Organizations Must Treat Road Safety as a Business Risk

In the United States, transportation is the leading cause of death in the workplace, accounting for 38% of fatalities. Road crashes cost the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually, with businesses bearing a significant share of that burden.

Yet road risk is still not consistently measured or managed across organizations. For many, it remains an operational concern rather than a strategic one, despite its clear implications for workforce safety, business continuity, and corporate reputation.

Road safety has long been approached primarily as an individual responsibility. This alone is not sufficient.

Today, the real shift lies in treating road safety as an organizational responsibility—one that is assessed, addressed, and embedded across operations and culture. This is how meaningful change can be achieved at scale.

Lessons From Other Safety-Critical Industries

Other industries facing complex risk, such as aviation, have long relied on standardized measurement, continuous monitoring, and system-wide accountability to create strong safety cultures. Road safety, by contrast, remains too often fragmented rather than integrated into core organizational performance.

If we want to make progress toward the target set by the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety to halve road deaths and injuries by 2030, this must change.

Road safety is a core component of a safe working environment, affecting all employees who travel for work. It should be embedded within Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) practices like any other workplace hazard. Organizations have an opportunity to move beyond awareness and compliance and take the lead in actively managing road-related risk.

Closing the Measurement Gap

What has been missing until now is a consistent, data-driven framework that enables organizations to measure and act on road risk. In recent years, the FIA has helped close this gap through two indexes: the FIA Road Safety Index and the FIA Driver Safety Index.

The FIA Road Safety Index, developed with support from the FIA Foundation, gives organizations worldwide a structured methodology to assess, manage, report, and improve their road safety footprint. It helps turn road safety commitments into measurable action and accountability by identifying risks, implementing targeted improvements, and strengthening transparency in ESG reporting—much like carbon accounting has transformed how companies manage environmental impact.

Early Adoption Signals Growing Industry Momentum

Members of Together for Safer Roads (TSR) were among the first to recognize the need to treat road safety with the same level of importance as other ESG priorities, with Autoliv piloting the Index and UPS and Waymo adopting it.

Companies including Amazon, Uber, IKEA Supply Chain, TotalEnergies, Shell, and Honda have also achieved top 3-star FIA Road Safety Index scores, reflecting a broader shift toward more systematic measurement and management of road safety across industries.

Additionally, the New York Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which manages the largest municipal fleet in the United States, announced plans to adopt the Index. This demonstrates its value in the public sector and signals a shift in how cities globally can prioritize safety.

Introducing a Global Benchmark for Driver Risk

Building on this momentum, the new FIA Driver Safety Index introduces, for the first time, a global benchmark for driver risk. Establishing a universal scoring system enables organizations to consistently measure, compare, and manage driver risk across geographies, industries, and vehicle types.

In practical terms, the FIA Driver Safety Index uses Greater Than’s artificial intelligence technology to analyze driving behavior, identify patterns associated with a higher likelihood of crashes, and translate everyday driving data into a simple, comparable measure of risk. This gives organizations a clearer view of where to act and how to prioritize interventions.

Moving From Reactive to Proactive Risk Management

Together, the FIA Road Safety Index and FIA Driver Safety Index support a more comprehensive approach to road safety, connecting outcomes with the factors that drive them and enabling organizations to move from reactive responses to proactive risk management.

With the FIA Road Safety Index set to evolve toward a 5-star rating system, the FIA Driver Safety Index will become a key enabler for identifying risk and improving performance.

As organizations seek to better understand and manage road safety risk, these tools provide more than measurement—they establish a framework for accountability, benchmarking, and continuous improvement across operations, value chains, and supply chains.

A Call to Action for Fleets and Employers

The collaboration between the FIA and Together for Safer Roads reflects this shift, creating a platform for public- and private-sector organizations to align on common methodologies and accelerate progress collectively.

Ultimately, saving lives at scale will require more than awareness campaigns or isolated initiatives. It will require organizations to take responsibility, embed safety in their operations, and act on available data to protect employees and all road users.

The solutions are in place. Now is the time for action.

About the Author: Peter Goldwasser, Esq., has two decades of experience working across the public and private sectors, advising companies, non-profits and individuals on how to make a positive impact on the toughest social issues.

Prior to joining TSR, Peter ran his own consultancy, the PNG Group, providing counsel to executives at leading transportation, entertainment and technology companies on social, political and business affairs, while working with community stakeholders to transform challenging and diverse ideas into concrete strategies and actions.

Peter has also served as Deputy Director at Cities of Service, a national nonprofit of Bloomberg Philanthropies; advised Girl Rising, a global advocacy non-profit dedicated to empowering girls through education; and served as Chief Program Officer in the Office of Policy and Strategic Planning under former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg where he directed multi-agency efforts addressing education, immigration and anti sex-trafficking. Before working in city government, Peter was General Counsel and political director at Transportation Alternatives, the nation’s premier cycling and pedestrian advocacy organization.

This article was authored and edited according to Automotive Fleet's editorial standards and style. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of AF or Bobit Business Media.