Graham Hurdle blog: 3 February – Small investments in driver training could result in big savings in end of contract recharges

According to industry research, 35% of cars returned to the UK’s 100 largest leasing companies incur damage recharges at an average of £274.

Most contract hire professionals will confirm that recharges can be a tense issue with clients, but if a vehicle has sustained small knocks, scrapes, scuffs and scratches outside the fair wear and tear guidelines, its resale value is affected and someone has to foot the bill.

But what can be done? Standard practice is to offer a waiver up to a price limit, plus work to BVRLA guidelines, making a difficult process as fair as possible. But shouldn’t we also be placing more effort on avoiding this needless damage in the first place?

Most minor repairs are caused by negligent driver behaviour, and a lack of respect for a vehicle which is not their own. More than often, dents, dinks, scuffs and scratches are caused at low speed (e.g. parking and slow manoeuvring) and are down to a lack of attention or care. Hitting fixed objects, parking too close to other vehicles and a lack of diligence when reversing are all common causes.

This is largely down to poor attitude. Drivers not taking time to look properly, misjudging distances when manoeuvring, being distracted by telephone calls, setting up their SatNav (and therefore not looking properly) as they pull away, or choosing the first parking space they spot – even if getting into it means they probably can’t get out of the car!

This type of damage is the bane of most fleet manager’s lives, whether it’s dealt with during the vehicle’s time on fleet or through an end of contract recharge. Yet an online course to focus each driver’s mind on how to avoid these incidents only costs a few pounds per login, so why don’t more companies make that small investment to minimise the number of occurrences in the first place?

Another solution is ‘clean vehicle’ rewards; an annual incentive paid out to all drivers who end the year with no damage to their car or commercial vehicle.  To complement training and incentives, companies also need to get tough on drivers who cause needless damage.

It’s an irony that if a member of staff breaks their company laptop there would probably be more questions asked than if they damaged a panel on their car. But if we place greater focus on drivers who cause needless damage, even getting them to foot the bill, it will certainly help the problem diminish over time.

So lets not focus too much on the end of contract recharge, as the way to address this is at root cause. And that’s stopping the damage happening in the first place.