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Mollycoddling of Company Vehicle Drivers Will Increase the Dangers on Our Roads

Stringent health and safety laws that make company directors increasingly responsible for the safety of their at-work drivers will start to have an adverse effect on driver safety, a leading expert is claiming.

Graham Hurdle, managing director of E-Training World, the online driver training specialists, believes that the onus placed on companies is now so great that company car drivers are taking less and less personal responsibility for their own safety, and for the safety of their vehicles, and this will ultimately lead to more danger on our roads rather than less.

“When you consider a non-company car driver”, explained Hurdle, “you are looking at someone with their own car, using it for their own private journeys. It is their responsibility to insure their vehicle adequately, it is their responsibility to make sure the vehicle is roadworthy, that it is taxed correctly, that they have had eyesight tests, that their driving licence is valid, and to ensure they do not drink and drive, use their mobile phone etc. If they do not do these things, they know that if they cause an accident or are pulled over by the police they only have themselves to blame and that they will be personally accountable.

“However, with company car drivers we have reached the stage whereby they are starting to be mollycoddled like children. So much is done for them, and so much responsibility is seen as being the companies, rather than their own, that many do very little to ensure they are creating a safe environment whilst on the road. In our online risk assessments we see such high numbers of drivers who have not had eyesight tests, who do not know how many alcoholic drinks would mean they are over the limit the morning after, the number that do not conduct regular vehicle safety checks and you find many sit back and wait to be sent their tax disc by their fleet manager or leasing company without giving a second thought as to whether the car is taxed or not until it arrives, and only think about routine servicing when they receive a reminder.

“Of course, it is important for companies to adopt a duty of care towards their employees, and as someone who champions road safety I am behind any initiative to help achieve the ultimate objective of safer roads. However perhaps there should be a responsibility for employees to also show a duty of care towards their employers, rather than it being one way traffic from the company to its staff.

“The law states that companies must do what is reasonably practicable in relation to health and safety and I often come across businesses that take the safety of their at-work drivers very seriously. They have procedures in place to check driving licences, they are conducting risk assessments of their drivers and they have policies and driver handbooks in place.

“But we’ve now been told by AA Business Services that two thirds of drivers (68%) do not know that the minimum tread depth for cars and vans is 1.6mm. This is in a world in which employers who fail in their duty of care to their drivers could face imprisonment or a £20,000 fine. Drivers however would simply be given three penalty points and a £1,000 fine for each illegal tyre.

“It seems that we are moving towards a situation which is grossly unfair on the employer, and will lead to drivers becoming increasingly nonchalant about their own responsibilities. For company directors to potentially face prison, when the driver of the car could be back on the road with what is effectively just a very strong ticking off seems to be shifting responsibility far too far away from the true culprit.

“I strongly believe the continuous squeeze being put on companies will reach a point where it no longer has the desired impact on achieving safer conditions for their drivers and other road users, but instead creates a lazy culture that causes drivers to become an even greater danger than before, and companies writing tighter and tighter policies and handbooks to protect themselves from prosecution”.

Source: E-Training World