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Drivers taking risks with grey fleet choices

By / 14 years ago / Latest News / No Comments

Mike Waters, director of market insight at Arval, explained: 'This list of vehicles may sound far-fetched but we‘re certainly not kidding. Someone within an organisation had actually claimed for 900 business miles on a quad bike. The CO2 and fuel implications of these vehicles are beyond a joke too. The Ferrari 360 Spider has a CO2 rating of 440g/km and only does 14 miles to the gallon.'

These are extreme examples but Arval is warning that unless companies have control measures in place, their grey fleet could be costing them from an environmental and a health and safety point of view.

Mr Waters said: 'Many organisations are placing a strong focus on their environmental policies at the moment but if they don’t know what vehicles their employees are driving and claiming business mileage on, they could be ignoring a large area of inefficiency.'
 
Arval recommends the first thing an organisation should do is to try to take steps to understand the scale of the problem, then to look at the most effective alternatives based on the mileage, number and frequency of journeys involved. This might involve pool cars, daily rental or a fully expensed company car, all options that can be effectively managed.
 
Mr Waters continued: 'A key factor in reducing grey fleet use is to tackle mileage rates. By using fuel cards linked to effective alternatives to own car use, any company can reimburse fuel at actual cost ensuring neither party is out of pocket. There are cases of companies paying employees as much as 80 pence per mile if they’re using their own vehicle on business.'
 
If use of a grey fleet vehicle is unavoidable then Arval recommends putting clear controls in place about what vehicles are allowed to be used. For example, a company can set limits on CO2 emissions and EuroNCAP ratings.
 
Mr Waters concluded: 'Without controls in place, employees could literally be driving anything and claiming business miles against it. The consequences of ignoring this are costly particularly at a time of rising fuel prices and not just in environmental and financial terms, by law a company has a duty of care obligation to ensure its employees are safe – it’s simply not worth the risk.'

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