How Compliant Is Your Fleet? Uncovering The Technology To Help You Keep Your Fleet In Line With The Law.

Keeping your fleet legally complaint can often feel like an up-hill battle. Your drivers and vehicles may be miles away at any given time, but the responsibility for them stays with you. Here, our compliance partner, Licence Bureau, talk about measures that you can take to help keep your fleet compliant.

Trying to keep up to date with vehicle maintenance needs, how your drivers are behaving on the roads, and the administrative requirements of managing drivers in a vehicle fleet can be challenging.

In this post we outline the checks which need to be completed by business owners to keep their fleet compliant, and discuss how the use of technology can simplify record keeping which makes legal compliance a breeze.

• For company cars, keep full records and vehicle documentation safe and accessible. We believe it's a good idea to appoint someone to be responsible for looking after these documents. For each vehicle you should have the V5 (log book), insurance documentation, MOT, service records and maintenance reports.
• Keeping a dedicated 'Daily Log' for each vehicle, where regular checks can be recorded, showing that every vehicle is safe and roadworthy. This becomes the vehicles audit trail.
• Don't forget that if employees' use their own cars for company business you are responsible for ensuring that they are legal and roadworthy. Your duty of care extends not only to full and part time staff, but temporary drivers, contractors, and nominated drivers and all types of vehicles.
• Resolve maintenance problems straight away, and if you find something dangerous (or even just potentially dangerous) the vehicle in question should not be used.
• We suggest that you implement a 'Driving at Work' policy. Keep it up to date and ensure that every driver has a copy, ask that they sign to confirm they've received it, and will comply with its requirements. The policy should cover issues such as mobile phone, smoking, eating, drug use, speeding and other driving offences.
• It's paramount that you know the status of the licence your staff members hold. Licence checking is a vital part of the risk management process and it should be repeated annually or more frequently for drivers with points. We always recommend that companies check drivers' licences before they are employed ??? and that includes agency and part-time workers. The information needs to come from the DVLA to ensure that you achieve compliance and that you're 100% sure your employees are legal to drive.

Failing to comply with legislation such as the Health and Safety at Work Act, the Corporate Manslaughter Act or the Road Traffic Act of 1988 can lead to heavy fines, loss of operator licence or imprisonment.

We were told about the experience of Dave Ashford at KBC Logistics who had a staff member who had been disqualified from driving, but because of the timing of his internal checking procedures, he was unaware of the situation and the driver was still being deployed.

What happened next could have had dreadful consequences for his business.

The company had run internal checks on all drivers, but because there was no instant alert system in place, the company was unaware that, since the last check, the driver in question had since lost his licence.

On June 9th, whilst driving his own car (out of working hours), the driver was involved in a collision with a motorcyclist, who unfortunately died at the scene.

Dave could have been in trouble for allowing his driver to continue working for him, but on this occasion, he could prove he had no knowledge of the ban and had thankfully fulfilled his business obligations.

With important minimum requirements around licences held by drivers in the UK, the example above shows the importance of having a robust procedure and an audit trail are imperative.

Authorised by the DVLA, we are able to obtain key information quickly and accurately. Customers have unique access, so that they can proactively keep tabs on their company's fleet of drivers, which alerts management of any potential risks or non-compliance issues surrounding duty of care.

Whether you choose technology or vigorous internal processes, keeping on top of your fleets compliance has never been so important.

At Navman Wireless we are focussed on helping our customers keep their fleet safe and compliant, contact us today to find out how our solutions can help your business.