In the UK, still too many accidents happen with vulnerable road users as a result of construction logistics. To take ownership of this problem and contribute to the solution, the industry created two national industry standards CLOCS and FORS. CLOCS and FORS work together and represent a united response to improve road safety. At Heras Mobile, we want to work together with other organisations in support of high safety levels and are therefore are a proud member of CLOCS and FORS.
What are CLOCS and FORS?
CLOCS and FORS are industry schemes aimed at reducing risk and improving safety within the logistics industry. CLOCS stands for Construction Logistics and Community Safety and is a national industry standard to effectively manage road risk. In 2013, when the CLOCS standard was introduced, the construction industry decided to take ownership of work-related road risk beyond legal requirement. The CLOCS standard helps the industry to do so.
FORS, on the other hand, stands for the Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme and is a voluntary accreditation scheme for fleet operators. Through FORS, fleet operators aim to raise the level of quality in their operations and demonstrate how to achieve exemplary levels of practice in safety, efficiency and environmental protection. FORS was first introduced in London because the number of cyclists being killed by construction vehicles was still too high. For the last two years, the FORS accreditation now covers the whole of the United Kingdom. A FORS Silver accreditation will also ensure you are CLOCS compliant.
How to comply with CLOCS and FORS?
The CLOCS and FORS accreditations set various standards and criteria that fleet operators in the construction industry have to meet. The most important criteria of both CLOCS and FORS is to set-up policies to make safety part of the daily routine.
The overall goal of both CLOCS and FORS is to increase awareness amongst construction logistics drivers for the safety of the vulnerable road user. To do so, lorry drivers are offered a training course. First, they learn about the most important dangers for cyclists and how they can be protected in a classroom and then they spend an hour outside on the road on a cycle themselves to really experience how dangerous it actually is.
When a construction logistics company wants to receive accreditation, an audit is performed on location. During the audit, they check if the company has all the right policies in place and if these policies meet the FORS standard. In total, there are about twenty criteria that a company has to meet in order to receive accreditation.
Heras Mobile proud member of CLOCS and FORS
At Heras Mobile safety is paramount. Therefore, our goal is to reach Gold accreditation and we are working hard towards that. Every year, our sites and vehicles are tested to see if they still meet all the requirements. That’s one of the main reasons the CLOCS and FORS accreditation is taken very seriously by the industry: it assures that accredited companies meet the safety standards in their daily practice and not only at one given moment during the audit after which nobody checks it again.
To reach that Gold accreditation, we set up policies that help us to make safety part of the daily routine. That means that before driving off, our drivers always check their vehicles every morning and report problems. But also that we’ve created processes for correcting these problems and preventing incidents with our vehicles on site.
An important way to do that is to increase awareness for vulnerable road users with our drivers. Via a special training course, our drivers learn to put themselves in the shoes of these vulnerable road users which helps them to adopt a safer driving style. That way, Heras Mobile wants to contribute to improving road safety in the United Kingdom.
Heras Mobile reached GOLD status
In juli 2021 we have been awarded FORS Gold. Check the award here. At Heras Mobile we will keep improving ourselves to make sure we will always work as safe as possible.
