Vehicle Selection

Your should develop your overall framework to include how you will select, operate, maintain and dispose of your vehicles. Today this is even more important there is only a limited time span on the operating time for traditional hydrocarbon vehicles, with most countries seeking to stop the sale of them within the next 15 years. Many local restrictions are also being introduced that will stop or severely curtail the operation of diesel vehicles from this point on.

The type of vehicle that you buy or lease must meet the criteria for the business, you should consult with all the stakeholders to make sure that the type, size and weight capacity meets the needs of the business going forward not the needs today. You may be surprised at how often this does not happen and it can be a very expensive mistake.

There are then some other areas that you must consider, below are a few.

Selection

Make sure that the vehicle meets or exceeds the safety standards in the place you operate it. Not all vehicles are built to the same safety standards even if they have the same manufacturer.

Driver comfort is important, they can be sat in the vehicle for 12 or more hours a day, seat belts, warning systems air conditioning / heating are all criteria that should be included.

Sufficient lighting inside the cab and any body attached as well as safeguards for any additional equipment attached to the vehicle such as power take off's / Hiab cranes or electrical or pressurised connection systems.

Prevention

Prevention is much better than having expensive equipment needing repairs, regular daily inspections by drivers can save significant repair costs in the future.

Daily checks are often ignored or treated as a "tick in the box" exercise, the reality can be very different. In many countries a legal requirement is placed upon the driver of the vehicle to ensure that the vehicle they take on the road meets the legal minimum requirements..

This means that while I recommend daily checks, if a vehicle is used by more than 1 driver in a day, each driver should undertake an inspection, failure to do so may result in them being held liable in the event that the vehicle is stopped by enforcement agencies

Maintain

Establish a robust process for managing all vehicle maintenance and ensure that all your own vehicles are maintained in line with Manufacturer guide lines. You should keep an accurate record of all maintenance undertaken.

If you use an external workshop for this, you should conduct regular audits to make sure the workshop provider is maintaining accurate records and repairing your vehicles in line with the service agreement you have with them.

Note that you may be held liable for any vehicle that is being used for business purposes by your organisation and so you should extend your policy to cover own vehicles used by employees, lease / hire vehicles and your contractors vehicles.

Dispose

Develop a policy for the disposal of your vehicles, this should include any additional specialist components and all hazardous waste from the disposal.

Considerations for disposal reasons may be the age / value of a vehicle, its maintenance costs exceeding budgets, compliance requirements from your customers or because of changing legislation.