Sometimes its the van not the driver, Strange statistics from Vanrentals.ie

When companies or private users choose a rental van, typically the driver will not have driven the exact vehicle model before. This is especially true of house movers in Ireland who usually have had little experience in driving commercial vehicles. And when that little bump or accident happens someone else is always to blame, well did you ever think that it could be the van?

The staple of most truck and van hire companies is the Ford Transit; the Transit comes in many different configurations, the most common of which is the standard white hire van. This Model is called the T280 and is the most popular rental van currently in use in Ireland. Ireland’s love of the Transit is ingrained and the Transit is on its 7^th generation model.

As a rental company, Vanrentals.ie has been a supplier of these vehicles to all sectors of industry. Over the last 12 months Vanrentals.ie has expanded its van range to incorporate alternatives to Transits, most specifically the Mercedes Sprinter Hire vans. 

Interestingly we have noticed a strange side effect of supplying these alternative vehicles, people were not damaging them much, if at all. So we decided to crunch some numbers.

The last 1224 hire customers of Ford Transits resulted in 31 cases of customers damaging their rental vans, meaning 2.6% of customers did damage of some description, mostly minor including mirrors and bumpers. Over the same period of the 842 Mercedes Sprinter Hire customers on 8 resulted in any form of damage, which is a figure of 0.9%.

This is a result that really interested Vanrentals.ie so we did a little research. Upon examining the differences in the vehicles, two things really stood out. Firstly the wing mirror size on the Sprinter is far larger than the Transit and the mirrors have a convex shape,, which gives a greater field of vision. Secondly, the driving position in the Mercedes sprinter rental van is significantly higher and gives better peripheral vision and covers the vulnerable wheel arch section very well.

While not an earth shattering revelation, it does give food for thought considering you are over 2 times less likely to damage one van over another.