A NEW safety audit service, which includes remote driving licence checks, aims to help fleets cut accidents and avoid potential jail sentences for key staff.

Fleet Support Group, based in Chippenham, Wilts, has launched H&S Road Aware, offering an expert review team to study, advise and implement vehicle-related health and safety requirements.

The service is created from a variety of suppliers, including risk assessment giant March UK and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

FSG chairman Geoffrey Bray said: 'On request, every aspect of a company's health and safety commitment in work vehicle operation will be studied, assessed and action proposed. FSG will then implement action as required.'

Services include remote photography of driving licences at three-month intervals, so managers can inspect them on-screen and download copies as required. Its aim is to show that employers take their duty of care to drivers seriously amid warnings that directors and managers could face jail if their negligence leads to a driver causing a fatal accident.

Bray added: 'This service could alert employers to failures in work care for which they could be held responsible. Employee driving licence inspections and insurance checks are fundamental basics, yet many employers fail to regularly and methodically check either.

'The clock is ticking for a cultural change, banishing apathy and lack of understanding. Firms that fail to realise fleet car running costs reflect employer policy and responsibility are in danger.'

The launch of the service comes amid major concerns about the Government's future attitude towards fleet safety.

Last week, Fleet NewsNet revealed that an all-party parliamentary select committee had said the Government relied on luck as its safety policy for company car drivers. The scathing report, from the House of Commons Select Committee on Transport, said the Government failed to take either road safety or speeding seriously.