Maintaining an exceptional safety program for your fleet is crucial. Keeping up with safety regulations, best practices, and technology advancements is a constant challenge. Not only is this a lot of work, but failing to keep your drivers safe can also be expensive! According to the FMCSA, the average cost of a fleet vehicle accident is $22,000. Accident-related losses are one of the leading causes of small business failures throughout the US.
We’ve curated a list of 9 steps to help keep your drivers on the road, efficient, and most importantly, SAFE!
1. Written policies and procedures. A comprehensive and enforceable set of traffic safety policies should be created and shared with all employees. Having clear expectations will help set your employees up for success!
2. Management commitment. As with any initiative, leadership support of the program helps promote company-wide buy-in. Try to find creative ways to educate employees on your safety policies and make sure upper management is involved in communicating safety procedures.
3. Screening and selecting drivers carefully. Create a reliable and safe team. Establish clear hiring standards and a thorough screening process for anyone who drives on company business.
4. Identifying all of your drivers. Businesses may be aware of who their drivers are, but not always specifically when, or what vehicle, they are driving. Identifying everyone who drives on behalf of the business and which vehicle they are driving is crucial to monitoring driver behavior and addressing dangerous driving habits.
5. Training drivers helps to ensure that all drivers understand vehicle safety policies and procedures. All drivers should have access to information on safe driving strategies and techniques, including instruction in defensive driving. You should provide driver safety training and communication on an ongoing basis. Even experienced drivers benefit from repeated training and reminders!
6. Managing drivers regularly is essential in ensuring drivers are following fleet safety rules and driving safely. Using information collected from a field resource management tool is a great way to access and manage this information.
7. Managing accidents when they occur can help mitigate accident costs. It also allows you to understand your exposures and can reduce the potential for future losses. Establish a reporting and investigation process that works in the same way your general accident reporting process does. Regardless of outcome or severity, all crashes should be reported to a supervisor as soon as feasible.
8. Formalizing a plan for vehicle inspection, repair, and maintenance can reduce costly, unexpected breakdowns and help avoid accidents due to faulty equipment. FieldLogix provides users with a Vehicle Vitals report to monitor fluid levels, MPG’s, your check engine light, and the GPS device’s health.
9. Rewards and incentives. A driver reward/incentive program can help make safe driving part of your business culture. Employees should understand that safe driving behavior contributes to the bottom line. Pizza party, anyone?!
How can a fleet manager keep track of all these great tips?! We’re glad you asked…
FieldLogix offers a new suite of features to promote safety and help managers catch and preventing future dangerous driving habits and behavior. With our features, managers can compare individual drivers’ safety to benchmarks across industry, region, and more! Stay tuned (and stay SAFE)!