According to the HSE (Health, Safety & Environment) as many as a third of all road accidents involve a driver who is working at the time.
This accounts for more than 250 serious injuries and 20 fatalities every week.
There is also a huge cost to UK businesses when one of their drivers is involved in a road traffic accident.
Therefore, it’s in an organisation’s best interest to invest time and money into doing everything they can to reduce the number of vehicle accidents their drivers are involved in.
Here are some tips and best practices that help companies educate and improve their drivers’ road awareness:
How to Reduce Vehicle Accidents in the Workplace: 6 Strategies
Introduce a Driver Policy
If you don’t already have a driver policy for your organisation, you should produce one or review and update your current policy.
A driver policy or driving for work policy is a document that should make all drivers aware of the risks they face when driving a company vehicle.
It should cover best practices for maintaining their vehicle, how they should be operating it, their health, and anything else that can potentially present a risk of a road collision or personal injury.
All drivers should be given an electronic copy on joining your organisation, and a paper copy to sign confirming they have read and understood the document.
Use Effective Communication
Effective communication within the workplace can help solve almost any problem. This includes reducing vehicle accidents and employee injuries.
Some employees may not be aware of certain internal procedures due to being new to the organisation, missing certain meetings and correspondence, language or learning barriers, and so on.
Setting up clear channels of communication will make a real difference. From educating drivers, to increasing awareness, and giving them a way to air any questions or issues they have.
Set Periodic Goals and Targets
Goals and targets are motivational and give people a clear visual on areas where they can improve.
If you can get some accident statistics for other companies or national averages to compare your own organisation too, even better.
This will give fleet managers and their drivers something to aim for. As well as having real data to see if they’re making improvements in the number of vehicle accidents within their organisation.
Implement Driver Training
Drivers should have their driving assessed and be offered training on a regular basis. This should cover everything from checking their licence, giving them health check-ups, and evaluating their driving skills.
If a driver is involved in an incident, a thorough investigation should be carried out so training and support can be offered to reduce the risk of future accidents.
Use Fleet Management Software
Good fleet management software offers a number of tools that help fleet managers better manage their fleet. It can do things like flag dangerous driving and erratic behaviour, produce driver reports, remind you to check licences, and more.
Using robust systems minimises the chance of human error at multiple stages. There is also substantial cost-saving potential. You can book a demo to see how FleetCheck’s fleet management software can help you save money and reduce accidents within your workplace here.
Vehicle Maintenance
It’s just as important to keep your fleet of vehicles in good working order as it is your driver’s. It’s not clear what percentage of road accidents can be attributed to general mechanical failures and poor maintenance.
But we do know that more than 30 people were killed or seriously injured in motorway accidents in 2016 due to faulty tyres alone. We also know that most road accidents related to mechanical failure were avoidable with proper maintenance.
