Page 13 - issue-27

Some 33% of all vans are now ten years old plus, with the number rising steadily since the credit crunch
Britain’s van parc Tis ageing rapidly
here are 10% more ageing impact on brand reputation and end vans on UK roads than a year up costing businesses dear. With ago, with 1.19 million vans at demand for mobile services and
Average speed cameras proved to cut accident toll
Implementation of average speed cameras cuts the number of crashes resulting in death or serious injury by more than a third, new analysis has found.
The research for the RAC Foundation by Road Safety Analysis found that on average the number of fatal and serious collisions decreased by 36% after average speed cameras were introduced.
Personal injury collisions of all severities were down 16%.
The research has been undertaken as the number of average speed cameras in Britain continues to grow as the costs of installation fall. By the end of 2015 there were at least 50 stretches of road in Great Britain permanently covered by average speed cameras keeping a total length of 255 miles under observation.
This is more than double the igure of 117 miles at the end of 2012.
Richard Owen, operations director at Road Safety Analysis, said: “The statistical results clearly show good collision reductions on the stretches
of road where average speed cameras are used; often covering much longer distances than other enforcement systems.
“The indings and methodology used should be of signiicant interest to those considering the use of this technology, as well as those wishing to evaluate their own road safety schemes.”
least a decade old in 2015 – up from 1.08million in 2014 – as businesses put off decisions to upgrade vehicle leets.
According to leasing broker Funding Options, this means that 33% of all vans are now ten years old plus, with the number rising steadily since the credit crunch. In 2009, there were just fewer than 730,000, or 23% of the total stock, that were over ten years old.
The company believes the reason why businesses are continuing to retain vehicles for longer despite improvements in the economy is likely to be because bank lending to SMEs remains constrained, making it harder to fund new investment.
Conrad Ford, CEO of Funding Options, said: “If your business is using rundown vehicles, it could damage your brand enormously. Customers think it looks unprofessional and sweating these assets beyond their reliable lifespan is likely to lead to hefty maintenance and repair costs and the risk of unexpected failure.
“If unreliability causes the provision of goods and services to be delayed or cancelled at short notice, it could have a disastrous
deliveries soaring with the rise of e-commerce and the app economy, this is a key consideration.
“Many SMEs held back on investing in new vehicles during the recession, but now even as the economy has strengthened, they appear to be either unwilling or unable to commit to these kinds of major capex decisions.
“Many are keen to invest in energy-eficient electric vehicles but lack the available resources to do so.
Lending is an issue
“Availability of bank lending remains an issue for many, but conidence is also a factor. With the economic outlook becoming more uncertain once again post-Brexit, businesses may feel that the time still isn’t right to make major lump sum capital investments up-front.”
“This combination of factors
is causing many businesses to investigate alternative inance options, such as leasing, asset inance or even invoice inance,
to enable them to spread the cost of new vehicle purchases without impacting working capital or hitting the bottom line.”
13 TVD lssue 27 2016