In the most recent publication of Risk & Insurance, Charlie Halfen wrote an interesting article about risk in the transportation industry that we wanted to pass along to all of our trucking and commercial business owner associates. We hope you find this article as informational as we did.

-Mike DeStasio

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RISK NEVER SLEEPS 

For lowering the risks of fleet driving risks, there's not substitute for skills training as regulators are holding more and more companies accountable for their fleet drivers. -By Charlie Halfen

Corporate fleet managers and risk managers are increasingly paying attention to fleet safety as employees in their company cars continue to injure themselves and others, and cause greater than ever damage to their company bottom line, corporate reputation and worker welfare and productivity.

The numbers tell part of the tale. Whether a workers' compensation claim or third-party injury, the average claim cost in the United States has risen to $100,000.

An increasing proportion of total crashes are being attributed to cellphone related crashes, which cost some $43 billion per year. Liability never sleeps either, even when an employee is using a company vehicle for personal use, companies are at risk.

Consider that one company settled for $500,000 after it was determined that an employee during off hours in a company car had killed a motorcyclist while distracted. Every risk manager with a corporate and/or commercial fleet knows just how this can impact their company, and more are looking at methods to address the problem.

The cellphone and texting focus has just made this more conspicuous, and a further call to action. The National Fleet Management Association reported in a recent poll that 63 percent of its companies have a written policy prohibiting the use of phones and other wireless communication devices while driving. Of companies that ban the practice, 32.7 percent bar any electronic device, while 67.3 percent say employees may use hands-free but not hand-held devices, according to the latest data.

Media attention to the problem has stoked the call for tighter legislation here and abroad and the drumbeat is getting louder. The United Kingdom has passed very strict and some feel overly severe laws holding corporations accountable for safe driving behavior and records.

Health and safety legislation includes The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act, and other civil penalties are putting corporations and those who manage them at risk. Consider that those who fail to meet their responsibilities can receive fines and jail time.

It is estimated that one in four fleet crashes in the United States in some way involves cell phone or other electronic devices. This spike has really gotten the attention of fleet and risk managers and gone right up to the C-suite. But what of the other 75 percent of the crashes, those that can't necessarily be attributed to distracted driving? Are the other fleet crashes just statistical inevitabilities?

The answer is clearly no and it is important that companies not get completely distracted by the current focus on distracted driving as it specifically relates to electronic devices. To do so would be to miss the real opportunity to lower accident incidence. The single most important contributor to safe driving and to significantly bringing down the number and severity of car crashes is skills training, specifically hazard recognition/avoidance training. This includes driving attention, visual search strategies, speed relative to conditions, and emergency maneuvers. Companies need to refocus on skills and hazard recognition and implement comprehensive training and monitoring programs.

Essential Skills Training

Drivers in fact almost never receive proper training. The reality is that they go to driving school, usually as teenagers, to learn the rules of the road and never receive proper skills training. Driving is a physical skill, like baseball, golf or even playing the violin. Nobody is very good the first time and like other skills, if it is not learned properly, bad habits develop. Through experience, drivers do improve over time but never become truly safe without guidance, hence the striking statistics.

If every fleet driver learned how to clear an intersection, for instance, there is no question that the number of accidents would drop. This is not just intuitive, it is a fact. United Parcel Service of America Inc has been in the vanguard of driving safety for decades and has demonstrated its efficacy and a wide range of other skills and habits. This, taken with a myriad of other specific hazard recognition/avoidance skills(what to do when oncoming traffic crosses center line, over correcting, adjusting speed to curves, responding to loss of traction and many others) could make a profound impact on the number of crashes.

The use of new technologies such as telematics, which identifies what a driver of a corporate car or commercial vehicle might be doing wrong, is useful. While the implementation of in-vehicle driving telematics devices can result in the reduction of risky driving behaviors, and data from these devices can be used to help coach employees in safe driving, this does little to address the skills and hazard recognition which is, according the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), the core problem in driving safety.

If this information is not supported by and married to comprehensive skills training, it will do little to address the core problem. Instead, it could turn into an academic exercise at best and at worst a punitive one which might change some behaviors but won't truly address the problem.  

Source: Charlie Halfen, writer for Risk & Insurance