Maintaining driving safety is essential for everyone's welfare and health. Their safety directly affects not only the bottom line but also other drivers on the road.
In reality, fleets in the transportation and logistics industries have some of the highest rates of occupational injuries and fatalities, and those rates appear to be rising year after year. You may secure your drivers' protection while facing higher costs related to accidents, claim payouts, and increases in insurance rates by increasing the safety of your drivers. The good news is that by cultivating a workplace culture that actively coaches, trains, and rewards the safest drivers, you can increase the safety of your truck drivers. Here are the best truck driving tips and advice and how they will improve the overall safety of the fleet:
Promote defensive driving among your truck drivers
Truck drivers of Best Lorry Transportation Service are encouraged to practice defensive driving, which involves being constantly alert for potential dangers and changes in traffic or road conditions. Drivers are urged to lower their risk of collisions and injuries by anticipating potentially hazardous situations and making wise choices while operating a motor vehicle. Drivers who practice defensive driving are less likely to get in collisions, which means you don't have to worry as much about exorbitant repair costs, claim settlements, and rising insurance rates. Here few of the defensive driving strategies and practices that encourage your drivers to use:
Stay out of blind spots
Being in a large truck that is so high off the ground can make it difficult for drivers of tractor-trailers or trucks to see automobiles behind or even next to their vehicle. Any area surrounding a car that the driver cannot see is known as a blind spot. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that blind spots are directly responsible for approximately 80,000 accidents annually. The majority of these collisions happen when motorists are changing lanes. Encourage drivers to glance over their shoulders and out the windows when changing lanes because rear-view and side mirrors aren't always useful for seeing blind spots. Encourage kids to leave lots of space around their vehicles as well.
Practice the three-second rule
One of the greatest practices for drivers is to adhere to the three-second rule when it comes to preventing front and rear crashes. According to this regulation, truck drivers should give themselves three full seconds to get to a certain location on the road between when the automobile in front of them gets there and when they do. The following time should be increased to five seconds if there is a lot of wind or rain. Drivers should increase the following time to 10 seconds if the roads are icy.
Be ready for emergency driving
While driving, especially long distances, because things can change when you suddenly arrive. The lorry transport in durgapur urges your drivers to be ready for a range of potential emergencies, such as poor road conditions or malfunctions. When drivers have water, snacks, a first aid kit, a change of clothes, and blankets in their cabs, they may securely and comfortably weather unforeseen circumstances that might force them to pull over or wait a long time for vehicle repairs.
Road rage is a severe threat to safe driving
So keep your composure. It can be tempting for truckers to engage in road rage activities like tailgating or lane-switching when they are cut off, honked at, or otherwise harassed by other motorists. Accidents can happen to drivers who let their rage rule their behavior behind the wheel. Urge your drivers to put more space between themselves and irate drivers in order to defuse road rage situations.
Always signal
It can be tempting to make lane changes and exit highways without signaling for drivers who operate on longer sections of the road or during off-peak traffic hours. Yet, failure to signal can make collisions more likely. Inform drivers that it's the law to indicate before making a turn or changing lanes and that they should signal even if there aren't any other cars nearby.
When in doubt, slow down
The Durgapur lorry transport instructs their drivers to always begin by reducing their speed in reaction to changes in the road, such as inclement weather or obstructed visibility. Driving more slowly gives drivers more time to react to sudden changes, such as an animal darting onto the road or slick roads when it starts to rain. Accidents can be entirely avoided by slowing down, or, at the very least, their impact and severity can be lessened.
Create schedules for preventative maintenance
The drivers' safety is largely dependent on the safety of the vehicles they are operating. By book a lorry in durgapur you will rest assured of routine maintenance, such as brake pads and oil changes, trucks and tractor-trailers are more prone to breakdown on the road and are taken care off.
The technicians may create comprehensive preventative maintenance regimens based on miles, days, prior breakdown history, and more using this data, and they can also receive real-time notifications for important fault codes. You can make sure your vehicles are in excellent condition so that drivers may prevent breakdowns on their routes by doing proactive repairs and routine maintenance.
Make certain thorough pre- and post-trip checks
Increasing driver safety through maintenance goes hand in hand with employing thorough vehicle inspections to make sure all trucks are secure before drivers take to the road. The DOT mandates pre-and post-trip inspections, but not just any inspection will do. Use technologies that ensure all inspections are complete and accurately documented to safeguard the safety of your drivers.
Coach drivers should not be distracted
The primary contributing factor to truck driver accidents, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Agency (FMCSA), is distracted driving. Anything that causes a driver to take their hands off the wheel or their eyes off the road are considered a kind of distracted driving. Distractions do occur in everything from eating lunch while driving a vehicle to look out the window at a billboard. Yet, texting while driving is the most prevalent kind of smartphone use while driving.
Put resources in place to react to alterations in the state of the roads
Road conditions can be unexpected, particularly for long-distance drivers who put in long hours and travel across several states or regions. Traffic and bad weather are the two main factors which are most likely to affect the safety of drivers on the road. Vehicles continually stop and start in bumper-to-bumper traffic, which raises the risk of accidents. Moreover, inclement weather, such as snow, ice, hail, or rain, can impair a driver's visibility or make the roads slick, both of which increase the likelihood of an accident.
Use real-time GPS tracking to keep an eye on your flee
You can always be aware of the precise location of each of your drivers' thanks to a fleet management platform that offers real-time GPS tracking. For the safety of your drivers, especially in emergency scenarios like breakdowns, real-time GPS is crucial. Knowing the exact position of a broken-down vehicle is crucial if you want to be able to help the driver as quickly as possible.
Knowing a driver's precise location allows you to dispatch a maintenance team or tow truck right to them or easily divert them to the nearest shop for repair. Due to your ability to respond to breakdowns in a timely and precise manner, you can minimize downtime and restore your fleet.
Build out the coaching and the rewards programs
Incentives and rewards for drivers who exhibit safe driving behaviors and practices are crucial components of creating a culture that puts safety first. Building up coaching and reward programs is one of the simplest ways to guarantee safety in your fleet. You may utilize actual film to demonstrate to drivers how to increase their road safety by deploying dashcams to your fleet. From the online lorry booking in Durgapur they will track how the drivers' safety has improved over time. Plus, every driver may see the safety score based on harsh events, speeding, miles driven, and more. The fleet may use these scores to gamify by drivers with the highest score reward. The customers have offered everything from special plaques to the best parking spot to reward their safest driver. But most of the time, it's the acknowledgment itself, not the compensation, that matters.