Fuel Card News Motoring Updates: Driver safety is top concern for fleets

 Fleet-funding company Alphabet’s new fleet management report has revealed that speeding, effects of alcohol and mobile phone use are among the main safety concerns for fleet operators.

The report, ‘Risk, Reward and Rationale’, is based on Alphabet’s survey of 250 fleet decision-makers and shows 98 percent of fleets now have policies in place to combat risks that concern operators the most.

Several key aspects of managing a fleet were studied in the report, such as duty of care, balancing risks and rewards of vehicle ownership and deciding on company car allocations. Despite financial constraints, it was revealed that driver safety is top of fleet managers’ list of concerns.

However, the two percent without policies implemented to combat the risk of running a fleet are leaving themselves open to costly fines and even, if the worst should happen, corporate manslaughter charges. Policies covering the risks of business car use have not always been commonplace in the industry, although the percentage of managers who apply such policies has risen from 37 to 98 percent since Alphabet’s last survey.

Policies held by fleet managers should cover risks such as driving above the legal alcohol limit, speeding, mobile phone use and driver fatigue – which came surprisingly low on the list of operators’ concerns, despite 93 percent saying that fatigue was covered in their policy.

Chief Executive of Alphabet, Richard Schooling, said: “The dramatic increase in the number of fleet professionals creating risk management policies is an outcome of the corporate manslaughter legislation. This act has prompted operators to better educate employees on driver safety and implement policies to protect themselves from prosecution.”

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