Fleet vehicle accidents are among the most costly of injury claims for business. The average cost of a loss related to vehicle accidents is approximately $70,000. This is almost twice the cost of the average workplace injury ($36,592).¹
Without a formal fleet safety program you may be putting the welfare of your employees and company at risk. A generic safety program is better than none. But it is far more effective to specifically design a program for your company and your fleet.
A fleet safety program establishes the policies and procedures that are needed to help ensure a safe work environment for employees. It can also help protect against liability from vehicle accidents.
There are no guarantees that an accident will not happen. Because the road is one of the most dangerous places for your employees², establishing a formal and ongoing program of screening, testing, inspection and training is essential.
The Payoff, Where the Rubber Meets the Road
For any company with a fleet of vehicles of any size, a formal fleet safety plan can provide a number of advantages, including improved safety, employee satisfaction and the potential to improve fleet efficiency.
8 Essential Elements of a Fleet Safety Program
An effective fleet safety program must be comprehensive, up-to-date and instituted as a part of your company’s safety culture. It should be thorough, reaching each employee who gets behind the wheel. And the commitment has to start at the top.
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Identifying all of your drivers.
Businesses may not be aware of the full extent of their non-owned vehicle exposure. You should identify everyone who drives on behalf of the business, even those employees that use personal and/or rented vehicles. |
Management commitment.
Leadership support of the program can help assure that the program is used. |
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Screening and selecting drivers carefully.
This can help create a reliable, safe team. Without safe drivers, no organization is likely to have a good long-term safety record. Establish clear hiring standards and a thorough screening process for anyone who drives on company business. |
Training drivers.
This can help to ensure that all drivers understand vehicle safety policies and procedures. All drivers should have access to information on safe driving strategies and techniques, including instruction in defensive driving. |
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Managing drivers on an ongoing basis.
This is essential in helping to ensure that drivers are following fleet safety rules and driving safely. |
Managing accidents, when they occur.
This can help mitigate accident costs. It also helps you to understand your exposures and can reduce the potential for future losses. |
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Establishing written policies and procedures.
This sets clear consistent expectations. |
Formalizing a plan for vehicle inspection, repair and maintenance.
This can help reduce costly, unexpected breakdowns, and can assist in avoiding accidents due to faulty equipment. |
At Travelers, we take advantage of our deep risk expertise and extensive experience to help our customers design their fleet safety programs and help protect what is important to their business.
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Many businesses use vans, trucks and buses to move their customers, products or equipment. Depending on the size and use of those vehicles, a business and its drivers may be subject to state and federal commercial vehicle regulations. Complying with these regulations is an important part of a fleet safety program.
State and Federal Requirements
Commercial motor carriers are regulated by the states in which they operate. If these vehicles operate in interstate commerce, federal regulations also apply. In general, most states follow the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR) or similar rules.¹
Commercial Driver’s License (CDL)
Motor carriers that operate large commercial motor vehicles, or vehicles used to transport hazardous materials, must comply with additional regulations if they operate the following types of commercial vehicles:
- Class A – Vehicles with a gross combination weight rating of 26,001 pounds or more including a towed trailer over 10,000 pounds.
- Class B – Single unit vehicles with a GVWR of 26,001 pounds or more (if pulling a trailer, the trailer must not exceed10,000 pounds)
- Class C – Vehicles under 26,001 pounds used or designed to transport 16 or more passengers, including the driver, and vehicles less than 26,001 pounds required to display hazardous material placards.
Drivers of these vehicles must have a commercial driver’s license and the appropriate endorsements for the vehicles they are driving. Companies that operate these vehicles must also have a drug and alcohol testing program that meets the Department of Transportation (DOT) alcohol and controlled substances testing program requirements.
Registration Requirements
Companies that provide interstate for-hire transportation must obtain federal operating authority by filing the appropriate application with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). For-hire and private motor carriers must also register with the FMCSA and obtain a U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) number. This number must be displayed on all commercial vehicles the motor carrier operates.
Organizations operating commercial motor vehicles in interstate commerce may also be required to register and pay fees under the Unified Carrier Registration Act of 2005.²
More than 30 states currently require intrastate motor carriers to obtain a U.S. DOT number as part of their commercial motor vehicle registration process. Other state registration requirements may include complying with International Fuel Tax Agreement and International Registration Plan, if a motor carrier is operating in interstate commerce.
Additional registration requirement may exist. For information about these requirements visit the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations website and contact the agency in your state that regulates commercial motor vehicles.
Sources:
¹ www.fmcsa.dot.gov/
² www.ucr.in.gov/
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For most employees, being injured on the job is a first-time occurrence, and the road back to work is not always well defined. Employee injuries should never be considered routine; however, your response plan should be.
Travelers’ Corridor of CareSM post-injury management process is a carefully structured sequence of activities designed to take care of the injured employee from the moment of injury through return to full duty.
Our process can help you reduce the cost of workers compensation losses by building a systematic and positive approach to handling employee injuries.
Five Strategies of Post-Injury Management
- Respond immediately to injury. When an employee is injured, you should respond in a caring and non-judgmental way, and help him or her receive the care he or she needs as soon as possible. Once the injured employee is receiving care, you should begin your accident investigation.
- Establish a medical provider relationship. Partner with a medical provider who understands your company and your post-injury management process.
- Assign transitional duties. When employees feel valued and productive, the severity of claims can be lessened. By offering injured employees an effective transitional-duty program, you can help to build employee morale, keep injured workers connected to the workforce and return to full duty as soon as medically possible. This also can help lower workers compensation costs.
- Provide attentive case management. Designate one person to coordinate all claims management activities with the medical provider, insurer, injured worker, co-workers and line management to help resolve any issues, concerns or impediments to the injured worker’s recovery.
- Measure process performance. You can test your goals against actual performance. Measuring the success of your post-injury management process can help to identify trends for further risk and loss reduction strategies.
Corridor of CareSM Post-Injury Management Process
The injured employee is not the only one who suffers. Employees suffer with the pain and discomfort of the injury, as well as the financial loss. Employers can suffer from the disruption in production, quality and morale.
By having a systematic and caring process, you can bring that person into your “Corridor of Care” and actively manage his or her return to full duty. Utilizing best practices to the fullest extent may allow you, the employer, to control your workers compensation costs.
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Safety is more than a set of activities focused on accident prevention. It is a way of thinking about how you work, and it should be at the heart of any successful company. Weaving safety into your company’s mission, policies and procedures is a great way to demonstrate its importance and ensure its effectiveness across your company.
It should be about a shared vision that is expressed by core values and behaviors, where everyone walks the talk. By addressing unsafe acts and conditions before they become accidents, you build your safety culture.
Four Steps to a Safety Culture
The following four steps can serve as a starting point in driving safety across your business.
1. Evaluate risks. To understand how to create a safer workplace, you must first understand the risks you face every day. Each task and associated risk should be properly evaluated, and safety-based changes should be considered.
– Analyze past incidents and near misses. Understand that past incidents can help you identify root causes and identify risks and exposures that threaten the safety of your employees and the success of your business.
– Identify the risks before they result in loss. Review your work policies and procedures, buildings and equipment, employee work practices and behaviors and geographic location to determine if there are opportunities to prevent or mitigate loss. And hold people accountable to the practices.
2. Design a plan to keep safe. A good plan is the best place to start, but it is only the beginning. Once you have a plan, you must act to eliminate or minimize risk.
– Get commitment. Your management team should be committed to a safety culture from the beginning.
– Stay focused. Keep focused on the risks and exposures identified during your evaluation.
– Prioritize your efforts. Focus on the risks that pose the greatest threat. You should consider frequency and severity of the loss potential, and/or the opportunity to prevent or mitigate risks.
– Identify solutions and resources. Your solutions can vary from implementing engineering controls to creating administrative policies and procedures. These can help create positive changes in safety attitude, commitment and culture.
3. Implement your plan. Implementation entails communication of the plan and its details, training, regularly scheduled practice and drills, and ongoing review. A thorough plan will cover a number of potential risk areas, including buildings and equipment, the environment, employees, customers and vendors.
– Communicate and train – the real test of a safety program and culture is not what is written down on paper, but rather how well it actually works. How well your plan works is often dependent on what your employees know and what they do at the time of an incident.
4. Monitor, evaluate and improve your plan. As your business environment changes, so should your safety program. Regularly test your plan to determine if it fits the changing business environment and reflects changing accountabilities.
– Monitor the plan and collect feedbackto determine the effectiveness of the plan.
– Regularly compare your safety performance against the plan’s expectations.
– Make adjustments when necessary.
– Recognize success. Be sure to communicate and celebrate your safety successes.
At Scurich Insurance Services, our team of risk specialists visit more than one hundred properties every day, and are able to share lessons learned and insights for helping create a safety culture. Start building your safety culture today. Learn more about developing your safety management program.
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