Lord Digby Jones keenly watched Shropshire firefighters as they professionally freed a driver “trapped” in the wreckage of a car in a road safety demonstration in the county.
He later sat inside the car, which had its roof removed, for photos to help publicise the campaign to raise awareness about road safety for business drivers.
The road safety event was organised by the TTC Group in Telford which educates 320,000 road users each year.
Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service joined the campaign with firefighters from Green Watch in Wellington cutting free business manager Matt Jewkes from a wrecked car to show how they rescue scores of people each year.
After the demo rescue, Matt, a businessman, said: "It's quite a nasty experience to go through."
John Redmond, Chief Fire Officer of Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service, said: “Firefighters don’t like cutting people out of cars for real. But they have to do it far too often and we must all do our utmost to save more lives.”
Lord Digby Jones appealed to the business world to take action to help cut road deaths and injuries among employees.
A total of 515 black balloons, representing those who died in the UK in just one year as a result of driving at work, were on display at the launch.
Lord Jones said: "People are dying on the road every day. Five people will die today, tomorrow another five and every day after that. A third are driving in a car on business. We can change that. Businesses can be a force for good."
Firms had the power to change the huge emotional price being paid by implementing management practices such as TTC DriverProtect which "ticked all the boxes" for health and safety and company compliance, he said.
Many companies were still "oblivious" to the potential cost, impact and legal risk they face and were failing in their duty of care when managing workplace road safety, said TTC Group Road Safety Director Alan Prosser.
“More than one in four fatal collisions involve someone who is on a work journey. The financial cost is enormous – about £14 billion a year - with each death costing just under £2m. The personal and human costs are immeasurable.”
