Councils putting lives at risk on our roads

Public sector bosses are potentially putting the lives of their staff and the general public in danger by failing to carry out basic safety checks on their employees’ cars that are being used for work.

Councils are operating against Government advice and are putting themselves at risk of Corporate Manslaughter charges should one of their employees cause a death while driving their own car for work.

Exclusive research by Fleet News, the UK’s leading trade magazine for company car operators, has found that tens of thousands of county council employees in England are using their own vehicles for work without their employers carrying out even the most basic checks.

Of the 30 county councils quizzed, who between them employ 572,000 people and have more than 140,000 using their own rather than company cars, not one inspects these vehicles for safety.

More than half of the councils do not even have a policy for checking that employees’ cars have valid MoT certificates before they are used for Council work and fewer than half (47%) require employees to provide documentary evidence that they have business class insurance. This means more than 50,000 county council employees are driving private vehicles for business without employers checking their insurance cover.

There is also evidence that council employees are being paid too much to use their own cars, and that bosses are not using the most efficient transport options for workers.