danger
Fleet management and leasing company Arval
has released research it has carried out into the so-called ‘grey
fleet’ – and the implications for fleets are worrying.
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Arval defines the grey fleet as “drivers who use their own car
for business travel and that often sit outside the normal company
car policing, reporting and communication channels”.
With the recent legislative focus on duty of care issues and the
potentially serious consequences if fleets are found responsible
for an accident under the new Corporate Manslaughter rules, the
research is timely and illustrates starkly the scale of the
risk.
While stressing that accurate figures regarding the size of the
company car fleet in the UK are “notoriously” difficult to come by,
to say nothing of grey fleet vehicles used by employees on company
business, Mike
Waters, head of market insight at Arval estimated that if there
are around 4m business cars on the roads, there are probably
approximately an additional 1m “non-company owned vehicles being
driven on company business”.
Of the companies surveyed by Arval, 37 per cent said that over
10 per cent of business mileage was travelled in a grey fleet
vehicle, with 13.4 per cent saying over a quarter of business miles
were in non-company owned cars.
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By GlobalDataEmployers who move to cash schemes rather than a company car may
believe that by doing so they are reducing costs and abdicating
their responsibility towards business drivers. This, however, is a
wrongheaded response, as Waters pointed out, as they just as
responsible for an employee in a car as they are for an employee in
the office, and should an accident occur they will be held at fault
if they did not do their utmost to ensure an employee’s safety.
And with basic checks not being carried out on large numbers of
grey fleet vehicles (see below), the possibility of a successful
prosecution by the Health & Safety Executive in the case of an
accident cannot be discounted. “It’s only a matter of time,” Waters
warned.
Policing the grey fleet?
- 35 per cent of grey fleet drivers do not have
their licences checked - 53 per cent of companies do not check that a
grey fleet vehicle is insured for business use - 74 per cent of own-car drivers do not have to
show MOT certificates to prove the roadworthiness of cars over
three years old - 56 per cent of respondent companies do not
have an accident management reporting system in place for grey
fleet drivers - 84 per cent of companies do not check that
grey fleet vehicles are regularly maintained
Source: Arval Grey Fleet Report
A longer version of this article will appear in the November
issue of Motor Finance magazine
