New guidelines, which took effect from Monday (February 15), have set out the precise financial risk that fleets take if they have not done everything possible to minimise road risk.

The Sentencing Guidelines Council has issued a guideline regarding the level of fines that should be imposed after a conviction for corporate manslaughter or a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Under the new regime, if a work-related road death leads to a prosecution for a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the fine will be ‘…seldom less than £100,000 and may be measured in hundreds of thousands of pounds or more’.

And if the organisation is convicted of corporate manslaughter, the fine imposed will be ‘…seldom less than £500,000 and may be measured in millions of pounds’.

David Faithful, lawyer for Essential Risk Consultancy, said: “Up until now it’s been hard to put a price on getting it wrong when it comes to road risk. That’s no longer the case. At the bottom end of the spectrum, a simple breach of health and safety law could cost fleets up to £20,000."

For the full story see Fleet News on March 4.