Every time a supply vehicle gets into an accident, it’s bad news all around. Injuries, deaths, damage and loss of property, police records, suspension of operation, litigation, bad PR, and loss of business are just a few of the possible aftereffects. Therefore, it makes perfect sense for fleet managers to take every precaution that they can to prioritize road safety.
The following are proven ways for fleet managers to mitigate both the frequency and the intensity of road accidents.
1. Advanced Driver Training
A huge percentage of the road accidents involving commercial vehicles could be brought down if more companies paid attention towards providing proper driver training that goes beyond just a licensed driver’s theoretical ability to drive a commercial vehicle safely.
For example, it’s part of the Smith System Driving coursework to train commercial drivers about better road safety practices while driving through various types of hazardous weather and road conditions.
Another significant advantage that advanced training courses are designed to provide is essential technical knowledge. If every driver in a fleet had the training necessary to work in synchronization with the onboard telematics equipment, the frequency and intensity of accidents in that fleet would go down drastically.
2. Implementation of Telematics
Telematics in fleet management refers to a very broad range of software applications. Satellite technology, and hardware equipment that allows commercial vehicles to be tracked, monitored, informed, and warned as needed. Fleet managers use these systems to keep an eye on each vehicle’s on-road status, driving patterns, and routes. It’s used to communicate necessary information to each driver and receive communication back from them when needed.
Drivers are informed and warned by their fleet managers about everything from bad weather conditions to upcoming roadblocks, safer route options, rash driving patterns, ELD timings, and so much more. Modern telematics with AI-assistance improves the process even further by automating several of the road safety warnings, which allows the driver more time to make the necessary changes.
3. Installation of Aftermarket Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS)
The latest and the best commercial vehicles come with a long list of ADAS features that improve road safety for commercial vehicles significantly. However, buying new vehicles for the fleet is not a requirement to use at least some of the advanced driving assistance features that are geared towards road safety.
There are aftermarket solutions that do a pretty good job of upgrading even significantly older models into a smarter commercial vehicle. Some of the most effective aftermarket solutions in ADAS available to commercial fleets are:
- Forward and/or backward collision warning systems
- Windscreen HUD systems
- Lane departure warning system
- Blind spot elimination system
- Smart A-GPS system
It’s true that aftermarket systems are seldom going to be as good as built-in solutions are likely to be. However, they will still make your fleet a lot safer than they were before. Combined with everything else discussed here, you can indeed expect your losses from fleet accidents on the road to come down significantly.
Road Safety article and permission to publish here provided by Sara Edwards. Originally written for Supply Chain Game Changer and published on June 24, 2023.
Cover image by WikimediaImages from Pixabay