How to Develop Safety Policies & Procedures for Your Fleet

Nothing is more important than safety when it comes to fleet management. Learn how to improve your safety policies and procedures to protect your fleet.

Nothing is more important than safety when it comes to fleet management. On average, vehicle crashes negatively impact the American economy to the tune of $871 billion annually.

So for the physical health of your drivers and the world around them, not to mention the financial health of your company, creating an effective, meaningful, and usable safety procedure is absolutely imperative.

We’re going to outline some of the most important questions you should consider when you’re developing your safety policy, what some of the most important elements of an effective policy are, how you can get drivers to buy-in, and finally, some tech solutions you can easily implement to make your life a lot easier when it comes to keeping track of everything that’s critical for the safety of your fleet, your people and your community.

 

3 Questions to Ask When Developing a Fleet Safety Policy

How long does it take for inspection reports to get back to fleet managers?

If you’re still running on an antiquated system, there are some clear red flags: drivers breezing through the form, the potential for the form to be lost in transit and the likelihood of the form being reviewed in time to schedule maintenance on a vehicle that’s in danger of a mechanical problem.

And now that the ELD mandate has come to pass, it’s imperative to observe compliance standards.

 

Is vehicle maintenance being expedited to prevent safety issues and downtime?

If you’re still living in a mode of reactive fleet maintenance, one of the things you can do is to improve your systems for reporting potential and actual vehicle problems with better tracking and reporting.

 

Are drivers observing best safety practices?

Distracted driving is one of the most serious issues on the road today. Both commercial and everyday drivers are responsible for an increasing number of traffic accidents because of distracted driving. Are you using any type of systematic approach for preventing distracted driving within your fleet?

 

The Key Elements of a Comprehensive Fleet Safety Policy

If you’re new to ELD solutions and telematics, there are a lot of different functions and features to consider, and that can be overwhelming. But to boil it down to essentials, here’s what you need to be thinking about right now:

 

A Simplified Way to Monitor Driver Behavior and Compliance

Making sure that your drivers are being mindful is a huge part of a robust safety policy. Without a hardware solution to track and log red-flag events, it can be nearly impossible to get a handle on this, which is an obvious liability.

When you implement GPS Trackit’s all-in-one fleet management solution, you’ll have an easy, real-time view of what your drivers are doing at any given time through our Driver Scorecard.

Inside Driver Scorecard, you’ll get real-time updates on:
– Rapid acceleration
– Hard braking
– Sudden stops
– Hard turns
– Speeding
– Safety events

 

An Automated Vehicle Inspection Log

In addition to knowing how well your drivers are performing on the road, you’ve got to be abreast of your fleet health. The great thing about ELD hardware and the software that powers it? You can keep a close eye on all of the error codes and critical vehicle health stats you need so that you can stay on top of emergent needs and essential repairs.

 

Fleet Safety Policies: Driver Adoption & Accountability

Getting drivers accustomed to new policies doesn’t have to be a difficult or messy process. And it’s essential given that more than 90% of accidents originate with driver error.

Take the time to make sure your current drivers know how to use technology and understand your policies and expectations. And make it a key facet of the new driver onboarding process.

Also, it can be helpful to conduct regularly scheduled “refresher” sessions to keep everyone on the same page.

Consult with one of our expert Fleet Advisors about how you improve the safety and health of your fleet with the help of telematics, video dash cams, and software automation that will ensure you’re in a constant state of proactivity.