HOW DOES ROAD SAFETY IMPACT YOUR FLEET?

Road accidents involving people who drive for work account for between 25% and 33% of all work-related deaths. If you’re a fleet manager, then this raises significant concerns and questions.

For example: How safe are my vehicles on the road? What can I do to keep my drivers secure? And, alongside the risk to the people involved, what are the other ways poor road safety impacts my business?

To help fleet managers answer these questions, Webfleet ran the European Road Safety Survey 2021. By gathering the opinions of 1050 fleet decision makers across the region, they shone a light on how businesses like yours are dealing with this critical issue.

It’s a unique window into the frequency, causes and costs of accidents for commercial fleets and the technologies and processes that you can use to prevent them.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the findings.

How Does Road Safety Impact Your Fleet?

According to the research:

• 42% of commercial fleets are involved in 1-5 road collisions per year

• 84% of fleet managers agree that poor driving behaviour has a negative impact on their business

• 50% of fleet managers agree that they are not certain their drivers behave safely on the roads

• 51% of fleet managers agree that they have too much vehicle downtime.

How Can Drivers Improve Safety?

The factors that contribute to accidents can be divided into things you can control and things you cannot. Let’s start with something you can affect: driver behaviour.

• 90% of road accidents involve human error

• 10-25% of all road accidents involve driver fatigue

• 10% of people who driver for work admit they have fallen asleep behind the wheel

Clearly, driving behaviour is a key component of road safety. To gauge how it affects decision making at commercial fleets, we asked our respondents to rate how concerned they were about the driving habits that most commonly cause collisions.

• A driver using mobile phone or other device while driving 77%

• A driver driving while fatigued 75%

• A driver speeding 74%

• A driver failing to stop at a red light or stop sign 74%

• A driver not using a seatbelt/using a seatbelt incorrectly while driving 73%

• A driver smoking while driving 71%

• Drivers not informing you about potential risks such as tyre under inflation 71%

• A driver eating or drinking while driving 69%

• One of your vehicles failing on the road due to lack of maintenance 66%

How Does Road Safety Affect Insurance Premiums?

The majority of fleets have accepted liability for 21- 30% of the collisions involving their vehicles in the last year. However, the majority also believe they were only truly responsible for 0-10%. Also:

• 65% of fleet managers are concerned about other road users making false claims against their vehicles

• The average commercial fleet has three insurance claims made against it per month

• 58% of fleet manager agree that their liability insurance premium is too high

How Can Safety Help You Maintain A Better Business Reputation? Not all the costs suffered due to unsafe driving can be calculated on a spreadsheet. The damage done to a company’s reputation when one of its drivers behaves unsafely on the road is also a key issue for commercial fleets. Research found that 75% of fleet managers say they are concerned poor driving behaviour will harm their company’s reputation. So, running a safer fleet is not just good for your drivers, vehicles, and uptime – it’s also good for your brand reputation. How To Improve Driver Safety With Fleet Management

Fleet management systems utilise telematics and integrated video technology to improve the safety of your fleet in numerous ways. It can help you:

• Improve driving behaviour with better insights

• Prevent accidents with in-vehicle coaching

• Keep your vehicles on the right routes

• Fight fraudulent claims

• Avoid driver fatigue