How important is the safety of your drivers?
With F1 driver Lewis Hamilton calling on fleet decision-makers to buy or lease company cars fitted with electronic stability control (ESC) technology, the pressure is stepping up for fleet managers to ensure they get their drivers the safest cars possible.
However, this week’s Fleet News (July 22) will reveal that while fleet managers cite safety as a major concern, just 15% of them include safety criteria in their company car policies.
When asked how they rated key criteria in terms of importance when deciding which vehicles to include on their fleet, 70% said safety, which came third behind reliability (75%) and price (73%).
Yet just 15% of company car drivers whose choice is restricted by company policy refer to safety as a constraint, behind even engine power, comfort and colour.
Just 7% of fleets have ESC on all their cars; 11% have it on the majority.
Just under one in three (28%) have ESC on fewer than half their company cars while 21% claim they do not have ESC fitted on any vehicle.
So do you demand that your cars come with ESC?
Take part in the Fleet News poll and tell us.
Initial findings show that fleets do take this seriously and are ordering ESC-equipped cars, but we want to know whether this is the case with your fleet.
Follow this link to tell us and you can win an iPod Shuffle.
Edward Handley - 20/07/2010 12:40
ESC really does improve road safety - recent studies saying that cars with ESC are about 25% less likely to have a crash. I am surprised that 21% of employers say they do not have it on ny of their vehicles as the cost of ESC is falling rapidly and usually only the cheapest models do not have it. It is possible that the tendency to extend the time vehicles stay on fleet during the recession has slowed the take up which is unfortunate - perhaps fleets should be encouraged not to entend vehicles that do not have ESC on safety grounds. It is worth noting that from 2012 all new cars sold in the EC will have to be fitted with ESC.