MORE than 50% of fleet drivers are exceeding the Government’s recommended journey duration time without taking a break, according to insurance giant Norwich Union.
Duty of care reports compiled over a six-month period (January - July 2007) found that over half of car and van drivers were exceeding the Government guidelines of driving for two hours without a break, with the longest continuous journey lasting six-and-a-half hours.
What’s more, says the company, many fleet managers admitted that they were unaware of the guidelines, which recommend that drivers have a minimum break of 15 minutes every two hours.
The warning comes as Norwich Union teams up with MetaSystem, one of Europe’s leading security and information solution manufacturers, to enhance the capability of its Fleetwise Care and provide fleet managers with greater awareness and control.
Using telematic devices which feed data to Norwich Union via satellite, Fleetwise Care now enables fleets to obtain comprehensive online duty of care reports. These provide greater flexibility allowing fleet managers to look at the information more regularly on specific vehicles or the whole fleet, print or export reports to share with the business and monitor and manage driver behaviour, including journey times, types and mileage covered, coupled with claims information.
The updated Fleetwise Care also offers two new functions: remote immobilisation, which enables the authorised user to remotely immobilise a selected vehicle to help prevent vehicle misuse, and theft and crash detection (incorporating crash alerts and crash reporting) where a sensor attached to the telematic device monitors the force experienced by the vehicle to detect when a crash incident occurs. (Norwich Union: October 19).
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