Fleet safety is a paramount concern for each fleet owner. There are many benefits to operating a safe fleet while on the road, the most obvious, of course, is that your drivers can operate efficiently on the road and avoid accidents and injury. Fleet safety also can contribute to your business’s reputation and employee satisfaction. Below we have outlined 5 key ways to educate drivers, improve processes, and motivate employees to ultimately increase your fleet’s safety.
1) Improve Vehicles Maintenance Process
A safe fleet doesn’t just mean that you have safe drivers – you must also ensure that your vehicles are safe. Without a properly operating system, a safe driver can only do so much. Preventative maintenance, regular vehicle inspections, and staying up-to-date on vehicle recalls can keep your fleet operating at its highest level. Regular maintenance not only improves the safety of your fleet, but it can also improve its performance and efficiency. Utilizing automated maintenance scheduling can help improve your process and ensure that your fleet receives preventative maintenance to run safely.
2) Defensive Driving Courses for Employees
Safety education can help prevent and avoid accidents. Often, an accident is not the fault of your fleet drivers. There are many unsafe drivers operating on our roads and highways, but with proper defensive driving techniques, you can work to avoid incidents with other unsafe drivers. Alert driving has an online course that discusses this topic in more depth. These courses can be used as part of a new employee training program or as an on-going series on fleet driver safety.
3) Monitor Driver Behavior
Tracking driver mileage and behavior helps to mitigate unnecessary drive time, increase safety, and conserve fuel. Speeding is a common dangerous behavior that can lead to accidents, citations, and cost your business money in fuel and repairs. Using a GPS tracking system gives you 24/7 access to your drivers’ behavior from your desktop or mobile device. Automated alerts can also be set up so that any time a speed violation occurs, you are alerted and can correct the behavior. This leads to an overall increase in fleet safety and driver productivity.
4) Create Safety Incentive Programs
Once your fleet drivers have completed driver safety courses and are regularly engaged with safety tips, keep them motivated and reward them for their good performance through safety incentive programs.
There are many ways to motivate your employees, including: payment plans and safety bonuses, perks such as additional vacation time, and updated in-cab equipment. These types of programs can effectively motivate your fleet drives to not only become and stay safe drivers, they can also entice them to remain with your company. This increases your employee retention and makes for a more efficient, safe, and motivated work environment.
5) Start & Continue the Safety Conversation
Weekly Tips / Emails to Employees – Make sure to communicate with all of your fleet drivers and employees regularly and emphasize safety on a regular basis. Weekly company emails that feature a safety tip of the week, such as those provided by Government Fleet, can help keep driver safety top of mind. Safety isn’t a topic you should cover once – it should be a focus each and every time a driver gets behind the wheel.
Safety Conferences – Attending a few safety conferences every year will help ensure that you are up to date on the latest technologies, strategies, and standards for fleet safety. Conferences are also a great opportunity to network with other fleet owners and meet with vendors to explore new product offerings.