TAKING drivers out of company cars can help businesses save millions of pounds and improve their accident records.

Provecta Car Plan claims that introducing employee car ownership schemes (ECOS) can save companies the cost of repairs, loss of productivity and insurance premiums because they introduce an 'ethic of ownership'.

Provecta says drivers simply take better care of their cars because they own them rather than their company, and is urging businesses to implement a change from company car culture to one of ownership to help prevent the high proportion of road deaths and serious injuries involving company car drivers.

Nick Sutton, Provecta managing director, said: 'We can assume company car drivers play a significant part in the death and serious injury statistics, because there are 1.7million BIK tax-paying company car drivers on the road, and most of them are non-professional drivers.

'However, we have noticed a consistent 10-20% reduction in mileage and much safer driving habits from people who have changed from a company car to an ECOS.'

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