Tuesday is peak day for accidents, says Zenith

Data analysed by Zenith’s on-line fleet diagnostic tool, Pulse, reveals that accidents by company car drivers reach a peak on a Tuesday, before tailing off through the rest of the week. According to Pulse, the quietest day during the week for accidents is Friday and the overall lowest number of accidents occurs, unsurprisingly, on a Sunday.

Zenith provides in-house accident management services to over 29,000 drivers, providing a significant sample of data to analyse. The findings differ from statistics for all road accidents on British roads, which show that Fridays are the most common day for accidents. This is thought to be due to tiredness and increased risk taking. The fact that more accidents involving company car drivers occur earlier in the week can be put down to their different driving patterns, with business meetings and travel more likely to be scheduled for towards the beginning of the week.

Pulse also identified that while 64% of all accidents happened while the company car driver was on business, more than 10% occurred during the journey to or from work.

The most common cause of accidents logged by a Zenith driver is a third party hitting an unattended Zenith vehicle (21%). This, along with the incidence of vandalism (4%) and theft or break-in (4%), highlights the importance of assessing whether a vehicle is parked in an appropriate place. Companies can also carry out risk assessments on parking areas where there are frequent incidences. They can also consider classifying accidents by an unidentified third parties as ‘at fault’ accidents, so that the driver can be penalised. This encourages drivers to think about where they are parking their vehicle and to identify any third party involved.

Ian Hughes, Zenith’s commercial director, comments: “The ability to harness the power of data provides us with a vast amount of information and opportunity. Pulse is constantly assessing statistics and trends and this will help our customers to target high risk drivers, and take appropriate mitigating action to reduce accidents and incidents. Understanding which drivers and journeys are most at risk helps our customers to make important policy decisions; so that they can run a fleet as safely and efficiently as possible.”