FLEETS are being encouraged to link their accident and risk management policies to identify trends and put measures in place to reduce the number of incidents involving their drivers.

Bosses at GE Fleet Services claim some companies are unable to capture relevant accident data because of ‘a lack of joined-up thinking’.

Managing director Rich Green said: ‘When an accident happens on a fleet, the first people to be notified are usually the nominated accident management company.

‘It will take all the details about the accident, liaise with the driver, repairer and insurer, and handle any issues arising from the incident.

‘This makes them the best party to be feeding this information back into the fleet risk management policy.

‘However, this is happening in very few fleets. Because most employers have adopted risk management policies in recent years as a reaction to an increased emphasis on fleet duty of care, these have been written as standalone documents and there is little or no operational integration of risk and accident management services.’