Report on motoring 2003 - driving on company business

Corporate responsibility has become a major business issue and nowhere more so than in the arena of company cars - particularly given revisions to corporate manslaughter legislation. This RAC Report aims to look at the reality of responsible corporate motoring and attitudes towards change in this critical area.

Report summary

The impact of new corporate manslaughter legislation

The need for road safety policies is stark, given that there are three million company car drivers and a further five million drivers who carry out work-related journeys in their private cars. The proposed revisions to corporate manslaughter legislation have helped to drive this issue up the corporate agenda with more than six out of ten fleet managers aware of these potential revisions. Despite this, four out of ten fleets still have no formal safety policy and even where they exist, the nature of them varies considerably. The four main areas these safety policies should cover are:

The technical safety and roadworthiness of cars

There is a skewed attitude toward corporate motoring with only two per cent of fleet managers regularly checking private cars, used for work-related journeys, for general roadworthiness and safety compared with 80% of fleet managers who regularly check their company cars. Given that these private cars account for 36% of all corporate mileage, are on average significantly older and are serviced less often this is a particular worry.

Mobile phone use in cars

Three quarters of fleet managers and just under two thirds of motorists support the proposed legislation to ban the use of hand-held mobile phones while driving. However, only a third of fleet managers currently have a formal policy in place which prohibits the use of mobile phones when driving and just under a half of say they issue their company car drivers with a hands-free kit.

Despite this, previous research for the RAC Report on Mobile Phones highlighted that company car drivers are still more likely to have a hands-free kit (87%) compared with employees driving private cars (38%).

The control of employees’ driving periods

Company drivers are spending more time behind the wheel with less than a quarter of companies issuing guidelines on good driving practice. 300,000 drivers say they drive more than five hours every working day and many business motorists claim there is increasing pressure on them to spend longer days at the wheel.

Again only a quarter of fleets offer guidelines regarding the maximum number of hours employees should drive before taking a break and only a third of drivers take a break more than every two hours on a journey of five hours.

Two fifths of drivers who make work-related journeys admit to “sleep driving” in the last twelve months and two percent of those drivers (c. 200,000) admit to “sleep driving” more than ten times in the last twelve months.

The role of driver training

Two thirds of companies currently offer no driver training to their employees and where driver training is offered it is generally based around in-vehicle training rather than classroom training on safety issues.

While more than two thirds of company car drivers believe they are “good drivers”, many also admit to poor driving standards – suggesting it would be beneficial for them to receive training. Drivers admit to:

Managing the aftermath of an accident

Most employees driving in private cars on company business are not adequately insured, an issue which most fleet managers are unaware of. There is also no clear guidance as to who should be responsible for ensuring drivers are insured with almost as many fleet managers saying it is the individual’s responsibility as saying it is up to the company.

15% of drivers who drive on work-related journeys admit to having an accident in the last five years while on work business and most companies use outsourced organisations to help them manage initial problems associated with breakdowns and accidents.

Future safety initiatives

Fleet managers believe the way to improve safety is to impose restrictions on company car drivers rather than monitoring their behaviour.

Over three quarters of fleet managers supported the idea of fixing the maximum number of hours an employee could drive each day whilst only a third supported the introduction of a “Well Driven?” type scheme or the use of satellite monitoring systems to monitor in-car behaviour.

The least popular (but potentially most effective) method to improve the safety of corporate drivers would be to make fleet managers more personally liable, as more than two thirds of fleet managers said they would do more to improve safety if they were personally liable.

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