Fleet risk management is a critical piece of managing a commercial fleet. By reducing your fleet’s risk, you’ll save money on insurance premiums, but more importantly, you’ll keep your drivers and other staff safer on the road and off. Below, we’ll discuss ten ways you can help reduce fleet risk and keep your fleet safe and productive.
Conduct a Fleet Management Risk Assessment
The first step in reducing your fleet’s risk is understanding where you are vulnerable and what improvements you should target first. In a fleet risk assessment, you’ll want to determine any hazards facing your fleet and who might be harmed by them, find a way to mitigate these risks, record your findings, then repeat the process. By going through this process periodically, you can ensure your fleet keeps any potential dangers in mind and corrects any problems possible.
Ensure Compliance with State and Federal Mandates
To mitigate risks, one of the first steps you should take ensuring that your fleet remains in compliance with any relevant mandates and regulations. By maintaining compliance, you keep your fleet in good standing with the legal and regulatory authorities and avoid any fines or repercussions associated with noncompliance.
Create a Driver Safety Policy
Next, you’ll want to address safe driving practices with your drivers. The best way to ensure everyone knows what is expected of them is to develop and institute a driver safety policy. By putting your expectations into policy form, you’ll put any bad actors on notice and offer precise requirements to the rest of your fleet.
Monitor Risky Driver Behaviors
Having a policy in place is only beneficial if you have a way of ensuring it is followed. Since you can’t be physically present with your drivers as they do their jobs, you’ll need to install tracking devices in your vehicles. A good tracking system can alert you to risky behavior patterns such as speeding or hard braking. It can also tell you where and when any incidents occurred, allowing you to spot trends and patterns in behavior.
Offer Comprehensive, Targeted Safety Training
Monitoring driver behavior is only the first step toward a safer driving culture. Next, you need to consider getting drivers to improve their behaviors and habits. You could simply punish poor performance, but that’s not really the way to inspire driver loyalty or keep your people happy. Instead, use the data to offer targeted safety training based on actual driving behavior. This way you can present each driver with exactly the type of training that will best benefit them, without having them sit through training sessions they don’t need.
Gamify Safe Driving
Tracking systems like those described above can become a bit like “big brother” if not implemented well. Ideally, you want to ensure your drivers not only accept the tracking technology, but also understand and appreciate the safety benefits it provides. Consider a safe driver rewards system, a means of gamifying driver safety. This can reward your safest drivers and encourage everyone in your fleet to improve their safe driving habits.
Install Dual-Facing Dashcams in Each Vehicle
Dual-facing dashcams offer a unique ability to see what is happening both inside and outside your vehicles at all times. This means you can see what occurred just before any accident or other incident and exonerate your drivers if they are not at fault. You can also catch thieves who may choose to target your fleet more easily.
Monitor and Block Distracted Driving
Distracted driving is one of the most dangerous problems on our roads today, and commercial drivers are no exception. The next time you are a passenger in a vehicle, look around at the other drivers on the road and you’ll likely notice that many are looking at their phones instead of their surroundings. Don’t let your drivers fall into this trap by using a program that will both monitor and block inappropriate device use.
Stay on Top of Fleet Maintenance
Poorly maintained vehicles are always a liability, no matter how safe your drivers’ behaviors. Carefully implement a maintenance program that addresses both routine scheduled maintenance and any mechanical problems that may crop up. A good fleet management system should be able to help with both.
Set Up Geofences
Geofences are imaginary boundaries you can set around your facility, job sites, or any other location you like. When vehicles or other large assets pass through the boundary, you’ll get an alert. These notifications can help you stop unauthorized use and alert you to theft as it occurs. It can also help you notify clients when a driver is headed their way or let you know when a driver arrives back at the home office after completing their route.
Azuga Can Help
For one powerful fleet management program that can help you reduce risk and develop a culture of safety in your fleet, look no further than Azuga. Our fleet tracking software is an industry leader, trusted by small family businesses and enterprise fleets alike. Schedule a demo to see how we can help you reduce your fleet’s risks and improve your operations.
