Error parsing XSLT file: \xslt\FacebookOpenGraph.xslt Richard Schooling's Blog: April
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Richard Schooling's Blog: April

Date: 30 April 2007

Richard Schooling

There is a lot of confusion about the rules on "smokefree" workplaces at the moment, particularly in relation to company cars..

30 April 2007: The Fog of Law

There is a lot of confusion about the rules on "smokefree" workplaces at the moment, particularly in relation to company cars.

Alphabet is being inundated with requests for the free guide we've produced to explain, as clearly as possible, how the ban affects drivers in Wales and, from July, England.

Millions of English businesses received the Department of Health's "get ready for the ban" packs in the post this week - but I wonder whether they will be of much help.

The problem with the official guidelines on smokefree vehicles is that they are very difficult to interpret precisely, especially around the area of private use.

A lot of people think that is deliberate: the Government is understandably reluctant to spell out the implications of ban for business drivers.

In a nutshell, if a business vehicle is required to be smokefree, it has to be smokefree all the time; evenings and weekends included. So if you're a smoker with a smokefree vehicle, the "workplace" ban extends over all your driving activities: social and domestic as well as business.

Of course, that's no different from the kind of no-smoking-in-company-vehicles policy that many fleets sensibly insist on.

But the smoking ban goes further, in two ways.

Firstly, there is the sanction of a fines (and, effectively, a criminal record) for any driver caught smoking in a smokefree car. And secondly, the law will require businesses to police smoking in privately-owned cars as well as company vehicles if they are defined as 'smokefree' (i.e. there is substantial business use and the driver sometimes takes passengers on work trips).

Fleet managers will have to check whether such cars carry the regulation no-smoking signage. More controversially, they'll also need to enquire from time to time whether the drivers are lighting up inside their own vehicles in their own time and, if the answer is 'yes', ask them to desist!

Some employers will doubtless decide that it's too complicated and risky, in several senses, to continue to permit drivers to use their own cars if their annual business mileage exceeds their personal use (which is the criterion for judging whether private vehicles must be smokefree).

I suspect that a lot of companies will also simply ban smoking in all company vehicles irrespective of whether or not they need to be smokefree under the new law. That's also, I'd bet, what the Government is hoping will happen.

Being British, most of us will probably just take it all in our stride and get on with life's bigger issues.

If fleets are lucky, the main question they'll get is from non-smokers asking why they have to have a no-smoking sign in their company car and why on earth does it have to be so big?

Something tells me it won't be that simple!

The number to call for the free drivers' guide to the smoking ban, by the way, is 0870 50 50 100.

16 April 2007: Food for thought

Last week brought a welcome opportunity to spend a day with some of our customers, sharing thoughts and ideas on tackling the myriad challenges that land daily on the fleet manager's desk.

Now that almost every aspect of our business seems to be linked to CO2 one way or another, the topic of running greener fleets naturally produced some lively discussion, with the warmest debate centring on the question of how to persuade drivers to make greener travel choices.

Everyone wants the best car they can get and, for most drivers, especially company drivers, "better" still means "bigger".

As it happened, our hosts for the day had laid on a chance for us to get up close and personal over lunch with a quartet of impressively-proportioned cars built for the highest of high-net-worth individuals. These are the kind of cars you only get to own when you've done so well for yourself that you no longer have to ask what anything costs.

Grazing at the very top of the automotive food chain, we checked out a two-seater whose price equates to £150,000 for each well-heeled bottom that graces the flawless hide cushions.

I have it on very good authority that its six litre engine purrs with effortless silkiness but from an environmental point of view there is also the small matter of the third of a tonne of CO2 it would churn out during a one-way trip from London to, say, Dundee or (perhaps more likely) the south of France.

Does that last statistic sound like the cue for a green travel comparison?

Assuming the supercar's driver went to Dundee (or the S of Fr) on his own, that's 330kg of CO2 per person for the journey. Compare that with a mere 11kg if he'd done the trip on a coach with 40 other people (I'm factoring-in a two-hour stop over at Runcorn bus depot, of course).

This sort of comparison is rather in vogue at the moment, especially with coach companies. But, say that a firm set a cap of 11kg of CO2 per journey for employees travelling on business. Would they go by bus; surrounded by dozing students and resting actors?

Not on your life - they'd all hand in their notice.

Similarly, as one of our customers pointed out, if you try to impose CO2 limits on company cars, sooner or later you reach a point where staff decide to opt for cash or go elsewhere rather than submit to it.

It's a tough one for fleets. Punitive measures, such as CO2 caps or steeper taxes, threaten to drive people out of company cars, just when good safety sense says they should stay.

Educating drivers looks as if it's the way to get results. Many drivers could save themselves thousands of pounds over a few years by making better-informed decisions about what they drive and how they drive it. But what about the time and cost?

We need an industry-wide debate on this subject, and where better to start it than here on Business Car online?

Let us know your experiences of bringing in green measures. What have you tried? What worked and what didn't? You can post your comments and suggestions via the link at the end of this entry.

5 April 2007: Easter Fantasy!

To me, Easter is a perfect pint-sized break and to make sure I have a really good one I'll be turning on the car stereo's TA button before heading off this weekend.

But what is it about bank holidays and traffic reporters? Suddenly, they're like sports commentators before an England football match - only in reverse. And why is it that the travel report kicks in just as you meet the end of a long queue of traffic and it is too late to do anything about it?

If I was to be stuck in a traffic queue this weekend (are wheels round?!), who would I choose to be stuck with, where would I be and what car would I be driving? It's a tough choice but when we asked these questions to a selection of fleet managers and decision makers, a BMW, Jaguar, and a Limo were far and away the fantasy vehicle of choice and the respondent who nominated a helicopter was clearly cruising in the mood of the survey.

Not surprisingly, New York, San Francisco, Paris, Sydney and London were favourite fantasy places. While Beyonce, Pamela Anderson and Patsy Kensit were all named as dream dates, although it's unlikely that Margaret Thatcher ever imagined that she would be the one to get someone's headlights flashing! For the ladies, Brad Pitt, Mel Gibson and Robbie Williams were firm favourites although someone had their eye on their GP and John Motson was something of an off-roader.

So I'm heading for the open(?) roads of Monte Carlo with Jessica Alba by my side in my BMW 650 convertible, and will be back next week, congestion permitting!



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