THE fleet industry is wasting millions of pounds on unnecessary risk management measures because they wrongly believe they will ensure they meet their duty-of-care obligations.

Warnings have been voiced that some companies are being ‘ripped off’ because of their knee-jerk reactions to fears over company car safety. They come from Fleet News award-winning occupational road risk company Essential Risk Consultancy.

Managing director Jeremy Hay said: ‘Fleets are reaching out and snatching at answers before they know what the problems are. We have come across fleets that are paying frankly silly prices for driving licence checks because they are being bamboozled into accepting a very narrow interpretation of the law in this area. In fact, they can comply at little or no cost.

‘It’s also all too easy for fleets to get ripped off by training companies that offer online driver assessments that overstate the requirement for training.’

Hay added: ‘Businesses need to know two critical things before embarking on a fleet risk management programme – firstly, what their exposure is and secondly what their current occupational road risk costs are. And that means all the relevant costs – human as well as vehicular.’