Alfonso Tripisciano,
Sustainable Development, Safety and Environment Manager, Total Italia, and Driving Risk Prevention Correspondent

" Total Italia has 170 salesmen and technicians who each year drive an aggregate total of over 7 million kilometers. Safety behind the wheel is therefore an imperative for us. Over the last two years, each of our regular drivers has been trained in defensive driving on an off-road track. In fact, we’ve run awareness campaigns about safe driving for all of our employees and their families. Participants have been given the opportunity to use a simulator to experience what it feels like to be involved in a head-on collision or have their car roll over and to test their emergency braking reflexes.

In 2005, we came up with the unique Safety on the Road concept. A specialized instructor accompanies a sales rep on a routine trip and comments on the situations encountered and how the rep deals with them. This program is reported in our in-house newsletters and on the intranet. An instruction video will be used to present the lessons learned from the initiative to all of our employees.

We monitor a number of indicators to assess the effectiveness of our programs, such as the number of accidents per number of vehicles, number of traffic regulation violations and breakdown by cause. This allows us to focus our action plans on areas requiring improvement and to identify employees requiring further training. Any accident that an employee is involved in is discussed in an interview with his or her supervisor to answer two questions: could the accident have been avoided and if so, how?

In  2006, we’ll be launching the Golden Steering Wheel competition offering an annual prize to the employee with the best road safety record."