Across the transport and logistics sector, safety is taken seriously — at least on paper, says the founder of HGV Networking Group Peter McKenna.

We have risk assessments, method statements, toolbox talks, policies, procedures, audits and compliance systems. Many organisations now have entire departments dedicated to health, safety, environment and quality. Yet despite all of this, serious incidents, near misses and repeat events continue to occur.

This raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: if we have more safety documentation than ever before, why does real progress still feel so difficult?

When safety becomes paperwork

In many workplaces, safety activity has gradually become synonymous with documentation. Forms are completed, boxes are ticked and evidence is filed, often to satisfy contractual or legal requirements rather than to influence real-world decision-making.

Risk assessments are frequently generic, copied from previous jobs or written far away from the task itself. Toolbox talks can become routine discussions of the obvious instead of focused conversations about the actual risks of the day.

The intention is good, but the impact is limited. Safety becomes something that is done to people, not something built with them.

Tools do not create safety — people do

Procedures and tools are important. They provide structure, consistency and a baseline for safe operations. But tools alone cannot create safety.

Real safety depends on how people think, communicate and respond when conditions change — and conditions always change. Documents cannot account for every scenario, particularly in dynamic environments such as road transport.

When something goes wrong, the response often shifts quickly toward fault or individual error. Even when this is not the intention, it is frequently how incidents are perceived by those involved.

That perception matters. When people believe that reporting concerns may put their job, reputation or licence at risk, silence becomes the safer option.

Lessons from aviation

Other industries have faced these same challenges and chosen a different path. Aviation is one of the clearest examples.

In the cockpit, safety is not built around perfection. It is built around preparation, communication and learning. Briefings before take-off do not focus on what is obvious. Instead, crews spend time considering what might go wrong and how they would respond.

The aim is not to complete another procedure, but to be mentally prepared.

Aviation also operates within a “just culture.” Pilots and crew are encouraged to report mistakes, near misses and poor decisions without fear of automatic punishment. The focus is not on blame, but on understanding what allowed the situation to develop.

This approach has created one of the strongest reporting cultures in any industry and has been fundamental in improving safety outcomes.

The cost of fear in reporting

In many ground-based industries, reporting culture remains far less mature.

Errors are still often viewed as personal failures. Near misses are quietly kept within organisations if they are recorded at all. Valuable learning is lost because people fear the consequences of speaking up.

When someone is punished for an honest mistake, the organisation does not become safer. It simply becomes quieter.

Knowledge disappears, patterns remain hidden, and risks continue until they eventually surface through serious incidents.

Culture over comfort

Real safety improvement requires a cultural shift, particularly at leadership level.

It means moving beyond slogans such as ‘Safety First’ and asking more difficult questions. Do people feel safe raising concerns? Do they trust that reporting will lead to learning rather than blame? Are systems designed to support honesty, or do they unintentionally discourage it?

A strong safety culture is not built through familiarity alone. It is built through respectful challenge, cross-checking and open communication.

Trust does not mean blind agreement. It means having enough constructive tension to identify problems before they escalate.

What this means for road transport

Road transport operates under constant pressure: tight schedules, congestion, fatigue, isolation and increasing cognitive load.

Expecting drivers to perform perfectly within imperfect systems is unrealistic. If the industry genuinely wants fewer serious incidents and fewer repeat events, learning must take priority over blame.

Near misses should be treated as early warnings, not admissions of failure.

Safety improves when people feel able to speak openly, when experience is retained, and when lessons are shared before harm occurs.

A shared responsibility

True safety culture is not created through paperwork alone. It is built through behaviour, trust and leadership.

Safety is not something written in a folder or displayed on a poster. It is something people experience every day in how concerns are handled and how mistakes are treated.

Real progress begins when organisations stop asking who is at fault and start asking what can be learned — before someone gets hurt.

The post Beyond Paperwork: Why Real Safety Progress Comes from Culture appeared first on Transport News.

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