Every time one of your employees gets behind the wheel for work, your business takes on more than the cost of fuel and vehicle maintenance.
A single incident on the road has the potential to disrupt operations, increase costs and damage your reputation – even when the consequences are relatively minor. Understanding the risks involved and how to manage them means you can keep your staff safe and your business protected.
Understanding your duty of care
Under UK law, you hold a clear duty of care toward employees who travel as part of their job, regardless of who owns the vehicle. This responsibility includes your ‘grey fleet’ staff using personal cars for work errands.
To manage these obligations, carry out comprehensive risk assessments across the driver, the vehicle and the journey. Evaluate the driver’s experience and medical fitness. Next, verify the vehicle’s roadworthiness and assess specific route hazards before sending staff out.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) provides detailed guidance that’s designed to help you structure these evaluations effectively.
Building safer journey planning
Effective risk management begins early. Try adapting everyday situations to reduce the number of staff on the road. For instance, ask your managers to evaluate whether a remote video meeting could replace a long drive.
If travel is essential, build buffer time into delivery slots or meeting schedules so drivers never feel compelled to speed or skip rest breaks. For guidance, aim to match your internal policies to the priorities of the UK Government’s Road Safety Strategy, which plans to improve road safety.
Check real-time weather alerts too. This will keep your workforce safe and your operations smooth in extreme conditions.
Checking vehicles, licences and car insurance early
There are penalties for driving without insurance, missing an MOT, or operating unsafe vehicles. Require staff to submit digital copies of their MOT certificates and insurance documents annually. It’s essential that you confirm that any employees using personal cars hold active commercial car insurance – standard domestic policies exclude business trips.
An automated tracking calendar ensures you receive alerts well before your team’s documentation expires, keeping your entire fleet fully compliant.
Responding to recent UK road safety data
According to the Department for Transport’s reported road casualty statistics, collisions involving a driver travelling for work accounted for roughly a quarter of all reported road collisions in Great Britain each year between 2015 and 2025.
Estimates indicate that 445 people died in collisions involving a working driver in 2025 alone. Review your risk assessments quarterly to reflect these real-world conditions. Use incident logs and regular driver feedback to identify high-risk routes and adjust training to maintain a proactive safety culture across your company.