Telematics offers insight into driver and operator behaviors, but acting on those insights can be tricky. The safety of the fleet and its drivers is always at the top of a manager’s list. According to fleet-management company Donlen, evaluating the safety of the fleet requires access to tools that can identify risky or dangerous driving behavior.
For example, Donlen implements traditional and continuous monitoring Motor Vehicle Records (MVRs), an advanced telematics program, accident management, and violation management (which looks at things that aren’t picked up in traditional MVR points such red light camera violations). These four products and more feed into our most powerful tool and predictive model that tells you how likely a specific driver is to be in an accident, the Donlen Risk Center.
Once you have access to tools that identify risky drivers within your fleet, the next step is to:
Take action on risky behavior
Aggressive driving behavior poses a significant risk to your fleet and, needless to say, it’s in your best interest to make sure it’s corrected.
“There are two main programs to look at for identifying and then remediating risk,” said Dan Shive, Donlen VP-business development, accident and safety products. “The first is motor vehicle reports and the second is driver training. I like to rank the measures that fleets take to address risky driving behavior by levels of good, better, and best.”
Good: It’s good to run annual MVRs and provide your drivers with annual driver training courses.
Better: It’s better to run annual MVRs on all drivers, run multiple MVRs on your highest-risk drivers, and provide quarterly driver training courses to all of your drivers.
Best:It’s best to enroll in a continuous monitoring program, which will give you a monthly snapshot of each of your fleet drivers’ activity behind the wheel and any changes that may have occurred since their last MVR. Additionally, it’d be best to:
- provide quarterly driver training
- ensure new hires are enrolled in driver training courses
- and implement remedial driver training after a collision or any incident that may alert you to at-risk behavior displayed by one of your drivers.
Communicate & educate drivers
Unfortunately, all of these important tools that can help identify and reduce aggressive driving behavior will ultimately mean nothing if you’re not willing to take action. Here’s what we suggest:
- You need to make your driver aware that they’re being identified as a high risk driver and that their eligibility to drive a company vehicle is in jeopardy, which may affect their ability to perform the job that they were hired to complete,” said Shive.
- You should implement remedial driver training as not only will it aid in your driver’s understanding of where they went wrong, but it will also show your drivers that the company is serious about its commitment to safety and the consequences that may follow if the previous behavior isn’t corrected.
Fleet-management companies like Donlen have all the tools you need to identify the risky drivers in your fleet. Unfortunately, though these tools may be accurate and advanced in their diagnosis, the largest responsibility falls on your shoulders. Your FMC can’t always tell you what to do when it comes to your drivers. The bottom line is that you need to decide what kind of behavior you’re willing to put up with and how committed you are to the safety of your fleet and its drivers.
Source: Donlen
