In an ideal world a large proportion of people would prefer to work from home, or at least much closer to home than they currently do. The stresses of long traffic queues, delayed trains and cancelled flights all affect our physical and mental health and extend our working day.

Even without these pressures it’s a fact that “driving 25,000 miles or more a year on business is the third most dangerous activity in the UK”.

It’s not realistic for everybody to work from home, but society must start to think and act on the sheer waste of resource in people travelling hours to just sit at a desk in a corporate office.

With the availability of “flexible local offices” providing all the facilities you need, why would a responsible and caring employer demand you commute more than you have to?

It will take a step change for both employer and employee to work through the change of working practice, but the benefits to both will quickly flow through.

In the interests of road safety and individual well-being, I urge all stakeholders to openly and objectively start up dialogue on how people can “work locally”.

It may seem odd to some that the Chairman of HMD is advocating working closer to home, but our objective is to eliminate road traffic collisions, injuries and deaths. Every saved journey will go a long way to achieving this.

* Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents Oct 2012