Duty of Care

What is duty of care?

When it comes to road safety, much of the legal responsibility falls on the driver. Therefore, it is up to you as a business to ensure your vehicles are safe, well maintained and insured, and your employees are driving in a safe manner. 

Duty of care challenges

1
Not being clear on driver duty of care responsibilities
2
Not sure where to find the right information to meet your responsibilities
3
What to look out for to reduce safety risks

Help with your wider driver policy

We have years of experience and expertise helping companies craft driver policies. And we can also help review the policies you already have in place.

Our approach:

Advising on the best vehicles for your organisation (and drivers)
We can offer vehicles of different sizes, shapes and models from all the major manufacturers.
Delivering fully compliant vehicles
We fully test all of our vehicles before delivery, from engines and electronics to all modifications and weight limits.
Helping with licence checks
We offer licence-checking services to alleviate the load whilst also helping you with the reporting to meet your duty of care responsibilities.
Offering online driver competency checks
A driver may technically be allowed to drive in all conditions but not have the required skill and experience to do so safely. We can support you through online competency checks.
Driver training
We can offer courses to ensure your drivers know what to do in unprecedented situations and give them the chance to ask a trained professional any questions they might have.
Service, maintenance and repair
We’re the UK’s largest contracted service provider, maintaining more than 700,000 vehicles. We will accommodate all scenarios if you want us to include cover for everything or have existing preferred suppliers.
24/7 driver support
We offer your drivers an award-winning 24/7 helpline, so they’ve got a single point of contact for whatever they need, whether their vehicle has broken down or they want to book a service.
Driver insights with telematics
We’ll help you get the latest tech, fully compliant with the latest data legislation (inc. GDPR), and put that data to use. Helping you gain insight into how your employees drive and use everything you learn to improve driver safety and cut risks.
Day-to-day management
When services are due, renewals need to be made or tax needs to be paid, as your fleet leasing partner, we’ll handle a lot of the work for you. So, you won’t even need to think about it.
Improve reporting
As well as helping you improve fleet utilisation and increase driver productivity, the collection of data through Telematics opens up a huge range of possibilities for fleet operators. The information can be used to create KPIs for your fleet and its drivers.

Useful support to help you reduce risks

Having the right vehicle for the job is essential, and so is using it safely. There are various resources to help you ensure your vehicles are used and maintained safely.

Having the right vehicle for the job is essential. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) provides guidance on vehicle selection based on safety and suitability.

Once the vehicle is part of your fleet, you are legally obliged to keep it in good working order. This means ensuring regular inspection, risk assessments, and maintenance if and when required.

Preventive maintenance can help to maintain optimum efficiency and reduce possible downtime.

Useful advice from other parties

Driving for Better Business
Health and Safety Executive
Logistics UK
Road Haulage Association

By law, you must consider health and safety capabilities. The HSE provides more information on training and driver competence.

Learn more

Road safety is only one aspect of van use. It’s also important to consider what happens before the van gets on the road: like getting in and out of the vehicle and loading and unloading.

Drivers who travel abroad in their vehicles may also face implications if British and other international rules are not followed.

This is not a comprehensive list, but drivers should always follow this advice:
‘Preventing falls from vehicles’ advice sheet

Here to help

Between everything fleet managers are looking after, and everything drivers are responsible for, there’s a lot to consider. Let us help you.

Volkswagen Financial Services | Fleet can take a lot of the burden off your shoulders, giving you valuable support, advice and insights to lighten to load.

1 https://www.chas.co.uk/blog/national-highways-van-safety-warning/#:~:text=Road%20casualty%20data%20shows%20that,drivers%20themselves%20are%20at%20risk