Health and Safety Update (September 2009)

Research Reveals Public Sector Car Safety Concerns

Research by Fleet News has found that tens of thousands of county council employees are using their own vehicles for work without their employers carrying out even the most basic checks. Not one of the 30 county councils inspects their grey fleet vehicles to ensure they are safe. Between them they employ 529,000 people and have more than 120,000 grey fleet drivers. More than half of the councils do not have a policy for checking grey fleet vehicles have valid MOT certificates.

This is in contradiction of Government advice which states public sector managers should be carrying out documentation checks on driving licenses, insurance cover and MOT certificates before allowing employees to drive their own vehicle for work, and then repeating these at regular intervals. However, the majority of county councils rely solely on grey fleet drivers' honesty when they state that they have a safe and roadworthy vehicle.

The research has found that more than 77,000 county council grey fleet drivers are using their private vehicles for business journeys knowing their employers will not check safety-critical items such as tyres or windscreens, nor ask them to produce a valid MOT certificate.

Fewer than half (14/30) have a policy requiring employees to provide documentary evidence that they have business-use insurance that covers them for using their private vehicles for work. This means over 50,000 of the country's county council employees are driving their private vehicles for business without their employers checking what type of insurance cover they have.

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