Your fleet’s safety depends on drivers working with their vehicles properly. This means regularly checking vehicles to keep them in good condition. However, you also need to make sure you are giving your drivers enough power to improve the safety and their vehicle. Tools like software and telematics can help you empower your company drivers.
Creating Weekly Reports
It’s a good idea to create reports with statistics on how well each driver is doing. When employees see how efficient their routes are, how quickly they are driving, and other information, they might try to beat their own best statistics. Let them know what you would consider an ideal safety score and encourage each driver to try to meet that. You can come up with monthly, weekly, or even daily reports to help employees understand how they are doing. You might be surprised at how quickly you start seeing results. Use technology such as GPS tracking to help you come up with accurate numbers and create your report. If you are thinking of using this option, you can review a guide on everything you need to know about GPS tracking for trucks.
Having the Right Equipment on Hand
Allow your drivers the opportunity to maintain and check each of their vehicles. They need to know how to check the equipment before heading out. If employees take pride in their vehicle, they are more likely to drive safely while on the road. Come up with a quick but complete list of everything that needs to be looked over before heading out. This ensures vehicles are all in good repair. Create a kit of equipment that employees can use to quickly fix something that has gone wrong. This can be kept in the cab so employees can take care of last-minute or emergency repairs. This should include antifreeze, oil, and tools to tighten anything that seems loose. Ultimately this can also help increase sales because you will have solid processes in place that facilitate efficient employees.
Tools for the Route
If you want to find the best route for specific locations, you could overlay telematics on one of your routes. It can show things like stops, speed, and routes others have taken. You can meet with each employee to talk about things that made it safer, how well it worked out, and ways to improve it. Doing this can help you look for trends. Interactive mapping is another way to find the best route. Some areas might not be the best, since there could be construction or a lot of traffic on some of them. Or there could be issues like long stoplights or rough pavement. Those who have been on these routes know all the details, but GPS mapping technology has made it a bit harder to avoid troublesome areas. The good news is you can work with your employees to come up with a more responsive and interactive map. Give each employee the opportunity to mark troublesome areas and their preferred routes. You can give drivers their preferred routes depending on which option is the safest.
