results will help shape how government and safety organisations support businesses in keeping employees safe.