ASN Safety Bulletin #33 Rally Safety Delegate role

Dear colleagues,

This edition of the FIA Safety Bulletin aims to give more details about the Rally Safety Delegate role and his or her responsibilities, ensuring that rally organisers effectively manage the safety risks to everyone involved – competitors, volunteers, officials, marshals, media and spectators.

One of the greatest challenges in rallying is guaranteeing the safety of the public and the role of the Safety Delegate is to mitigate risk wherever possible, primarily to on-stage spectators and marshals, as well as to ensure the competition complies with the Event Safety Dossier and Safety Road Book as designed by the rally officials. We strongly encourage each ASN to appoint a Rally Safety Delegate for sanctioned events and suggest that the Rally Safety Delegate role adheres to the recommendations outlined below. 

POSITION

As shown in the organisational chart below, the position of the Safety Delegate belongs to the ASN, but he/she should work closely with the Rally Chief Safety Officer (CSO) to support the safe preparation of the event.

Appointed by the event organiser, the CSO is responsible for compiling the Safety Dossier and the selection of the safety team for the event. It is recommended that the ASN-appointed Safety Delegate and the CSO make contact as early as possible in the event organisation process in order to exchange information and continuously review the Safety Dossier during its preparation.

During the event, the Safety Delegate must participate in all safety team briefings, and go through each special stage before the first competing car starts in order to make final safety checks.

ROLE

The Safety Delegate should be an experienced person with good knowledge of safety matters, able to support the organiser and provide advice that helps ensure the safe running and management of the event.

The Safety Delegate’s role shall be:

• To assess the effectiveness of safety measures aimed at keeping the public, volunteers and competitors safe
• To review and have input into the Safety Dossier and other related documents (media plan etc), and to contribute to event planning at an early stage
• To travel around special stages during the event in an appropriate Safety Car (see Chapter 2 of the Rally Safety Guidelines for further details) to an agreed schedule and as close as possible to the time at which the first competition car runs.

• To work directly with the CSO and to be in radio contact with Safety Cars and with Rally Control
• To take part in the post-event debrief
• To write a Safety Delegate report that shall be made available to the organiser after the event

With regard to reporting, a consistently poor report from the Safety Delegate would be expected to result in changes to the event or potentially lead to an event being denied a permit for the following year.

The Safety Delegate and/or Observers’ report should be read in conjunction with the Chief Medical Officer’s (CMO) report, the Stewards’ report and any report gathered from competitors.

ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

— To attend safety planning and evaluation meetings in relation to the event.

— To monitor the safety of the public and media areas.

— To coordinate between ASN and the event organiser any administrative items regarding safety.

— To evaluate and report on any safety-related incident at the event.

FIA RESOURCES

There are a number of resources available to help with further exploration of the role of the Safety Delegate.

FIA Rally Safety Guidelines and Rally Safety Delegate Guidelines are available HERE

We would also recommend that the Rally Chief Safety Officer (CSO) undertakes the FIA eLearning module dedicated to that role. This module covers the key skills and knowledge required for the CSO role, which include:

• The basics of the CSO role
• How to prepare for an event
• What to consider during an event
• The key steps to take after an event

The competition of this module takes approximately 45 minutes and upon successful completion the participant will be able to download a certificate documenting his achievement.

The CSO E-learning module is available at: https://elearning.fia.com/learn/signin

Branch code: RallyS-SRG

Social Media Post 

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One of the greatest challenges in rallying is guaranteeing the safety of the public and the role of the Safety Delegate is to mitigate risk wherever possible, primarily to on-stage spectators and marshals, as well as to ensure the competition complies with the Event Safety Dossier and Safety Road Book as designed by the rally officials. All information can be found on the FIA website at fia.com.

#FIASafety #FIAVisionZero

Best regards,

FIA Safety Department

If you have any topics you would like us to cover in future bulletins please send your suggestions to the FIA Safety Department.

To read the other articles about the ASN Safety Bulletins, please visit the FIA website. You can also read by clicking here.