COMPANIES could unearth shocking evidence of corporate waste if they investigated the true cost of their accidents, industry experts warn.

One company that looked into its accident rate found it had reached a shocking 150% of the fleet every year, equivalent to each vehicle in the van fleet crashing at least once.

Research by ARVAL PHH Accident Management revealed the problem lay with 200 to 300 vehicles on the 700-van fleet, which were driven by casual drivers. They were responsible for the majority of accidents and rocketing insurance and damage repair costs.

Nigel Rolfe, head of sales and marketing at ARVAL PHH Accident Management, said: 'The firm used a lot of agency drivers. This shows you have to be quite sophisticated in terms of your reporting if you are to identify where you can make an impact on accident rates.'

In another case, a company that had blamed young drivers for soaring accident rates found older drivers were actually to blame.

'We found the reason was they were more likely to have poor eyesight. They all failed eye tests when they were checked.'