How lone workers can keep safe when travelling

A lack of preparation before travelling leaves many lone workers in vulnerable or even dangerous situations. It’s important to protect yourself on all journeys, so we’ve put together some handy tips to help you stay safe when travelling for business purposes.

Whichever mode of transport you use, you can follow these strategies to stay safe when travelling.

Before leaving on your journey

·          Decide whether the journey is really necessary and whether you could use telephone or video conferencing instead.

·          If travelling is essential, consider the best method of transport for your journey, such as public transport or a car share.

·          Think through your journey plan and itinerary to ensure you’ll avoid any risky situations and will have enough time to avoid rushing. If you’ll be driving for a long time, make sure you allocate time for adequate breaks, ideally a 15–20 minute break at least every two hours.

·          Share your journey plan with a family member, friend or colleague, and make sure they know what time you’re due back. Put an escalation plan in place in case you don’t arrive back within the expected timeframe.

·          Keep an electronic diary of all proposed meetings that your colleagues can view, and ensure that colleagues can contact you if they’re concerned. 

·          Make sure any personal safety alarms and mobile phones are in working order. Have your base and emergency services telephone number set up so that you can ring these by pressing one button.

·          Ensure you have the address and directions for the exact location you’ll be visiting. If you have a satnav, programme the address in. That said, you should never save your home address on a satnav.

·          If driving, check whether there will be secure parking for you on arrival.

·          If driving, check your vehicle is suitably equipped and in good working order. This means checking your tyre pressures and condition, lights, oil, screenwash and fuel.

·          Make sure you know who you are visiting, and preferably meet people who you have met before.

While out and about

·          Be careful to keep your keys safe and secure, especially if you keep your car and house keys together. If you drop your keys, an opportunist thief could not only steal your vehicle but have access to your home address and house too.

·          Avoid keeping any documentation with your home address or personal details in the vehicle.

·          If you think someone is following you while you’re driving, don't go home. Keep calm and drive to a busy place (like a pub, garage forecourt or any other location with CCTV) or a police, fire or ambulance station and ask for assistance. If you’re afraid to get out of your vehicle on arrival, sound your horn repeatedly. You will quickly draw attention to yourself.

ETD provides a comprehensive guide to help lone and remote workers stay safe on their travels in its Lone Remote Worker Course.

ETD’s online Lone Remote Worker (Personal Security) Course

To learn more about how to keep safe on your business travels, you can purchase ETD’s online Lone Remote Workers (Personal Security) Course. Follow these five simple steps to get started.

·          Create a free company account or single user account, selecting the £12+ VAT payment scheme.

·          Purchase your user accounts using the online Elavon platform.

·          For company accounts, create your user accounts (using unique usernames) and activate each user by pressing the ‘activate’ button.

·          Purchase your online training by selecting the courses that you require. Ticking a course will instantly assign it to the user’s account.

·          Once the courses have been assigned, single users can access the course under ‘my courses’. Company users can log into their account, go to ‘my courses’ and start the training.

If you require any assistance with the online training, then please contact our support team, who will be happy to help.