Data has been collected from Enterprise Flex-E-Rent that shows nearly a third of businesses do not invest in driver training in order to improve health and safety. More concerning is that the research that has been carried out showed that 17% of those who took part in the study admitted to not carrying out risk assessments for their drivers.

With Health and Safety regulations put in place for all companies in order to make sure that work is carried out in a way that keeps the workers and the public safe. The research from  Enterprise Flex-E-Rent showed that of those that do carry out driver risk assessments, 44% have said that they only carry them out after an incident has been reported and 37% admitted to only carrying them out on a yearly basis.

This attitude to health and safety among drivers appears to be lax however of the 50 businesses that included a range of business types, from SMEs to multinationals, half of them said that the most important issue they are required to manage in order to operate is driver compliance. It seems strange that driver compliance is such a vital issue, and yet carrying out the proper health and safety measures in order to ensure that compliance does not seem to be happening.

On the upside, 83% of the companies that wert involved in the study said that they are planning on investing in vehicle safety going forward and looking into adopting vehicle safety technology. The technology which is considered to be the most popular for improving driver safety are reverse warning alarms, dashcams and telematics systems.

On-site health and safety is usually the main focus for businesses, with more strict procedures in place. However it is equally important to make sure that those travelling and working for the company off site are just as at risk. This is reflected by the statistic that Driving for a business is thought to be linked with around 305 of all of the deaths on the UK roads, making it one of the most dangerous activities undertaken by employees.

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