Grey fleet costs UK £5.5bn

Is it time to do more about your grey fleet?

In a recent report by the Energy Saving Trust, which was commissioned by the BVRLA, the true scale of the usage of grey fleet in both the public and private sector has been revealed. The ‘getting to grips with grey fleet’ report aimed to determine the true size of the UK’s grey fleet and how to reduce the costs, emissions and duty of care risk associated with driving for work.

The true cost of grey fleet

It was revealed that 14m grey fleet vehicles are currently on the road covering 12bn business miles each year and costing employers as much as £5.5bn in mileage claims and car allowances. Not only are these cars posing a problem in terms of costs and duty of care, but they are also responsible for 3.6m tonnes worth of CO2 emissions.

On average it was found that grey fleet vehicles are around 8.2 years old and some of the least safe vehicles on the road, whilst also accounting for a large proportion of the £2.7bn costs in work-related road accidents. When compared to alternative options such as mileage management systems, lease vehicles, daily rental, car clubs and salary sacrifice schemes grey fleet vehicles tend to have less safety features, pollute more and cost more. Furthermore, the report highlighted that a 50% reduction in public sector grey fleet mileage alone, could save 157,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

Recommendations to tackle grey fleet usage

In order to help tackle the problem of grey fleet it is recommended that employers should implement and enforce a travel policy. Each employee should be aware of this policy and what is expected of them when they arrange their travel. It is a good idea to establish a simple travel hierarchy to enable employees to consider which mode of transport or type of vehicle they use for different types of journeys.

Following the ‘getting to grips with grey fleet report’, both EST and BVRLA recommend that “Car rental should be adopted for any work-related vehicle journey over 55 miles and a vehicle should be leased for employees driving at least 10,000 business miles per year. Employers should also incentivise alternatives to driving such as public transport, cycling and walking.”

In addition to this fleets should introduce electronic mileage management systems to combat mileage inflation issues and remove the incentive to drive any additional, unnecessary business miles.

Bluedrop Services recommendations

Whilst it is important to put measures in place to reduce the size of your grey fleet, it is also important to limit the issues that you will experience from your remaining grey fleet and make sure they are insured correctly and understand the different class levels of business insurance. If you can educate your grey fleet drivers in this area you can potentially save thousands in damages should your drivers run into an incident on the road.

For more information on insuring your fleet or to request a quote visit our Fleet insurance page.