Whilst the vast majority of those who manage their business’s fleet are aware that a company vehicle policy is a legal requirement, a third (33%) don’t have a policy in place.

Chris Black, commercial director at LeasePlan UK

The research comes from LeasePlan, which is warning that a substantial number of businesses are taking extremely high risks when it comes to compliance and their employees’ safety and wellbeing.

Managing work-related road safety risk is a legal requirement for all businesses; this includes checking driver licences, organising driver training and vehicle maintenance, and updating a company’s vehicle policy.

But LeasePlan’s survey of 500 UK fleet decision-makers found only 41% of businesses always act on potential issues of fleet performance.

And despite 85% of businesses having more staff than usual working from home in the past 12 months, one in five (22%) haven’t reviewed their fleet policies to take new ways of working into consideration.

Chris Black, commercial director at LeasePlan UK, said: “Vehicle fleets have provided a vital safety line throughout the pandemic by helping to keep our essential workers mobile. During this time, many businesses have had to make significant changes to their fleet function, and as such, existing company fleet policies may be out of date. This naturally presents a safety risk to a company’s employees, as well as the general public, so it’s important that those operating fleet do their due diligence.”

The research also showed that reducing fleet risk comes third in a list of aims that businesses have for their fleets in 2021, behind reducing cost and becoming more sustainable. But managing fleet risk has the potential to impact both these first two aims if managed properly.

LeasePlan also found that telematics is only being utilised by 35% of businesses that are monitoring their fleet performance.

Black continued: “Whilst many businesses will manage an issue after it happens, we believe it’s imperative that those managing fleets address potential risks proactively. We understand the multiple facets involved in this, so we have created a suite of fleet risk management tools to help guide fleet managers. We hope our end-to-end approach to risk management will help those managing fleets navigate the complexity and ensure they have the right health and safety policies in place.”

LeasePlan already offers a comprehensive fleet risk services offering and will soon launch a Fleet Risk Assessment Tool. This will calculate potential risk and offer solutions to ensure businesses are fully compliant.