Leasedrive Velo Blog

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

The one thing I always never try to forget is how privileged many of us are who work in the fleet industry.

Not only is it the best sector of business to work in with some great people, but we get to test so many different types of car. That can leave us feeling a bit blasé about yet another luxury demonstrator to drive home in, but I do sometimes pinch myself and think, does it get any better than this?

I normally like to be a wee bit controversial in my blogs but this week I’m going to break a personal rule. I’m not one to single out any particular manufacturer’s product but I’ve just been so excited by one car that I’ve driven I’ve just got to talk about it in a blog.

Why? Because it, and the cars like it that will surely follow, represent the future.

The car in question? Not some luxury executive saloon but a new take on the city car concept.

I just think it’s brilliant in every respect. It’s packed with standard equipment, including air conditioning, can transport four adults in comfort, drives nicely, turns on a sixpence and has bags of safety features.

It’s sub-100g/km, so is exempt from road tax, and returns 65mpg. For everyday driving, it’s all you could ever want. It might not be your preferred option for a long journey, but my wife, 80-year-old mother and 17-year-old son were more than impressed with it when we went out to Sunday lunch.

I’m convinced that this car, and others like it that will surely follow, represents the fleet car of the future, certainly in ten years or so. No, it will not replace the family car but as everyday transport it will be hard to beat.

And the car? Well take a bow, the new Toyota iQ. 

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

Well the snow cleared last week and the swathes of white icy road surfaces were replaced with the normal black tarmac we are used to. Relief at the prospect of rolling along without hindrance was tempered with the realisation that all not was not quite as it was.

If your eyes had not detected changes in the road surface, then the sudden unexpected jolts must have done. The recent cold snap not only resulted in the worst snowfalls for 18 years but it seems in even worst surface conditions on UK roads. This is not good news, following hot on the heels of news that there was a 13% year-on-year increase in pothole-related accident damage last month.

I certainly don’t know what it’s like in your part of the world but certainly in Berkshire the number of new potholes, cracks and crumbling road edges has increased dramatically since the snow melted away. Hard-pressed councils will find it even tougher to meet minimum acceptable road surface standards when their budgets have never been under such pressure. Apparently, before the snows even fell out of the laden grey skies, there was a £1bn shortfall in council road maintenance budgets.

If it gets any worse, I can see an even sharper increase in interest in four-wheel-drive transport and it won’t be with an eye to just driving out of trouble. It’ll be to provide some form of additional protection to potential back and suspension damage. Are we really going to be driven to such ridiculous lengths just to ensure that we can go from A to B in relative comfort without being bucked around like some Wild West rodeo rider?

The economic downturn is not only affecting council budgets it would seem. The police in Wales are threatening to not attend motorway accidents come April unless they get paid!

Unbelievable! Do they really mean that when there is a road fatality on the M4 in Wales in the late spring or summer, they will not be in attendance?

It beggars belief!

On the subject of motorway accidents, it was really disturbing to learn the fate of the family of six who stood no chance whatsoever when their queuing car was crushed between two trucks and exploded in a fireball from the resulting impact.

The Portuguese commercial vehicle driver, stood accused of allegedly using his laptop to navigate just prior to killing members of the same family, received a three-year sentence for careless driving and will serve just a year in prison.

Again, where is the justice?

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

Following my questioning last week of the level of justice, when a court handed out a lowly 21-month prison sentence to a serial hand-held mobile user for an innocent victim’s life, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read on Teletext that a commercial vehicle driver stood accused of using his laptop just prior to killing a family of six. If proven true, it brings to new heights the level of crass stupidity employed by some drivers. Have they no sense of responsibility?

Turning to more positive news, it was good to read this week that the BVRLA declared that the average CO2 emissions for a new company car are below the acknowledged new fleet policy ceiling of 160 g/km at a smidge under 150 g/km. Expect these figures to go further south to the benefit of the environment.

However, with new car fleet sales dropping over 35% in January compared to the same month last year, the fall is likely to be slower than we would all like. Indeed, there seems to be a greater uptake on extending contract hire lengths by a further year so new technology will not see the light of day on our roads as quickly as would be desirable to hit carbon emission targets. Good news though for the tyre re-fit sector!

Wearing my hat as chairman of the ICFM I was even more heartened to read that results emanating from the Chartered Management Institute redundancy hotline show that 16% of fleet callers plan to undertake a qualification as a result of the recession. In my view, there has never been a more critical time for the fleet management sector to have more qualified personnel. Only with professional skills’ sets can people make a real difference and we need all the help we can get in the current credit crunch quagmire.

My vision is that one day an ICFM qualification should be a pre-requisite for any applicant seeking employment in the fleet industry. After all, in many other sectors, minimum required qualifications are often stated in job advertisements. The same should be true of the fleet industry. Interesting to note that none of the chairmen or chief executives of HBOS and RBS held any formal banking qualifications and did not understand some of the complex financial instruments on their books.

Need I say more?

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

Twenty-one months for an innocent victim’s life – you wonder whether there really is any justice in the world.

I refer to the case of Victoria McBryde, a 24-year-old young lady who was tragically killed as she waited for breakdown assistance following a puncture.

Her stationary car was struck at 70mph and she died from head injuries. The driver who killed her, 21-year-old Philippa Curtis, was using her mobile phone while driving in the dark on wet roads.

In 2007, 25 people were killed through motorists using a hand-held mobile phone while driving. In this latest case, Philippa Curtis had sent and received more than 20 texts before the crash!

During the court hearing, she stated in her defence that she felt that there were times when using a hand-held phone while driving was okay and claimed she could send and receive messages without taking her eye off the road. All I can say is that such comments besides being patently untrue are clearly indefensible.

Apparently, sentencing guidelines were recently tightened up so courts could try to stamp out such recklessness. Clearly, the judge in this case did not bother to read the script.

We’ve all read of needless fatalities involving illegal use of hand-held mobile phones but this woman should have been made an example of. In this instance, it was not the misguided single use at the wrong moment, the woman was obviously a compulsive texter. To make things worse, she wasn’t even wearing any shoes at the time of the incident but had been driving barefoot!