As an employer, one of your biggest responsibilities is to keep your employees safe. When you have a fleet of employees on the road doing deliveries or doing pickups or whatever they’re doing, you need to ensure their safety. Not only is it the right thing to do, but without safety in place, your business practices won’t be as smart as you think they are. You need to have employees who are responsible behind the wheel, and when you have a team of people who spend the majority of their time on the road, safety is a bigger issue because you are out of control there. There’s only so much that you can do to make sure that people are safe, which means that you need to pay attention to how you can keep employees as safe as possible when they are driving.
If there is a driving accident on the road, it’s not just your employee that’s at risk. Your equipment and even your business reputation could be at risk if there is an accident. Workplace driving safety should be a top priority of yours, and we’ve put together a list of safety tips for your employees to ensure that they are as safe as possible when they go from A to B.
- Maintaining the fleet itself. If you have a commercial vehicle or fleet, you should make sure that you’re putting a priority on vehicle maintenance. That means ensuring that you have telematics to track how the vehicles are running so that you can ensure that they are safe on the road. It’s an important way to prevent unnecessary accidents, and it’s up to you to be able to do this from afar. Routine inspections and replacements of brakes, tyres, and safety equipment should be mandatory in your business. You should never allow an employee to drive a vehicle that requires repair or is overdue for an inspection. Not only could that void your insurance, but it can really tarnish your business name as an employer who does not care.
- Do what you can to reduce driver fatigue. One of the most common causes of road-related accidents is fatigue. Having your drivers out on the road for a long period of time can damage their health. You should reduce the chance of driving fatigue by ensuring that the staff that you hire understand their safety responsibilities. You should also make sure that the shifts that you are scheduling people on are adequately spaced out so that people aren’t overworking, and you should ensure that you are meeting workplace health and safety guidelines as a result. Irregular schedules and large amounts of overtime can contribute to driver fatigue, so you have to make sure that you and your business are not the problem.
- Keep training going. Driving safety has to be enforced regularly, which means that with adequate driver training, you can make sure that safety is a priority. Not only should your drivers receive initial driving safety training, but They also need continued education to reinforce the good habits that you are trying to instil. It’s not just about accident prevention here but ensuring that they are kept safe, which is why if you are putting training first, you are showing your employees that you care about their safety.
- Be vigilant about driving records. Before you hire anybody as a driver, you need to do thorough background checks. Remember, this person is not going to be working remotely or from an office for you. They’re going to be on the road, which means they will be representing your business long distances away. Periodic checks of the driver’s record should be performed so that you can make sure that you are on top of any changes. You should never rely on employees who communicate serious driving infractions voluntarily because they’re not going to do that if the infraction happens outside of work. However, their behaviour on the road outside of work directly impacts their job, so you need to be vigilant about this.
- Be strict about your safe driving policies. You can train people to the best of your ability, and you can enforce workplace health and safety down their throats, but you have to be strict about this. Beyond following the laws of the road within your state, it’s important to stress that driving safety policies within your company must be adhered to, and any breaking of this is not going to be tolerated. Things like wearing seat belts, 0 tolerance for drug and alcohol drivers, and also not using mobile devices are the bare minimum. If anybody breaks the rules, have them sign a contract before they go on the road so that they understand that they will be immediately fired if that happens. Violations to driving safety should be more than reprimanded, and they should be made an example of this because this is not the way you want to run a business. You cannot have anybody being lax on safety on the road.
- Remove any violators. Going off the previous point, anybody who has more than one driving safety violation, whether in or out of the workplace, legal or against company policy, should be dismissed. You need to be able to have good examples of your business, and if you can show that you are the kind of employer that doesn’t tolerate driving safety issues, then you are going to show that you are an employer that cares about its team as well as its equipment and its work values.
- Reinforce positivity. It never hurts to make sure that you are showing your employers that you appreciate their safety on the road. If you want people to achieve a good driving safety record, make sure that you have a thank you in place for every week that they are on the road with no issues and keep them motivated to keep going. Positive reinforcement is how you’re going to be able to have people respond to you. In any workplace, and when they’re on the road, if they know that you are putting their safety first and you know that they are working safely, then it’s a mutually beneficial relationship. Reinforcing positivity surrounding safety is going to help you to keep the employees that you’ve got for the long term, which lowers your staff turnover and keeps your profits moving.
Now that we’ve covered some of the essential driving safety tips for an employer let’s take a look at some of the safety tips that your employees need so that they can stay safe on the road and mind their own behaviour.
- Be attentive in your driving. You can only be a safe driver if you are paying attention not only to others on the road but to yourself. You don’t want to fidget with something else in your hands, deal with work paperwork, or try to fix the radio, find your earbuds, or play on your smartphone. Hands-on the wheel eyes up front and keeping an eye on your surroundings is exactly the way to go to maintain safety.
- Be realistic in your route. This is something that you and your employer can work on together. If you’re being timed during the drive, especially if your employer has telematics in the vehicle, then everybody involved needs to have some realistic expectations on when, where and how the jobs are going to work and when you’re going to arrive. If your employer is setting unreasonable expectations of how long you should take between breaks or between getting to your destination, then there’s going to be reckless behaviour involved and that can damage your reputation when driving. Being realistic is important.
- Ask for the equipment that you need. Distraction free driving is an absolute must, so if your vehicle doesn’t have a phone mount, speak to your employer. You need to have somewhere safe to put your phone on GPS so that you can navigate properly. This way you won’t miss a turn and you won’t have to worry about reaching over to check your route along the way.
- Always do your own inspection. Your vehicle should be formally inspected before it goes on the road by your employer, but that doesn’t mean you can’t walk around before you get behind the wheel. Assess the vehicle that you’re about to drive before you get in. If you notice any damage or changes, take some photos of your own. Walk around the car and identify any issues, and then make sure that the seat, mirrors and headrest are all adjusted to where you like them to be. If you do see any damage or scratches on the car, send the picture to your boss at the time you see it, just so that they know and that you know that it wasn’t your fault.
A safe driver on the road is one who should be on the road.