With the Bar-B-Q season fast approaching, fleet managers will be mindful of the most recent summer drink drive figures published by ACPO, the Association of Chief Police Officers which show 5.6% of the 101,000 drivers who were breathalysed during last summer’s drink-driving campaign were convicted. This figure tallies with the conviction rate recorded by fleet management software firm CFC on its Licence Link database which is used by employers to check the current status of the driving licence of their employees.
The system allows fleet operators to automate the checking of car and van driver licence information through a web based system, typically annually for low mileage drivers and more often for high mileage, high risk employees.
Looking at the figures, Neville Briggs, managing director at CFC, said, “Our experience is that very few fleet drivers consciously take a chance by deliberately drink driving in their company car or van. Ethical issues aside, the chances of losing your licence and your job creates a definite reality check. What is probably much more of an issue is the employee who visits a Sunday afternoon family barbeque and drinks a couple of cans of full strength lager, believing that if they wait a couple of hours before they get behind the wheel, they will be legal and safe. Fleets should do everything possible to discourage this kind of ‘unit counting’. It is a lottery as to whether a driver doing this will stay under the limit. The only safe option is not to drink and employers should consider adopting a zero tolerance approach to drinking at all behind the wheel of company vehicles.”
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