Grey fleet: what employers must check
Published
"Grey fleet" means employees driving their own vehicles for work: the care worker between home visits, the engineer taking their car to a site, the manager driving to a client. The car isn't yours, but the journey is, and so is the duty of care.
Why the duty doesn't stop at the car's owner
The law follows the journey, not the logbook:
- Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require you to assess and manage the risk of work activities. Driving for work is one, whoever owns the vehicle.
- Road Traffic Act 1988 makes it an offence to cause or permit someone to drive without the right licence or without insurance. Sending an employee on a work journey you haven't checked is how an employer ends up in that position.
HSE's guidance Driving and riding safely for work names employees' own vehicles explicitly. Commuting between home and a normal place of work is generally outside the duty. Driving between sites, to clients or on work errands is inside it.
The five checks
| Check | What you're confirming | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Driving licence | Valid, full, the right category, no ban, points known | The DVLA record, not the photocard |
| Business-use insurance | The policy covers business journeys | The certificate of insurance |
| MOT | A current certificate, for cars old enough to need one | GOV.UK "Check MOT status", by registration |
| Vehicle tax | Taxed. A car declared off-road (SORN) can't be driven at all | GOV.UK "Check if a vehicle is taxed", by registration |
| Roadworthiness | Tyres, lights, servicing, outstanding recalls | A declaration from the driver |
Insurance is the one most often missed. A policy covering "social, domestic and pleasure" or commuting does not cover driving for work. The driver needs business use on the certificate. Driving without it is driving uninsured.
How often to check
- Licence: on a risk-based schedule, more often as points build, because bans and revocations arrive between annual checks.
- Insurance, MOT and tax: at each expiry date. Record the dates and chase before they lapse, not after.
- Roadworthiness: a short declaration from the driver at least once a year, and whenever they change vehicle.
Where grey fleets go wrong
Grey-fleet drivers rarely sit at a desk and rarely think of themselves as "fleet". That makes them the group most likely to be checked once, at hire, and never again. A licence check that relies on someone remembering to ask fails here first.
The licence is the check that changes silently: points, bans and expired entitlements arrive with no notice to the employer. That's the part worth automating with driving licence checks for employers. One consent from the driver, checks against DVLA on schedule, and a record of every result an auditor can read. Insurance and MOT have dates you can diary. The licence doesn't.