5 Key Steps to Create a Fleet Safety Training Program

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Fleet safety training is a great way to keep your drivers safe on the road, avoid the high costs related to car and truck accidents, and ensure that your fleet is operating at maximum efficiency. But, creating a fleet safety training program can be intimidating – so we’ve put together a list of the 5 key steps you’ll need to take when implementing your own fleet safety training program.

1. Start by Refining Your Driver Recruitment Process

Fleet safety starts at the source – meaning, the drivers that you hire at your company. When hiring and recruiting drivers, select your employees carefully – look into their history of motor vehicle violations, employment history, drug and alcohol violations, and perform other such background checks.

By screening out dangerous drivers or those with a history of accidents, you can enhance fleet safety, and make sure you hire drivers who take their road safety seriously.

2. Implement Mandatory, Regular Training for New and Existing Driver

New drivers must be trained on safety and driving best practices, and existing drivers should also be trained regularly, to refresh their memory and ensure that they adopt safe driving principles. This may seem excessive, but it’s necessary to build a truly safety-focused culture at your company.

3. Monitor Driver Performance and Behavior

Today, it’s easier than ever to purchase and install GPS monitoring equipment on every vehicle in your fleet – whether you run a trucking company, or you’re tracking pickups, vans, or passenger cars.

Installing monitoring equipment helps you make sure your drivers are abiding by your guidelines for road safety, speed, and proper driver behavior – such as avoiding hard braking and acceleration, cornering, and other such dangerous habits. You can discuss these issues with drivers who are still not driving safely, and make sure that they improve their performance.

4. Encourage Safe Driving with An Incentive-Based Program

Negative reinforcement alone will not be enough to make sure that your drivers follow your safety principles – so you should also implement a system that rewards safe driving.

Consider offering an incentive like a bonus or extra vacation days to your drivers who have the top safety scores – providing them with this kind of reward will help them improve their driving performance and ensure that those who strive to drive safely will be rewarded for their efforts.

5. Keep Your Vehicles Safe and Well-Maintained

Your driver is only as safe as the vehicle they are driving. Even the best driver might get into an accident if their tire blows out because it was under-inflated, or their brakes are too worn-down for an emergency stop. So, make it a point to conduct inspections and maintenance for your vehicles regularly, according to the service schedule recommended by the manufacturer.

Follow These 5 Steps – Keep Your Fleet Safe!

Fleet safety is not something you should take lightly. Training your drivers properly will reduce your operational costs and keep them – and everyone else on the road – safe. You can’t put a price on that. So, follow these 5 steps, and start implementing your own fleet safety training program now.