Car dealership ‘to trust customers’ on test drives

The head of a car dealership has said that customers will be trusted to take test drives alone as part of safety measures when they reopen next week.

Robert Forrester, chief executive of Vertu Motors, said his company had set up a number of measures inside their showrooms to become Covid-secure.

And he told BBC Breakfast: “When you actually go for a test drive, you will be the only person in the car.

“We trust the vast majority of our customers to do the right thing.”

He added: “It changes how we sell cars, but there are a lot of changes in how we sell cars.

“People are doing far more on the internet. Our online sales have gone up quite considerably over the period.

“We sold 650 cars last week as a group without a single test drive and not one person coming into a showroom.”

Mr Forrester added that showrooms would look very different when customers are able to visit again from next Monday.

“They will have one-way systems, hand sanitisers, there will be people with masks and we’ve got perspex screens to protect the customers and the colleagues.”