In many ways, there are many more regulations with commercial driving for work purposes than for personal use, but think about the assets involved. Are human assets actually more valuable than those that are not human but have a price tag to them? Obviously that depends on who you are in a corporation or business. But as physical assets like vehicles and cargo can have a price tag applied to them for the sake of a business, and it is easier for insurance companies to provide coverage for physical assets, there are a lot of regulations for work-related driving.

[Image courtesy of Flickr user Matt Lemmon via a Creative Commons license]Many driving regulations are focused primarily on work-related driving. But there are some of these regulations can be used to ensure proper safety of yourself and family members when on the vacationing road this summer.

Work-related driving is an investment, in a sense. The company is investing in the driver and the vehicle to get the cargo or product to its destination in a timely fashion and without incident. But with so many accidents on roadways that result in serious injuries or death, and the number of personal vehicles is generally much higher than the number of commercial vehicles on the road at any one time, the need for certain regulation may make sense with personal driving as well as with work-related driving, if it means reducing the number of incidents.

But it is next to impossible to legislate or regulate human behavior, at least not in such a rigid sense. However, if you are a worker who uses a personal or company vehicle for work purposes, you are suject to health and safety regulations on the road while you are at work. And while you are not so heavily regulated when driving personally (because the risk you take on is your own and does not involve company assets or property), maybe there are some of those safe driving habits you could instill into your own personal driving patterns and habits that can better ensure safety for you and your family when you are the road.

What follows are a couple of ideas:

1. Condition of the vehicle. While driving for work, your car become your work site, and you, your manager or supervisor, and your safety professional all have a joint duty and responsibility to make sure the worksite and the equipment (the car and its features) are all in proper working order. If something is amiss, the driver is usually not allowed to drive until the issue has been resolved, or the safety officer assigns you a vehicle that is compliant with the regulation of being in good working order where it can be driven safely.

This can apply to your own car as well. Before you take your family on a vacation, make sure you do a check of your tires, battery, fluid levels and cleanliness of the fluids, plus check all filters to ensure they are clean. If it has been a couple years since you had spark plugs changed or belts and hoses checked, do that too. If there is anything not in proper working order for you to drive the car and there is not sufficient time to make necessary repairs, go get a rental. Don’t take a chance just to save a couple bucks.

2. Condition of the driver. Do not be the driver if you are taking any medications that can cuase drowsiness. Do not drive, or stop driving if you feel sleepy or otherwise impaired in motor skills or cognitive skills. At work, any driver who is not in proper condition to operate a vehicle is supposed to be prohibited from doing so; the same can apply to your personal trips. Either have your spouse or anotehr family member drive, or delay driving for a few hours until you are in better condition.

3. Condition of the clock. There is a regulation for drivers at work that they should not drive more than 13 hours in any shift; that drivers should not drive if being on a shift more than 15 straight hours; and a driver cannot drive unless he has been off work for at least eight hours prior to starting the shift.

This can be easy to implement in your own travel. Make sure you get plenty of rest before you leave for yoru vacation. Do not be up late into the night finishing yoru packing or packing the car, especially if you had a work day. Have a window in which you drive and stick to that window – in other words, determine that if you start driving at 7 a.m., that you stop driving by 10 p.m. and get a hotel room, and take enough breaks that you do not drive mroe than 13 hours during that 15-hour window. And again, try to stick to the eight-hour rule before you get behind the wheel again, or have another family member drive.

Just these three recommendations, culled straight from work-related driving regulations, can greatly increase your personal safety, and the safety of your loved ones, while on the vacationing road this summer. Next, we’ll look into some other scenarios where what you do at work can impact your health and safety when off the clock.