“It’s not about a ‘spy in the cab’ approach, it’s about identifying risk in advance to bring down costs, both financial and human.

“Often, people running a fleet don’t have time to identify drivers at risk, which is where a risk assessment can create an opportunity for a company to look at and flag up any potential areas that need addressing before they become a danger,” continues Holbrey.

“This is as much about visible, regular monitoring as routine driver training so that managers can protect their drivers to let them do their job properly.

“There has been a bit of a bizarre attitude where building site health and safety is now understood and embedded, yet when many people get into a car, all bets are off.

"Vans and HGVs have made big strides forward in this area in recent years, but company car fleets still suffer from a poor attitude in many instances.

"The industry has to realise risk management is here to protect the company, the driver and the community they live and work in.”

Roslyn Cumming, professional engagement manager with road safety charity Brake, concurs: “Risk assessment is a fundamental part of fleet management. If you don’t understand what the risks are, how can you address them?”

There are three key methods a fleet manager can employ to check the strength of their fleet risk assessment programme: an external audit, self-assessment and the British Standards Institution’s BS ISO 39001.

Self assessment

Short on resources? Try a DIY approach

Self-assessment is a good place for any company to begin its fleet risk strategy.

It need not be a complicated process and much of it is common sense and complying with the law.

Your insurance company is a good source of information and will often help guide you to improve risk management, though it may be more likely to offer to meet some or all of the cost of a further external audit rather than reduce the premium.

For companies that want to start off the risk assessment process with self-assessment rather than an external auditor or approaching the British Standards Institution, help is at hand.

Simple benchmarking against other companies is an effective way to gauge your procedures and talking to others can help you find out how they have overcome problems and challenges that you can then implement.

A good place to start is www.fleetsafetybenchmarking.net, which offers a free 10-point gap analysis, as well as case studies and a downloadable form from the Fleet Safety Forum to report and record crash data.

Dr Will Murray, of Virtual Risk Manager, says: “If you have no resources, an online assessment is the best starting point and provides a framework to find out what resources you need.

"This means you can approach HR, finance or the company MD with a clear proposal and that could lead to the resources for an external audit that is taken more seriously by management.

"The Health and Safety Executive’s Driving at Work publication is also a good guide.”

Another source of useful information is road safety charity Brake, which runs the Fleet Safety Forum.

By offering advice, best practice tips and case studies to businesses and fleet managers, Brake has helped raise awareness of risk assessment and effective safety procedures.

It also runs one-day training sessions for fleet managers from its road safety academy.

The Brake Pledge course costs £75 and trains fleet managers to lead a discussion with drivers on key safety issues such as speed, drink and drug- driving, and fatigue.

The course also helps attendees to come up with appropriate solutions to these problems.