Fleet Management – Getting Your Vehicles On The Road

Fleet Management – Getting Your Vehicles On The Road

 

Fleet Licensing –

Once you’ve purchased (or leased) your vehicles the next crucial step is to ensure your vehicles are correctly licensed for the intended use.

This will also mean vehicle insurance. If you’re starting or growing a fleet of commercial vehicles you will want to get the most appropriate insurance cover and ensure you’re controlling these costs.

FLEETSense always recommends that you use a specialist and independent Insurance Broker for your fleet management.

Good brokers will take the time to look carefully at exactly how you use your vehicles, give advice on how to adopt protocols and use technology to reduce risks.

Then you can be confident of having fleet vehicle insurance that’s tailored to your specific needs and working closely with a broker to manage this on-going.

A good broker will also be invaluable if (or rather when) incidents occur and you need to make insurance claims and mitigate your losses.

 

Fleet Compliance –

In the UK, across Europe and in other countries there are different laws relating to the operation of commercial vehicles.

This means you need to be fully aware of how these laws relate to you, your operation and your staff. Breaching compliance of these laws can mean serious problems.

Your vehicles can be taken off the road, drivers suspended, and you could even face criminal prosecution if serious accidents happen.

Some aspects of fleet management compliance relate to taxation and financial management. HMRC will expect you to accurately manage your fleet vehicle costs and expenditure.

It is not just your fleet vehicles that are subject to certain laws. Your drivers and you, as the employer, need to be aware of your obligations.

These various fleet management laws can be divided into the following categories:

Vehicles – Including; safety and road worthiness

Drivers – Including; licensed and hours of work

 

Fleet Maintenance and Vehicle Safety Checks –

One very important aspect of good fleet management is how you look after your vehicles. This includes regular and scheduled safety checks and service maintenance.

In order to be able to use your fleet vehicles on the UK roads they obviously need to be road-worthy and have passed the required MOT Test [any other tests required?]

In addition to this commercial vehicles must have regular safety checks. Just as a pilot is expected to check their aircraft before use, each driver of a commercial vehicle needs to take responsibility for checking they have a safe vehicle before taking it onto the road network.

Managing these daily or regular checks can be made easier by the use of bespoke technology. This helps to complete checks and record results, creating digital data that can then be safely stored and used as required.

The same software solutions are also essential for keeping on top of regular vehicle maintenance. This may be general servicing that’s required, or even focus on specific elements such as tyre management.

Good control of vehicle maintenance reduces the risks of vehicle failure and the costly problems of roadside breakdowns.

And finally, it’s also about keeping people safe, including other road users, pedestrians and your own drivers. Effective fleet management makes good business sense and should be the aim of every transport operator or fleet manager serious about corporate and social responsibility.

 

Your Next Step –

If you’d like to know how the latest Fleet Management technology could help take the strain, let’s talk about your business and how we can help.

As independent specialists we work closely with our carefully selected partners and long-standing Certified Partners of Webfleet Solutions.

Call us now on 0345 459 4998, or email info@fleetsense.co.uk

 

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