More than 2.000 company representatives including fleet operators, managing directors, finance directors and human resources managers were questioned for the survey. The results found that almost half of respondents did not have an individual within the company responsible for road safety (49%) and that while 40% were aware of the Health and Safety Executive’s “Driving for Work’ handbook, many had still not implemented any sort of policy.
The company behind the road safety survey, fleet software firm Jaama claims it is the biggest of its kind undertaken after gathering and tracking responses from companies operating fleets of more than five vehicles throughout 2005.
Jaama managing director Jason Francis said the survey showed that fleet executives in larger organisations were getting to grips with managing Occupational road risk but that smaller companies in general still had a long way to go to implement meaningful policies. He said: ‘With the significant amount of road safely publicity during 2005 this research shows that although there is still a huge lack of awareness among smaller fleets, duty of care awareness is improving.‘
Francis added: ‘Our research concluded that larger fleets and those that have regular access to fleet information were reasonably well informed and generally had good policies in place. ‘However, the vast majority of operators of small fleets -90% of the respondents operated sub-200 vehicle fleets -were falling short of even basic requirements and it is this sector that we must educate further.“
ROAD SAFETY
| March 2005 | December 2005 | % change | |
| Unaware of HSE guidelines | 23% | 21% | -2 |
| Fully/partly aware of guidelines but without a safety policy | 42% | 40% | -2 |
| Do not have an individual responsible for road safety | 53% | 49% | -4 |
| Do not check driving licences | 15% | 15% | – |
| Do not monitor drivers’ hours | 78% | 75% | -3 |
| Let employees use their own vehicle for business | 68% | 70% | +2 |
| Do not check MoTs on employee owned vehicles | 74% | 68% | -6 |
| Do not check employees are insured for business use | 22% | 19% | -3 |
| Do not check any aspect of the vehicle condition | 85% | 79% | -6 |
Source: Jaama
