Safe management of grey fleet drivers

Grey fleet drivers use their own vehicles on company business. It is important that businesses manage such operations to the same standards as those for drivers of company-owned vehicles. Failure to do so may lead to road traffic accidents resulting in serious injuries or loss of life.

Managing the risks

To help you to identify the hazards associated with the management of grey fleet drivers and the appropriate ways of controlling them, use our example Risk Assessment - Safe Management of Grey Fleet Drivers. It covers the generic hazards associated with this type of activity and suggests control measures to reduce risks to an acceptable level. You should ensure that your document only addresses “significant” hazards, i.e. any that could, and more importantly are likely to, cause an accident or injury.

Make your instructions clear

Don’t include activities in your document that simply don’t need to be there. Work to the principle that if there is any chance of your staff being unaware of the safe way of doing something, then you will need to make it clear in your document. Finally, always ensure that any control measures you identify and follow are decided upon the principle of “so far as is reasonably practicable”.

Note. The list of potential hazards is not exhaustive. However, for your risk assessment to be considered suitable and sufficient in the eyes of the law it must accurately reflect the “significant” hazards of the use of privately owned vehicles on company business.

Note. This risk assessment deals with the generic risks associated with drivers who use their own vehicles on company business. You should also have a private vehicle driving policy that supplements your own assessment of the risks in your particular business.