Workers' Compensation

How to Establish a Fleet Safety Program

Ella Baker
How to Establish a Fleet Safety Program
Reading time 5 Mins
Published on Aug 3
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Protecting the safety of your drivers and the public

With fleet vehicle accidents among the costliest injury claims for a business, it’s no surprise that vehicle safety is a significant concern for businesses. The costs of vehicle and driver downtime can quickly add up. Implementing a comprehensive fleet safety program can help you ensure the safety of your drivers and the public while avoiding costly downtime.

What is a fleet safety program

A fleet safety program establishes the policies and procedures that are needed to help ensure a safe work environment for your drivers, while protecting against liability from vehicle accidents. Without a fleet safety program, you may be leaving the welfare of your employees and your company at risk.

Because there are no guarantees that accidents won’t happen establishing a formal and ongoing screening, testing, inspection, and training program is essential. A quality fleet safety program that places a focus on developing a culture of safety will lead your team to naturally make the right and safe choices, allowing compliance to take care of itself (with the exception of required paperwork). Fleet safety programs can help you avoid violations while keeping your employees and the public safer.

Outline and approval

Prior to implementing your fleet safety program, you will need to spend time carefully crafting your policy, outlining the details of the program, and getting the approval and buy-in of key stakeholders, including legal, risk management, human resources and other leadership personnel. While a policy outlines the “what” of safety, the program itself details the “how” of delivering on the policy.

A good starting point is to use bullet points to outline the basic elements of your program. While the specific elements of a fleet safety program may vary from company to company, some basics you should include are:

  • Training: Spell out the specifics for how often all drivers will complete training, including any remedial training for those with multiple violations or chargeable accidents.
  • Motor vehicle records (MVRs): State when, how often, and for whom MVRs will be obtained and reviewed. Include a method for “scoring” MVRs.
  • Accident reviews: Establish an accident review committee that includes fleet and risk management professionals, human resources personnel, a representative from your driver team, and a legal representative. Your committee will review each accident and determine chargeability and assess any penalties for violations.
  • Communication: Create and disseminate your safety message to the entire team, including drivers, managers, and leadership teams.
  • Telematics: Install devices for data tracking and event reporting.

After you’ve outlined your safety program, you will need to seek the approval of key stakeholders, including the highest levels of management. These approvals will help ensure the acceptance of the program across the board and allow for its more equitable application. Once you have these approvals, you can fully flesh out the details of your program, expanding on each of the bullet points listed above.

Implementation

Once you’ve obtained all of the approvals necessary and created a detail of your fleet safety program, you will need to implement it across the board. Communication is the key to implementing a successful fleet safety program.

Ideally, your drivers and other staff would have already been involved in or at least aware of the development of the program. When the formal announcement and implementation phase begin, you will want to communicate all of the details of the program to your team utilizing all of the venues available to you. Be sure to post the announcement and details on your corporate intranet site, disseminate via email, and post on your fleet’s social media accounts.

A successful fleet safety program includes regular communication between all constituents in your company. Provide information on training opportunities regularly to drivers, offer safety-related maintenance tips, defensive driving tips, or even fun quizzes that test drivers’ knowledge of the safety program. Recognize and celebrate safe drivers as often as you can. If your data leads to identification of specific hazards, make sure that you share that information with your drivers and consider implementing policies to address those. Since your fleet team will frequently be spread out, share information across a variety of platforms to ensure that no one misses a communication.

Fleet safety programs and Sheakley

Sheakley’s workforce management services provides complete safety resources for your company. Developing, obtaining approval for, and implementing an in-house fleet safety program may seem like a challenging project, but with Sheakley as your partner your fleet will be driving more safely in no time. The rewards of a fleet safety program can be substantial, both in cost savings and in the comfort of knowing that drivers, passengers, and the public will be safer for it.

Reserve your free consultation with a Sheakley safety professional today. Stay up-to-date on all things Sheakley by subscribing to our blog and following us on social media. Join in the discussion by commenting below.


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