SMALL and medium-sized businesses are woefully ill- prepared for the expected passing of the Government’s Corporate Manslaughter Act.

A new survey reveals half of SMEs have no travel policy and more than half rely on employees having their own vehicles. Some 32% of firms offer a cash-for-car scheme, but 62% of these do not perform regular maintenance checks on employees’ vehicles.

A third do not check insurance and 21% do not even check driving licences.

The survey of 400 SMEs was carried out by National Car Rental. With more businesses expected to introduce cash-for-car schemes in the next three years, National fears they could be leaving themselves open to prosecution under the new laws.

National’s vice-president of commercial development, Neil McCrossan, said: ‘It is estimated that a third of all road accidents involve someone driving for work and small businesses are perhaps the most vulnerable to the consequences of an accident involving a member of staff.

This makes these findings very worrying, especially as nearly all the companies we spoke to were not even aware of the Corporate Manslaughter Bill.