The Hidden Fleet: When a Good Deed Meets a Policy Gap

A single roadside moment can shift risk from company to family. Here is how to see it sooner and lead better.

• By Sunny Jhaj
• Oct 15, 2025

I keep returning to a story that will not let me go. An employee was driving home from a work trip when he came upon a crash. He did what many of us hope we would do. He pulled over to help. Within minutes a secondary collision unfolded and he did not make it home. 

What followed was another kind of impact. A ruling that his act of assistance placed him outside the scope of work. No survivor benefits. No protection for the family he left behind. I did not know him, but the question lodged in my chest: would he have stepped out if he knew his family would receive nothing? Perhaps he would. Many of us would. That question is not about him. It is about us. Do our policies prepare people for the most human moments on the road, or do they leave them to face those moments alone? 

The road is a workplace that refuses to sit still. It is crowded, unpredictable, and influenced by strangers who have never seen your training manual. Inside a facility, we can engineer hazards, lock out energy, and write procedures for machines we own. The public roadway sits beyond those fences, yet it remains where many organizations carry their greatest exposure. 

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know 

Most companies can point to a fleet policy for vehicles they own or lease. Far fewer can point to a clear, lived policy for the vehicles they do not own but rely on every day. That quiet category is the employee who uses a personal car for work. Many call it the gray fleet. The term sounds harmless. It is not. It is where standards fade, paperwork thins, and assumptions multiply. 

The same pattern shows up in audits and debriefs. Personal insurance that does not cover business use. Tires worn beyond safe depth. No easy way to verify license status. No formal record of work miles or destinations. Drivers who have never practiced what to do when they arrive first at a crash scene. Supervisors who believe a personal car is not their concern, even when it is being used for company tasks. A patchwork of well-meaning habits that cannot withstand a bad day. 

This is not only about fender-benders and claims. It is about identity. You are an employee with obligations. You are also a human being with empathy. If policy is silent, people fill the silence with what feels right. Often, that is admirable. Sometimes it is tragic. Sometimes it is both. 

If You Know and Do Nothing, That Is Worse 

Safety leaders already understand that roadway incidents drive a large share of serious harm. The gap is not knowledge. The gap is in execution where policy meets behavior. 

I have sat with managers after preventable road events. They are not careless. Most are overwhelmed. They believed rules for company trucks somehow covered personal vehicles. They assumed saying “be safe” was the same as giving a procedure. They trusted culture to hold where clarity was missing. Culture matters, but it cannot carry what policy has not built. 

Here is the hard truth. When an organization recognizes the risk and leaves it to chance, consequences shift to the individual and their family. That is not leadership. That is abdication. Leadership is seeing the exposure, deciding where the lines are, and teaching people how to act inside those lines when the day goes sideways. 

If You Didn’t Know, Now You Know 

You do not need a sweeping overhaul to change outcomes. You need clarity, a few firm lines, and habits that stick. Give yourself ninety days and make these moves. Adapt the details to your jurisdiction. Keep the spirit consistent everywhere. 

1) Define work driving and set the baseline. Write a one-page definition people can use in real time: visiting clients, moving equipment, off-site training, picking up supplies. Clarify what is not work, like routine commuting. Set minimum vehicle standards with numbers for tread, lights, wipers, glass, and no active warnings. Require a valid license and insurance that fits the use. Keep documentation simple. The goal is a shared standard, not red tape. 

2) Teach a roadside protocol and equip for it. Good intentions are not enough in fast traffic. Train three steps until they are second nature: safety first, stop only if the scene is stable, and know your limits. Then make the right action easy with a vest, gloves, flashlight, and a compact first-aid kit within reach. 

3) Coach the few choices that cause most losses and cut miles. Focus weekly huddles on speed, device use, following distance, seat belts, and fatigue. Ten minutes, one behavior, one practice ask. At the same time, reduce exposure. Use video when practical, combine trips, and design routes to eliminate deadhead. Fewer miles, fewer chances for harm. 

4) Close the loop and own the metrics. Debrief every incident and near miss. Capture a lesson, implement one change, and share it back. Assign a clear owner for road risk and track a short list: current insurance on file, defects found on spot checks, seat-belt exceptions, and near-miss reports within one day. Publish a one-page update each month. 

5) Map the claims path now, not after. Sit with HR and your claims partners and agree on how compensation applies to travel, personal vehicles used for work, and unusual roadside situations. Remove surprises. The message is simple: here is what happens if something goes wrong, and here is what we have done to protect you. 

6) Anchor it in identity. Rules guide behavior. Identity sustains it. The line you want on every team is simple: we are professionals on the road. We protect ourselves, the public, and each other. 

Back to the Roadside 

I keep thinking about the employee who stopped to help. I will not judge his choice. I will judge whether our programs prepare people for that moment. Do your teams know when stopping is the right thing to do and how to do it safely? Do your policies give clear direction when a human impulse meets a hazardous environment? Do families understand the support that exists if the worst happens? 

This is why we write in plain language. This is why we coach small road behaviors with the same seriousness we bring to high-consequence tasks inside a facility. This is why we clean up our approach to personal vehicles used for work. Somewhere down the road, someone on your team will face a decision measured in seconds that echoes for years. Your job is to make sure they are not alone in that moment. Your job is to ensure that a good deed does not leave a family unprotected. 

If you didn’t know, now you know. The road is part of your workplace. Treat it that way, and you will prevent tragedies you will never hear about. 

This article originally appeared in the October 2025 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.