Driving can be one of the most dangerous work activities that people can do. Research indicates that over 100 people are killed or seriously injured every week in crashes involving someone who is driving for work purposes. As an employer, you owe the same duty of care under Health & Safety Law to your staff that drive their own vehicles for work (often referred to as ‘Grey Fleet’) as you do to employees who drive company vehicles.
When was the last time you reviewed your Grey Fleet?
A few things to consider:
- you need a system in place to make sure that your employees understand that they are not allowed to use their own vehicle for either business use or occasional business use, e.g. going to the bank / Post Office etc, unless they have supplied a copy of their driving licence & insurance schedule confirming that their policy includes ‘business use on behalf of their employer’.
- it is an offence to allow an employee to drive a vehicle that is in a dangerous condition for business purposes. Are you checking this? It’s relatively straight forward to monitor company vehicles but it is much harder when a vehicle is owned by an employee.
- conduct regular driving licence checks on all staff that drive for work; is their licence still valid? Have they received any points in the last 6, 12, 18 months?
Employees may believe that as their personal motor insurance provides cover for commuting to their usual place of work that it will them allow them to drive to multiple locations whilst at work. This is not the case as personal motor insurance policies only provide cover for one permanent place of work. If an employee visits multiple locations, their policy needs to be extended to include business use. If the policy is not extended there will be no cover in place in the event of an accident.
How many of your employees are driving their vehicle without adequate insurance?
By Helen Parsons – Commercial Broking Manager