Joint Committee on the Draft Disability Discrimination Bill Written Evidence


DDB 75 British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association

Joint Committee on the Draft

Disability Discrimination Bill

Written Evidence from:

British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association

River Lodge

Badminton Court

Amersham

BUCKS HP7 0DD

Tel: +44 1494 434747
Fax: +44 1494 434499

E-mail: info@bvrla.co.uk

Web: www.bvrla.co.uk

Table of Contents

Table of Contents Page 2
Introduction Page 3
Executive Summary Page 5
General Comments Page 7
Specific Comments Page 8
Annex A

Consultation Response on the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 - Part III, Proposals to Lift the Exemption for Transport Services

Page 15

Introduction

Response from: British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association

Address: River Lodge
Badminton Court
AMERSHAM
Bucks HP7 0DD

Contact: Mr Jay Parmar, Head of Legal Services

Phone: +44 1494 434747

Fax: +44 1494 434499

Email: parmarj@bvrla.co.uk

Bona-fides BVRLA, the Industry and its Members

  • The BVRLA is the representative trade body for the companies engaged in the operating leasing of cars and commercial vehicles. Its Members provide short-term self-drive rental, contract hire and fleet management services to corporate users and consumers. The BVRLA has 842 Members of widely differing sizes, who operate and manage a combined fleet of 2.5 million cars, vans and trucks.
  • BVRLA Members provide a vital service to UK industry and commerce, facilitating the movement of goods and people for essential business purposes. Members buy around 1 million new vehicles every year, at a cost of nearly £14 billion, representing the biggest volume of purchases by any fleet sector. In making these purchases, Members are a major support to the UK automotive industry. In addition, by way of ancillary services, our Members spend an additional £2 billion.
  • Together the Rental, Leasing and Commercial Vehicle Membership provide the significant voice of an industry, which purchases over 40% of all new vehicles registered per annum in the United Kingdom. This, combined with the diversity of BVRLA Members creates a unique organisation where one Association represents three combined sectors allowing Members to share representation on committees and in the activities of the BVRLA.
  • BVRLA Members subscribe to a Code of Conduct which sets out stringent standards in terms of the operation of vehicles and the commercial propriety of their businesses. The BVRLA adopts a strict process of vetting applications for Membership.

Executive Summary

1. The BVRLA and its Members share a wealth of experience and operational knowledge to recognise the rationale for extending Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) to include vehicle rental services.

2. We welcome the opportunity to offer our written submission to the Joint Committee on the Draft Disability Discrimination Bill, and for us to share and raise our specific concerns with the practical implications our Members have highlighted to us. It is on this basis that we feel this matter should be sufficiently debated, to ensure that the Bill strikes a fair balance between removing any undue discrimination that may be being imposed on the disabled community, and that the obligations imposed on the vehicle rental sector are; achievable, realistic and importantly proportionate.

3. We therefore commend that sufficient importance is placed towards ensuring that future legislation is sufficiently clear and concise as to what reasonable steps a rental vehicle company should take, and that this may be delivered through a Code of Practice, which we have been positively discussing with Department for Transport, Disabled Drivers Association and Disabled Drivers Motor Club. As a pre-requisite to our support of extending Part III to the vehicle rental sector, we endorse the importance for a Code of Practice that embraces our call for a pragmatic and realistic approach when dealing with the obligations to be adhered to by our Members.

4. Moreover, we feel that the obligations and expectations are achievable, but only if the proposals do not prove to be unduly onerous or indeed operate in a manner that threatens the commercial viability of providing the service in the market place.

5. We note the reference in the invitation letter to leased vehicles, which we would argue should fall outside the scope of the Bill, as this is not a provision of transport, but more a long-term financial arrangement, whereby the customer will enjoy the use of the vehicle the customer has specifically ordered, which would include the modification or adaptation of the vehicle for a disabled driver. Moreover, leasing Members' customers are predominately corporate entities, to whom the bill will not apply. Any specific leasing agreement between a disabled customer would not only be a long-term arrangement, but where the adaptations would be specifically requested and paid for by the customer at the time of entering into a financial agreement.

6. We are pleased to have been able to encourage the Department for Transport to host cross industry working group last year, which was attended by Disabled Drivers Associations and Disabled Drivers Motor Club, where some of the issues highlighted in this submission were discussed.

General Comments

Contract Hire or Leasing Members

7. In general, contract hire, sometimes referred to as long term rental, is technically an operating lease which, when stripped down to its core component, the user (the hirer) simply hires the use of the vehicle for a predetermined period, typically 36 months, at fixed monthly rental from the owner (the contract hire company).

8. Ownership is retained by the contract hire company and any specific adaptations required by the user would usually be built into the monthly rental. You will be aware that our Member, Motability Finance is a leading specialist provider of vehicles to the disabled customers and have for many years provided its service to the benefit of some 350,000 registered disabled customers. This unique and subsidised contract hire scheme is for three years which includes insurance, maintenance and breakdown assistance. The hirer is responsible for any adaptations needed and cost of fitting and removing.

Rental Members

9. Rental Members offer daily, weekly and monthly rental of vehicles to corporate and retail customers.

10. Again, as above, they have no operational control over the use of their vehicles.

Specific Comments

11. We note and comment on the following areas the Committee has requested for specifically.

Question 1.

Whether the draft bill's proposals are necessary, workable and sufficient

12. Predominately, this question raises several issues, including whether or not disabled drivers are in effect being currently discriminated against by the vehicle rental sector. Moreover, and quite specifically, whether the proposed legislation would go someway to remove any such barriers, should they exist, for disabled customers to fully utilise a rental vehicle.

13. Having comprehensively discussed the matter with our rental Members, it has been reported that to the level of demand for rental vehicles has been less than ½ % of the total number of rental transactions p.a. for those Members that offer assistance, through the provision of temporary adaptations, for those disabled customers with either upper or lower body restricted mobility. It may be helpful to clarify that there are a limited number of Members that offer the facility or provision of temporary adaptations to enable disabled drivers to securely and safely operate the vehicle. It must nevertheless be stressed, that these adaptations can usefully be used by only a small proportion of disabled drivers, especially as the adaptations are wholly dependant on the extent of the drivers disability together with the level of experience they have in operating such devices.

14. Worryingly, it has become patently clear there is currently no national accredited or Government approved standards for these adaptations, this includes the lack of any legal framework, requiring the testing of these products. Also, there are no minimum standard or competency levels to which an installer of such devices would be required to meet. We understand that this is to be covered under the proposed work projects for MAVIS in 2004, however, we understand that this is still subject to ministerial approval at this stage. We would encourage this project to be carried out, as our Members are increasingly concerned with quality of the product, together with issues surrounding poor installation liability issues, which are inevitable, when dealing with the high level safety matters related to the operation of a motor vehicle.

15. From our initial discussions with the Department for Transport, it is clear that this area is complicated by the fact that the adaptations can only used with certain vehicles, ultimately depending on the make and model. As highlighted below, this area is of great concern to our Members due to the manner, in which their vehicle fleet is utilised, they would not know the availability of the exact make and model of the vehicle, until the point of hire. This would make it extremely difficult for our Members to marry the type of adaptation required with the specific make and model of vehicle.

16. We questioned a sample of our rental Membership that do not currently offer the availability of such temporary adoptions, as to the level of enquiries or requests they have received from disabled customers for such provisions. Again, to date, the demand from the disabled community has been less than 40 enquiries per annum, against annual consumer rental transactions of 4 million.

17. For us to be able to comment accurately on whether the proposals are workable requires us to know the potential number of consumers that are likely to exercise their rights under the DDB. Whilst we note there are approximately eight and a half million disabled people in the UK, it remains unclear what percentage of this group could be considered as potential or existing renters of vehicles on a short term basis.

18. There are three key issues that the rental industry fully need to understand, to ensure that the proposed changes contained in the Bill are sufficiently targeted at addressing the issues of discrimination.

a) We need to fully understand what disabled drivers perceive the barriers to renting a vehicle to be.

b) What practical steps rental companies can take to help bring down these barriers

c) With prior notification being provided, what temporary adaptations could be made available, the cost provision of which disabled drivers are prepared to contribute towards.


19. As an agreed action point at our last cross industry group, the Disabled Drivers Associations and Disabled Drivers Motor Club agreed to survey their Members. Unfortunately, to date we remain disappointed that this has not been carried out, especially as it creates further uncertainty for our Members in being able to ensure that they assist pragmatically in removing any barriers that may exist. Ultimately, this level of information would go someway in equipping the rental industry with the degree of confidence, that the investment and steps they take, are not only necessary, but match the needs of disabled drivers and is sufficient to meet their demands.

20. We note that Clause 3 of the Disability Discrimination Bill inserts a "21ZA - Application of sections 19 to 21 to transport vehicles and in particular, 21ZA (2) (a) which makes reference to the proposal that it would never be reasonable for transport service providers to make alteration or removal of physical feature of a vehicle used in providing the service. It is arguable that there are going to be a higher number of instances whereby a rental vehicle provider will be unable to reasonably meet the requests of a disabled driver, as it would alter or remove a physical feature of the vehicle. Whilst there are a limited number of adaptations currently in the market place, it remains unclear the extent to which this would potentially alter or remove a physical feature of the vehicle.

21. It must be at this stage reinforced that our Members would be reluctant to install any devices that would permanently damage the vehicle, as they would not necessarily be the fiscal owners of the vehicle. Rental Members would normally either lease their vehicles, or the fleet would be subject to a Manufacturer buy back scheme. In the latter, the manufacturers operate a policy of zero tolerance on damage or modification, and would impose high penalties for any damage caused to their vehicle.

22. Another area of concern for us is the practicalities and time it would take our Member to ring fence a vehicle for a disabled renter. Our Members will only know which vehicle is for which renter on the day of rental. In addition to changing this procedure they will need a day either side of the rental for fitting and removal. This could cause great operational difficulties for our Members.

Question 2

When the bill's provisions should come into force

23. Given the difficulties with the areas raised above, we believe that there should be a minimum lead in time of one year.

24. We feel that there should be greater appreciation on the impact the installation of such features will have across the diverse range of vehicles in the market place, together with a clear understanding of what the disabled customers demands and needs are.

Question 3

What should be in the regulations, orders and codes of practice proposed in the draft bill

25. We would expect Codes of Practice for our industry to contain the following:

a) The extent rental companies need to take to adapt their vehicles including advice on practical implementation

b) Definition of reasonable including the factors that will be taken into consideration when defining reasonable, for example:

  • Size of Company
  • Staff training and knowledge
  • Fleet size

c) What steps a rental company would be expected to take.

d) With no national accredited or Government approved standards for adaptations, including the lack of any legal framework, requiring the testing of these products we would require information along these lines to be included in a Code of Practice. Our Members are increasingly concerned with quality of the product, together with issues surrounding poor installation liability issues, which are inevitable, when dealing with the high level safety matters related to the operation of a motor vehicle.

Key Element for a Code of Practice: -

26. By way of a summary, we outline below some helpful examples provided to us by the Department for Transport, which would endorse that should be reflected in a Code of Practice:

  • It would not be unreasonable for a rental company to refuse to adapt fully the rental vehicle if they did not have suitable adaptations available or be expected to provide an automatic vehicle if they were not part of their fleet. However, refusing to offer an automatic vehicle where one is available, could be deemed as unreasonable and therefore discriminatory.
  • The extent a rental company would need to go in adapting a vehicle for a severely disabled person. For example, one of our Members recently had to refuse to rent to a disabled driver who was a paraplegic as they were unable to provide suitable adaptations. We would hope that this would not be deemed discriminatory.
  • Expectations on rental companies when no vehicles are available
  • Confirmation as to whether a rental company could make a charge for the additional equipment required by a disabled customer.

27. To assist on this point, we have extracted from correspondence that offers the Department's thoughts on these specific points raised:

"As a guiding principle, it is unlikely to be regarded as discriminatory if the charge levied is applicable on all renters. If the disabled customer is being asked to pay a charge over and above that charged to an able bodied renter, then this would be deemed as discriminatory - e.g. the basic cost of the rental is increased just because the customer is disabled, also an automatic vehicle is requested, then a rental company is able to charge the normal tariff for vehicles falling in an automatic vehicle category."

Question 4

The adequacy of the enforcement procedures.

28. You will see that for our industry, the proposals contained in the Bill, predominately rotate around the issues of what reasonable steps our Members would be expected to take. As such, we feel that an independent body, such as the Disability Discrimination Commission should be sufficiently empowered to oversee the issues of reasonableness and proportionality as part of its enforcement remit.

Question 5

Whether the draft bill achieves the right balance between securing the rights of disabled people and imposing duties and costs on the private and public sectors.

29. We attach a copy of our formal response to the consultation paper at Annex A, in which we highlight our concerns with the following key areas:

a) The importance for obtaining clarity as to what 'reasonable steps' a rental company would be expected to take and,

b) Whether these steps are pragmatic, and can be realistically achieved, without creating too many day-today practical difficulties.

c) Clear guidance as to what role, if any, a rental company would be expected to take in selecting the appropriate adaptation, to suit the disability of the driver.

d) The importance of ensuring that there is a minimum notification period, to enable the rental company to source in the adaptation from a third party, to deliver and install, we have suggested a period of not less than 72 hours.

e) Rental Members should be permitted to make a reasonable charge to cover the cost of the equipment requested by the disabled driver.

Question 6

The proposed change to the definition of disability.

30. Whilst we do not have any specific comments on the proposed definition, as explained above, it would be helpful if the accompanying codes of practice provided a set of clear guidance on the various levels of disability, so that vehicle rental operators are offered with some degree of clarity as to whether or not they would be able to offer their services.

31. This point was well made in a recent incident involving a rental company, who was approached by a severely disabled customer requesting that our Members adapt the vehicle for a few days. The level of adaptation requested, not only meant that the vehicle would have had to undergo extensive alterations, but would effectively leave permanent damage to the vehicle, created by holes being drilled into the dash for the adaptation to be securely fixed into the vehicle.

Question 7

Whether the range of "triggers" in the draft bill for requiring reasonable adjustments are appropriate.

32. As indicated above, we feel that the bill as is currently drafted, does not offer a sufficient guidance as to whether or not the steps a rental company takes would be deemed to be making reasonable adjustments to a rental vehicle. It is envisaged that the accompanying codes of practice should help address this gap, and ensure that businesses are offered the degree of clarity and certainty as to their obligations.

Question 8

How the draft bill reflects the Government's 2001 manifesto commitment to extend basic rights and opportunities for disabled people.

33. We are satisfied that the draft Bill does help match the Government's manifesto commitment.

Annex A

Consultation Document

Disability Discrimination Act 1995 - Part III

Proposals to Lift the Exemption for Transport Services

Response from:

British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association

River Lodge

Badminton Court

Amersham

BUCKS HP7 0DD

Tel: +44 1494 434747
Fax: +44 1494 434499

E-mail: info@bvrla.co.uk

Web: www.bvrla.co.uk

Reply Form:

Response from: British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association

Address: River Lodge
Badminton Court
AMERSHAM
Bucks HP7 0DD

Contact: Mr Jay Parmar, Head of Legal Services

Phone: +44 1494 434747

Fax: +44 1494 434499

Email: parmarj@bvrla.co.uk

Bona-fides BVRLA, the Industry and its Members

  • The BVRLA is the representative trade body for the companies engaged in the operating leasing of cars and commercial vehicles. Its Members provide short-term self-drive rental, contract hire and fleet management services to corporate users and consumers. BVRLA Members operate a combined fleet of 2.3 million cars, vans and trucks of widely differing sizes from 3,300 locations throughout the UK.
  • BVRLA Members provide a vital service to UK industry and commerce, facilitating the movement of goods and people for essential business purposes. Members buy around 1 million new vehicles every year, at a cost of nearly £14 billion, representing the biggest volume of purchases by any fleet sector. In making these purchases, Members are a major support to the UK automotive industry. In addition, by way of ancillary services, our Members spend an additional £2 billion.
  • Together the Rental, Leasing and Commercial Vehicle Membership provide the significant voice of an industry which purchases almost half the personal and company transportation in the United Kingdom. This is combined with the diversity of BVRLA Members to create a unique organisation where one Association represents three combined sectors allowing Members to share representation on committees and in the activities of the BVRLA.
  • BVRLA Members subscribe to a Code of Conduct which sets out stringent standards in terms of the operation of vehicles and the commercial propriety of Members. The BVRLA adopts a strict process of vetting applications for Membership.

Executive Summary

The BVRLA and its Members share a wealth of experience to recognise the rationale for reviewing the merits for extending Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) to include vehicle rental services.

We note the excellent work completed by the Disability Rights Task Force (DRTF) and an outline of the group's key recommendations. To help translate these proposals into practical workable obligations, we believe it to be imperative that Government ensures that any policy changes are adopted in the most cost effective and proportionate manner.

We therefore welcome the opportunity to work with the Department to ensure that the policy objectives are effectively secured. We certainly believe and support the need to ensure that the benefits of proposals are promoted positively and with the appropriate degree of clarity. Moreover, we feel that the obligations and expectations are achievable, but only if the proposals do not either prove to be unduly onerous or indeed operate in a manner that threatens the commercial viability of providing the service in the market place. Indeed, as a pre-requisite to our support of extending Part III on to the vehicle rental sector, we trust that any future Code of Practice (which accompanies the legislative changes), embraces our call for a pragmatic and realistic approach when dealing with the obligations to be adhered to by our Members. We understand that a cross industry-working group is to be set up to assist the Department in introducing a Code of Practice to accompany legislative changes. We would on this basis like to formally offer our support in advance, to participate in any future discussions.

We are extremely pleased to note that Government acknowledges the role our Members play in providing an effective service to disabled users as a matter of good practice. Nevertheless, we note that a rental company may comply fully with regulations made under Part V of the DDA, yet still lawfully deny a person access to a vehicle for no other reason than that person is disabled. We are pleased that the Department recognises that in practice this sort of gratuitous discrimination seldom happens, but that it is aware of some occasions when it does. We support the view that many vehicle rental companies already behave as if Part III of the DDA applies to their services, but that this may not be a universal practice. Given that we represent around 85% of the total industry, we would hope to receive the Department's support in our pursuit to marginalise rogue traders.

We understand that by removing the Part III exemption, disabled customers will have the legal right to challenge transport operators to improve their services. We certainly intend to use this juncture to work closely with our Members to review their policies, practices and procedures to assess whether they are making their services more accessible, with an ultimate objective of effectively assessing scope for enlarging the market to embrace all customers.

General Comment

We are pleased to have been of assistance to the Department during its pre-consultative stage and recognise the importance of highlighting the key operational and strategic constraints facing our Members and other related industries. We trust that this was of assistance to the Department, especially in obtaining a better operational understanding of the dynamics of the rental industry.

We remain grateful for the opportunity to have been able to openly discuss the envisaged impact and scope upon our industry and it is on this basis that we remain grateful for the clarification and advice offered by the Department.

Whilst the consultative document had been written well, we believe that some of the assumptions and comments contained therein required further clarification.

In absence of the Department's helpful and clear response to our questions listed below, we believed that there was a real danger of losing our Members' support in positively embracing the proposals.

Summary of DFT's reply to questions raised by the BVRLA

Question 1.


What steps and to what extent will rental companies need to take to adapt their vehicles?


Whilst the extension of Part III will apply to all sizes of service providers throughout the country. The legislation requires service providers to do only what is reasonable in all the circumstances. Rental operators will need to ensure that they do not have practices, policy or procedures that deliberately operate to discriminate against providing its service to disabled customers. The Department recognises the potential concern with the practical implementation upon the vehicle rental sector. However, to help address this issue, the Department expects the Regulations to be accompanied by a Code of Practice, which will offer the practical guidance sought by industry.


Question 2.


The majority of the Association's Members are small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and whose commercial viability is likely to be threatened the most, what consideration will be paid to them?


The essence of compliance rotates around whether or not the court of law will view the steps taken by a rental company as "reasonable". In determining reasonableness the following factors are likely to be taken into consideration: -


Size of the company - Reasonableness test would be likely to take into account the size of the company for, inter alia, the following factors: -


Staff training & knowledge - larger companies would be expected to have invested much more into staff awareness cf. to smaller company.


Fleet Size - Larger companies are likely to have a wider level of choice and availability of cars cf. to a smaller company e.g. availability of automatic cars.


Question 3


What steps would a rental company be expected to take?


Where reasonably possible, a rental company would be expected to demonstrate that they have taken sufficient steps to help meet the requirements of the disabled customer. For example, it would not be unreasonable for a rental company to refuse to adapt fully the rental vehicle if they did not have suitable adaptations available or be expected to provide an automatic vehicle if they were not part of their fleet. However, refusing to offer an automatic vehicle where one is available, could be deemed as unreasonable and therefore discriminatory.


Question 4


Would a rental company be expected to adapt their vehicles irrespective of the extents of disability?


The Department takes a view that the "reasonable" interpretation of the extension of Part III would be unlikely to extend to assisting very severely disabled customers with complex one off adaptations (indeed it is highly unlikely that such people would be seeking to hire a vehicle).


The main requirement therefore is likely to be to assist disabled customers needing minor adjustments, providing an automatic vehicle, installing temporary devices such as a spinner or simple hand controls. In the majority of the cases, the disabled customer will know what devices they will need.


Question 5


What are rental companies expected to do if they have no vehicles available, when they receive a request from a disabled customer?


If there is no equipment or vehicles available for the period the disabled renter requires a vehicle, then it would not be unreasonable to turn the disabled customer away. However, rental operators would be encouraged to assist by offering details of an alternative operator that may be able to help. It would also not be deemed to be unreasonable to refuse to offer its services, if the disabled renter fails to give reasonable period of notice. For example, renter turns up at the rental desk or requires a vehicle on a Sunday.


Question 6


Can a rental company make a charge for the additional equipment required by a disabled customer? Rental companies already make a variety of optional extras available to customers that range from child car seats to ski racks. All these optional extras are available to the renter at an agreed tariff. It remains unclear whether it would be deemed to be discriminatory if a rental company levied a reasonable charge for the cost of making available and fitting any additional devices requested by a disabled customer?


As with all other aspects of this proposed legislation, ultimately interpretation of the law is a matter for the courts. However, as a guiding principle, it is unlikely to be regarded as discriminatory if the charge levied is applicable on all renters. If the disabled customer is being asked to pay a charge over and above that charged to an able bodied renter, then this would be deemed as discriminatory - e.g. the basic cost of the rental is increased just because the customer is disabled, also an automatic vehicle is requested, then a rental company is able to charge the normal tariff for vehicles falling in an automatic vehicle category.


The Government has no intention of undermining the commercial viability of rental companies. Making a reasonable charge for providing and installing additional devices, such as a spinner would be likely to be deemed as reasonable. However, each case will be judged on its own merits, and it would be ultimately for the courts to decide whether this is discriminatory.


Question 7


The rental industry has a high turnover of staff and is concerned with the cost of training - what assistance will be given to support the industry?


The Department recognises that a great deal of time and money will need to be invested to help heighten better awareness of the requirements under the Act. The Department would be prepared to assist the Association by jointly producing explanatory leaflets and offering ad hoc training, especially for the smaller Members.


Question 8


Will a rental company be able to increase excess charges for newly disabled customers? As with newly qualified drivers, who are deemed to impose a higher risk, a higher excess will be payable in the event of an accident or damage. It would only seem reasonable and fair to levy a similar charge to reflect an increased risk on newly disabled customers.


You cannot discriminate against disabled customers, but you can discriminate amongst them if you have a basis in fact for doing so. A common sense approach would be recommend here. If higher excess is charged, then the rental operator should ensure that this can be substantiated by using historical claims experiences or actuarial data supporting the increased charge.


We remain grateful for the confirmation that the proposals are to be carried out in a sensible and flexible manner, which will set the basis to secure and achieve maximum compliance, with the minimum cost to both the industry and customers.

Specific Comments

We are pleased to have been able to work with and assist the Department over many years, especially at looking at ways in which our Members are able to embrace and offer their services to all consumers, irrespective of their disability.

Contract Hire Members

In general, contract hire, sometimes referred to as long term rental, is technically an operating lease which, when stripped down to its core component, the user (the hirer) simply hires the use of the vehicle for a predetermined period at fixed monthly rental from the owner (the contract hire company).

Ownership is retained by the contract hire company and any specific adaptations required by the user would usually be built into the monthly rental. You will be aware that our Member, Motability Finance is a leading specialist provider of vehicles to the disabled customers and have for many years provided its service to the benefit of some 350,000 registered disabled customers. This contract hire scheme is for three years which includes insurance, maintenance and breakdown assistance. The hirer is responsible for any adaptations needed and cost of fitting and removing.

Rental Members

Rental Members offer daily, weekly and monthly rental of vehicles to corporate and retail customers.

Regulatory Impact Assessment

As acknowledged by the Department, Members already, where possible, adhere with their statutory duty of avoiding discrimination against disabled people and where possible make reasonable adjustments to their products and services, this includes access to their facilities.

However, their experiences as reported to us indicate and highlight the potential difficulties they are likely to face when trying to offer their service satisfactorily, efficiently and at an affordable price.



Key Industry Statistics (2002)

Total number of consumer rentals per annum = 4 Million

Total number of corporate rentals per annum = 6 Million

The average length of period of a vehicle rental is 4.5 days

Membership Analysis
2003
Group Size
Rental
Leasing
CV Rental
Total
1-10
563
78
50
691
11- 22
5
21
3
29
Notes

Group 1 Member - operate a fleet of up to 100 vehicles

Group 22 Member - operate more than 200,001 vehicles.

The Majority of our Members fall in between Group 1 - 10, which helps demonstrate that about 90% of our Members are small to medium enterprises.


Estimated Cost to the Industry
What would be defined as a disability?
We note that the DDA describes a disabled person as "anyone with a physical and mental impairment which has a substantial and long term-term adverse effect upon their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities".

How many people are in scope?

It remains unclear to us the methodology which the Department intends to use to help calculate the potential number of consumers that are likely to be eligible to exercise their right under the DDA. However we note that Margaret Hodge, the then Minister for Disabled People announced that there are over eight and a half million disabled people in the UK. In addition and importantly, it also remains unclear what percentage of this group of consumers would be considered as potential or existing renters.

Taking into account our concerns above, we have highlighted below the key areas which we believe will have greatest cost implication upon our Members, should the provision of Part III be extended to include vehicle rental companies.

Administrative Cost
Description Cost (£) per rental
Booking of additional equipment £5
Cost of verifying any specific medical condition, checking with Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency for any endorsement that would prevent renter from driving a motor vehicle and notification to their insurer. £5

The figures above included cost of labour and telephone calls only. We have not taken into account at this stage any requirement of system changes, whether manual or electronic.

Cost of Hiring Auxiliary Aids Requested
Duration of hire Cost per day
1 to 14 days £10.00
15 to 28 days £8.00
28 days plus £6.50

Prices are fully inclusive but exclude VAT

Carriage: Outward/Return - Next Day UK mainland £11.00 excluding VAT each way.

Fitting of Controls

£50.00 excluding VAT

When calculating the days of hire, the renter would be expected to pay for the period for hire whilst the vehicle had to be taken off fleet for the installation of any equipment and its removal. It is estimated that this is likely to be a one day hire - which includes half a day for installation and half day for its removal to ensure the vehicle is ready for rent for the next customer.

Minimum Cost per Rental

Below is a break down of the total cost for a one day rental for a vehicle with auxiliary aids.
Description
Cost
Booking of additional equipment
£5
Cost of verifying any specific medical condition, and checking endorsements.
£5
One days hire of auxiliary aids
£10
Carriage of auxiliary aids
£11
Fitting of auxiliary aids
£50
Loss of use for ½ day rental to fit aids and ½ day rental to remove aids
£21.85
Cost of One days hire
£21.85
VAT
£21.82
Total
£146.52

Cost of Additional Insurance

Vehicle Insurance Risk

The cost of taking on the additional risk remains an unknown quantity. We understand that insurers are unable to discriminate by raising their premiums for insuring a disabled customer. However, we are aware that insurers are permitted to increase premiums should they believe that the profile of drivers is likely to have a higher associated risk, such as inexperienced drivers. Of course, insurers would be expect to support any higher charge with the relevant actuarial data. It has been stated that a driver, who has a new disability, is likely to fall in a higher risk category, especially as the disability is a new one and where the driver does not have much experience of driving with that specific new disability and a vehicle with modified controls.

We therefore anticipate that there is likely to be a limited increase on the whole fleet insurance rather than a risk calculated per renter. The risk is to cover the whole range of drivers, age, disability etc. We estimate that in such instances, insurance premiums may increase by around 15%. However, we would need to contact the insurance industry to gauge their thoughts and likely cost.

Product Liability Insurance Risk

We recognise that the insurers offering businesses insurance against potential claims for product liability are likely to require the company to demonstrate that the installation of any additional fittings for a disabled persons is appropriately installed by a trained and qualified representative. This is of particular importance when we consider all the key issues of safety for both the renter, but other road users who may be involved in a road accident resulting from poorly installed equipment.

Once again, the potential increase in cost to cover any mis-fitting or use of equipment is unknown. However, we estimate that we are likely to see at least a 10 - 15% increase in premiums for the rental companies offering such services, but recognise that any increase in cost are likely to be based on profiling of the history of claims, in addition to restrictions of requiring the insured to provide the necessary training to staff installing such equipment.

Members have also raised their concerns that there is no national accredited or approved government standard for adaptations used and no legal requirement for testing of products. We would suggest that Government might want to look into this to give confidence to Members renting their assets with these controls in place.

Training

As mentioned above, staff which are required to install any additional equipment, are likely to do so after receiving extensive specialised training to ensure they are qualified to give advice to disabled customer on the most appropriate equipment to ensure that they correctly match the need of the customer.

This is paramount, as it remains unclear whether the staff would be expected or in fact would ever be sufficiently qualified to identify the appropriate equipment to meet the requirement of the disabled person to drive and manoeuvre the vehicle safely.

Such costs are likely to have a disproportionate impact on our medium to smaller Members, who may not have been experiencing a high staff turnover, but the cost requirement outlined above may not be justifiable against the anticipated low volume of disabled renters.

Result from Questionnaire Issued to BVRLA Members

As previously agreed with the department, we have circulated a questionnaire amongst our Members. We have attached a summary of the responses we collated below.

Summary Responses to Questionnaire on Disability Discrimination Act

1. Were you aware of the Disability Discrimination Act?


Over 67% of respondents were aware of the Disability Discrimination Act


2. Are you aware of the range of adaptations available for you to purchase or rent to assist disabled drivers to use your vehicle?


50% of respondents were aware of the range of adaptations available


3. What range of adaptations does your company offer?


Company 1 - Mobility insurance companies provide adaptations


Company 2 - None


Company 3 - None

Company 4 - Hand controls for lower limb disabilities

Company 5 - Licensee's make own decision on additional equipment offered a few adaptations are currently offered within the network


Company 6 - Temporary adaptations offered by Lynx Hand Controls


Company 7 - Temporary bolt on accelerator and brake hand controls

Company 8 - None

Company 9 - None

Company 10 - None

Company 11 - None

Company 12 - Temporary adaptations

4. Are your staff trained to know what adaptations are available?


33% of respondents train their staff on adaptations.


5. What level of detail is provided for training staff?


Those respondents that do train staff know what is available and how it works. Information is available on websites and they are able to explain the benefits of the different adaptations.


6. How much notice do you require to make an adapted vehicle available?


Two of the respondents, who are large multinational daily rental companies, are able to make an adapted vehicle available within 48 hours but the majority of respondents indicated that they would require a reasonable period of notice which was deemed to be seven days.


7. Who installs the adaptations?


The adaptations are either installed by a specialist adaptation company engineers or the renter is allowed to arrange their own adaptations and the fitting of them.



8. Do you charge a higher excess for disabled driver?


No, respondents do not charge a higher excess.


9. What breakdown cover is provided for disabled customers who break down while driving an adapted rental car?


There is no difference between the breakdown cover provided for an able bodied renter or a disabled renter. However, if the vehicle is not repairable respondents stated they may struggle to find a replacement vehicle with adaptations quickly.

10. Do you have a separate daily rental tariff for disabled drivers?


No, respondents do not have a separate daily rental tariff.


11. Do you make a separate charge for auxiliary aids requested or charge a fee for fitting auxiliary aids?


Of the six respondents who regularly offer adaptations four of them make a separate charge for auxiliary aids requested. Five of the respondents charge a fee for fitting the auxiliary aids.


12. How many car rentals per annum are adapted for use by disabled customers?


Respondents have been unable to provide much data in this area, however, it would seem to indicate that disabled renters represent less than 1% of respondents business.


Additional questionnaire information is available in Annex A of this document on rental Members who operate outside the UK and their policies in other countries.

Closing Comments

You will see that our Members have very particular interests and concerns with the potential impact our Members both by way of costs and liability. We certainly believe that our industry is best placed to assist your department to meets its policy objective of ensuring that our Members are where possible encourage to offer their services on a voluntary basis to all consumers.

Nevertheless, we do not believe that our Members should be placed with a disproportionately high financial burden of requiring them to provide and install such specialised equipment for their disabled customer. In fact we believe the department should take into consideration the potential safety implications of equipment, which has been incorrectly installed, or even not been correctly matched to the disabled persons requirement. Indeed, the legal action brought against our Members for incorrectly supply or installing equipment could seriously damage the operation of legitimate businesses and potentially threaten our Members livelihood.

We hope our response raises valid questions whilst striking the right balance in meeting the key objectives of offering services to all consumers irrespective of their disability and with the day to day practical implications the proposed extension of Part III will have on our Members business.

We welcome the opportunity to continue our constructive dialogue and do hope our Association will be able to continue to add value to the shaping and development the departments' policy objective.

Annex A

Outside the UK: Information on Disabled Renters

1. What range of adaptations does your overseas company offer?


Company 1 - All corporate airport locations in the USA provide hand controls and in France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Luxembourg and Italy vehicles with permanent adaptations are offered.


Company 2 - All locations in the USA provide hand controls


Company 3 - All locations in the USA provide hand controls

Company 4 - All locations in the USA provide hand controls

2. How much notice is required to make an adapted vehicle available?


Company 1 - 24 hours notice


Company 2 - 72 hours notice

Company 3 - 72 hours notice

Company 4 - No notice

However, it should be noted that all the companies who responded to the questionnaire are large multinational daily rental companies. The Association has no data on smaller rental companies operating outside the UK, which we believe to be imperative to have before reaching a final conclusion as to best practice.


3. Has this proven to be sufficient?


All respondents said yes.


4. Who installs the adaptations?


Not all companies provided information on this but one uses the adaptation company providing the controls and in other European countries these are pre-fitted by an approved authority.


5. Do you charge a higher excess for disabled drivers?


All respondents said no.



6. What breakdown cover is provided for disabled customers?



The respondents that were able to answer this question confirmed it is the same service as for an able-bodied renter.



7. Do you make a separate charge for auxiliary aids requested or charge a fee for fitting auxiliary aids?



One respondent charges for the auxiliary aids and charges a fee for fitting them the other does not charge at all.



8. What staff disability awareness training do you provide for your staff?


Staff are trained to be aware of what products are available and individual locations are encouraged to implement a written policy, which addresses operating standards for handling and complying with the request for hand controls.


Average cost of one days rental

 
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Prepared 23 April 2004