Employers should beware of Grey Fleet
There are enormous risks to employers associated with the issue of employees using their own cars for business, yet it remains very much on the fringes of many employers' concerns.
Stephanie White, Director of Don't Dream It, Drive It car leasing explains more:
Having looked at this area quite closely over the past year or so, my findings are extremely worrying. It has been estimated that between one and three million privately owned cars are used for work throughout the UK. That's a lot of cars and it was found that almost 60% aren't properly maintained, while around a third of these vehicles are not even properly insured.
This goes a long way to confirming the findings of an extensive ‘grey fleet’ survey late last year, which found that over half of companies do not even have a policy to check insurance details of their grey fleet vehicles. Most of our fleet management clients are checking their vehicles on a regular basis. But of huge concern is the number of companies without a formal company vehicle policy and procedure in place to check that vehicles are safe and properly insured.
We started checking company fleet vehicles around 20 months ago and continue to do so. Yet despite media coverage and information provide by the government, we're disappointed that many companies are still failing to ensure employee owned vehicles used for business have a regular roadworthiness check. Just over 32% of maintenance problems identified by our technicians were tyre related and should have been picked up during a basic company safety check. But more than half of drivers we spoke to admitted not checking their tyres before making a journey – and 83% said their companies didn't check this had been done either.
It is clear the safety issues raised from private vehicles being used for business are not being addressed. Even where companies are introducing duty-of-care policies, they are failing to enforce them. All of these findings are in stark contrast to the condition of company-owned vehicles, which continues to improve (just 2% of vehicles inspected were found to be un-roadworthy). Vehicles owned by employees can only be checked with their permission, meaning we are not always able to carry out mechanical checks on some of these.
Our conclusion is that employers are leaving themselves open to significant risk of prosecution if an accident occurs or a ‘grey fleet’ vehicle is stopped and checked for any reason. Under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act, passed in 2007, companies must now prove that correct policies and procedures are in place and carried out, for maintenance, safety and legality of all vehicles used within their business.
By Stephanie White, Director, Don't Dream It, Drive It.
