Companies managing a fleet — whether a handful of vans or hundreds of vehicles — must comply with multiple regulatory and insurance requirements to avoid potentially costly fines, reduce accidents and protect motorists from harm.
We explore the components of fleet risk management, focusing specifically on driver risk management. This includes how to conduct a driver risk assessment to help reduce insurance premiums, increase compliance and safeguard your employees, business and reputation.
What Is Fleet Risk Management And Why Is It Important?
Fleet risk management is the systematic practice of managing multiple work vehicles. It comprises identifying risks that pose health and safety concerns and taking steps to mitigate them. These steps might include:
- Implementing policies and procedures to keep vehicles roadworthy.
- Delivering training programmes to ensure drivers understand the latest regulations.
- Conducting formal checks to provide peace of mind that every motorist authorised to operate a fleet vehicle has a clean record.
Fleets aren’t just for large companies — if your business has more than one vehicle, you operate a fleet. It doesn’t matter if your employees use forklifts every day for moving materials during projects or you manage a team of electricians who drive from job to job; if your organisation uses vehicles for work, you have a legal obligation to take all reasonable steps to reduce risk, such as servicing your fleet, conducting vehicle safety inspections and ensuring your drivers are skilled to operate their vehicles and maintain good driving records.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) particularly emphasises workplace transport safety because driving is inherently dangerous.
Read More: Why Manage Health and Safety At Work?
Every year, thousands of accidents involve transport in the workplace. Given the substantial size and weight of some commercial vehicles, the outcome can cause life-changing — even fatal — injuries to employees operating vehicles or working on foot, pedestrians, and motorists on the road, especially if they are driving small cars or riding motorbikes.
Several statistics highlight the importance of commercial vehicle compliance:
- One in three serious and fatal road collisions involve workers on the job.
- 40% of fatigue-related crashes involve commercial vehicles.
- 29,643 people were killed or seriously injured on UK roads in 2023
As such, non-compliance has severe penalties, including fines — averaging at £972 per offence — reputation damage and licence suspension, in addition to the potential consequences of an accident that injures multiple motorists and passengers.
It’s no surprise, then, that managing driver risk is one of several components of maintaining a compliant fleet:
- Vehicles: Vehicles used for business purposes must be fit for purpose, inspected regularly and maintained.
- Drivers: All drivers must have a valid driving licence, understand the company’s safety policies and be trained and qualified to operate their vehicle. If they drive a vehicle of a different class — whether regularly or on occasion — they must be trained to operate vehicles of that class.
- Operations: Driving routes should be planned to minimise risk, accounting for potential operational delays such as bad weather. Organisations must also allocate time for rest breaks.
- Management: Fleet management must comply with regulations and documented company policies, outlining driver analysis and monitoring procedures, and the routines and responsibilities of employees.
Conducting An Effective Driver Risk Assessment
Conducting a driver risk assessment is crucial for maintaining fleet safety.
With a driver risk assessment, companies can identify high-risk drivers and training needs and implement appropriate programmes, resulting in a reduced risk of accidents, fewer insurance claims — meaning lower premiums — and enhanced safety for employees and the general public.
Like any other risk assessment you might conduct for your business, your driver risk assessment should be specific to your work and operations.
Read More: The CHAS Guide to Risk Management In Construction
Let’s look at some of the common questions you might ask to determine risk factors and assess driver competence:
- How experienced are drivers?
- Do they have a clean record?
- Are your employees fit to drive?
- Drivers must be fit to drive every time they operate a company vehicle. According to Driving for Better Business, fatigue causes one in five collisions, and just one week of sleeping four to five hours a night is equal to allowing a drunk driver behind the wheel. However, fitness to drive extends beyond the physical. Mental health issues can affect judgement and may cause insomnia — and we know how dangerous driving while tired can be.
- Are your drivers’ licences, insurance policies and MOTs up to date?
- Are drivers adequately trained? Do they need additional training to safely carry out their duties, such as loading and unloading or defensive driving techniques?
- How often are drivers’ training requirements reviewed?
- Are your training providers competent?
- Do drivers know how and when to use in-vehicle technology?
- What induction training do you provide? Does it cover:
- How to report violence, crime and assault
- Incident reporting requirements
- Personal protective equipment usage
- Rest periods and driving schedules
- Vehicle checks
- Manual handling
- Mobile phone use?
Once you’ve identified the risks and hazards that might impact your drivers, you must consider the strategies and practices you can implement to mitigate those risks.
This process might encompass:
- Examining work schedules to allow for adequate rest breaks.
- Creating an open culture where employees feel comfortable admitting they are tired or struggling with their mental health.
- Providing mental health support via a third party or signposting drivers to external resources.
Read more: Veriforce CHAS Launches UK’s First Mental Health & Wellbeing Question Set
- Maintaining training schedules to identify when drivers need additional support, whether refresher or advanced training.
- Documenting driver duties in your company policies to ensure employees know who is responsible for carrying out routine safety checks — if it is a driver’s responsibility, you must ensure they know how to conduct checks and report their findings.
- Arranging eyesight checks and testing for drugs and alcohol, and maintaining records of the results.
- Having a clear policy on mobile phone use and providing hands-free equipment, alongside guidance on using hands-free sparingly to minimise driver distraction.
Additional Best Practices For Managing Driver Risk
When assessing driver risk, it’s beneficial to consider the risks affecting vehicles as a whole.
Considering how vehicles and people move around the workplace and where motorists and pedestrians intersect — plus how you can reduce contact — can enhance overall safety.
You should also assess whether you have separate parking for site visitors and how vehicles enter and exit areas. For example, do you operate a one-way system, or do you have multiple entry points that might cause congestion?
It’s also critical to use the tools and technologies available to you to identify and mitigate driver risk.
- GPS tracking helps you monitor a driver’s whereabouts so you can verify if they are following the planned route, speeding (based on how quickly they move between locations) or working according to an agreed schedule.
- In-cab cameras enhance security and might deter thieves, enhancing compliance and reducing fleet insurance costs. Cameras can also provide valuable data on driver behaviour, ensuring employees are operating vehicles safely and providing evidence if an employee is in an accident.
- Telematics systems provide insight into driver risk, allowing you to assess behaviour and identify unsafe practices that might cause an accident.
- Fleet management systems (FMS) can integrate multiple data sources, enabling complex analysis in one location. Veriforce CHAS recommends FleetCheck, which allows you to integrate telematics and fuel data for detailed insights into driver behaviour and more. FleetCheck also boasts automatic licence checks and a comprehensive reporting suite so you never miss an MOT.
Join Veriforce CHAS today to request a CHAS Vehicle Compliance Scheme (VCS) assessment. Developed in partnership with National Highways and Driving for Better Business, CHAS VCS demonstrates that you comply with best practices for managing your fleet, mitigating road risks and assessing driver competence.
Assessment costs start from just £89 per year, with additional savings available for bigger fleets.
CHAS members also enjoy exclusive benefits, including discounted fuel and tool hire and a one-month free trial of FleetCheck. Claim your free trial today to aid your driver risk assessment efforts and reduce the likelihood of fines and reputation damage for non-compliance.
