THE most common form of damage to company cars occurs when they are parked, and not while they are on the road. An analysis of incident claims handled by Lease Plan on its 35,000 strong accident management fleet, reveals that 'hit while parked' topped the cause-of-damage league table, responsible for 2,114 incidents in the year to March 31, 1997, and averaging 176 cases per month.

Howard Thomas, Lease Plan's operations director, said the 'hit while parked' explanation was sometimes used by drivers as a euphemism to cover incidents to which they did not wish to own up. He added that some fleets had established procedures to tackle this, obliging drivers to pay the excess charge on the second and subsequent claims for 'hit while parked'.

Break-ins occupied second spot in the Lease Plan league table, with 1,737 incidents at an average of 144 per month; attempted break-ins contributed a further 19 incidents per month, and vandalism featured as the fourth most common cause of damage with an alarming 83 incidents a month.