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Keep Safety Your Number One Priority When Managing Your Fleet

When you run a fleet for your business, your first thoughts might go to the factors of fleet management that relate to how cost-effective it is to run, and how much of a return on investment it is. However, your drivers and vehicles are going to become much more costly if you don’t take care to ensure their safety on the road as best as possible. While you cannot take the wheel for your drivers, you can take some steps to help them drive a lot more safely.


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Track and report on driving habits

There are a lot of reasons for fleet managers to invest in GPS tracking and telematics technology that connects them to the vehicles. While they are mainly used to track the efficiency of deliveries, they can also track the safety of the drivers. These tools can pick up on habits such as overly quick acceleration, hard braking, and more that can be potentially risky or cause more wear and tear to the vehicle. As such, you can address individuals who are particularly risk-prone as well as organise training that covers the mistakes more common throughout the team.


Ensure their safety tech is as safe as possible

If you want to ensure that your drivers and vehicles are safe on the road, then it is always a wise idea to invest in the safety technology that can help with that. However, as impressive as car safety systems can be, they can also be prone to malfunction in cars that have been used for years. As such, it’s important to occasionally take the time to inspect your safety technology and make sure all is working as it should be. Advanced driving assistance systems tests involve running practical tests with the use of fake hazards to make sure that the vehicle’s safety systems behave as they should. They test a wide range of digital safety systems, allowing you to pinpoint which of them may need some troubleshooting in the event of a failure. Clearly, this is much preferable to letting those same systems fail out on the road.


Show your vehicles the care that they need

The safety technology inside a car isn’t the only part that is prone to malfunction as time goes on, of course. Wear and tear can affect a lot of the drive, from steering to braking to suspension. If any of these starts to act up, it can reduce the driver’s ability to avoid dangerous situations. As such, it is essential that the proactive maintenance of your vehicles is a part of the fleet management strategy. Not only will it reduce the chances of a collision or other accidents on the road, but it will also reduce the costs of unscheduled repairs and the downtime associated with them.


Individual drivers may, to some degree, be responsible for the safety of themselves and your vehicles on the road. However, you can ensure they’re equipped with the right vehicles and tools that make their drive a lot safer or more dangerous, too.


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