Concerns about the safety of employees’ privately owned cars have been substantiated by a car check day undertaken by Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions.
The vehicle safety event, designed to underline the message that duty of care should extend beyond company car drivers to private cars, the so called “grey fleet” within organisations, revealed that a majority (88%) of grey fleet vehicles needed attention of some kind to make them entirely safe for the roads. Whilst some were minor like washer fluid levels others were more significant including dangerously low oil levels and illegal tyres.
“We found a huge discrepancy between the conditions of privately owned and company vehicles,” says Simon Oliphant, Chief Executive at Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions. “The number of privately owned vehicles that required significant attention was surprisingly high, meaning that a fair proportion of these drivers needed to act immediately on our advice. On site support for this was provided by ATS Euromaster and National Windscreens as well as our own team of fleet engineers.”
“We want to reinforce the message that drivers need to take responsibility for vehicle maintenance, privately owned or not, as do employers if they want to ensure the safety of employees and fulfil their duty of care obligations.”
Advice from Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions is to carry out regular basic checks of fluid levels, lights, wipers, tyres and glass. Breakdowns, costly repairs and potential accidents can all be avoided by keeping a watchful eye on key vehicle maintenance items.
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