There were some very interesting information that came out recently from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, an office inside the U.S. Department of Labor. Sometimes the bureau spits out some numbers regarding workplace deaths and work-related traffic accidents. A couple of the tidbits that are of particular note are that in 2013, the number of incidents that had fatalities dropped by 10 percent from 2012. That’s the good news, but the bad news is that transportation-related deaths accounted for 40 percent of all job-related deaths in 2013.

[Image courtesy of Matt Lemmon from Flickr via a Creative Commons license]While fatal vehicle accidents dropped by 10 percent in 2013 from 2012, still two people every day that year died from work-related traffic accidents. Do you have a safety program in place for your fleet and employees?

Is it just me, or does that seem like a high number of deaths from work-related driving? When you flesh out the math, about two people every day in 2013 died in a transportation-related incident. Now, for those of you who oversee company fleets or have employees who use their vehicles for work-related driving, you probably do have some kind of safety program. However, I will tell you that while OSHA does not actually regulate workplace driving, it does provide safety guidelines that can be used to determine a company’s due diligence in providing adequate safety measures for your fleet drivers or your mobile employees.

In that vein, a drivign safety program shoudl be implemented or reviewed by you and your C-suite executives as soon as possible to make sure your company is doing its required due diligence to ensure safety of all drivers. We know accidents (and deaths) do happen even when we do everything right, but the chances of a major loss of human and monetary capital can be greaty reduced with a strong driver safety program. Whether you are implementing a new program or evaluating and updating an existing program, here are 10 steps you will likely have to go through to ensure success of the program in the company (a tip of the hat to the January 2015 issue of Professional Safety magazine for introducing these).

  1. Must get buy-in. In your mind you could draw up the best damn driver safety program in the history of civilization, but if you can’t get the C-suite or the rank-and-file employees on board and believe the program can, does and will work, the program will only be on paper. And those are not so effective, are they?
  2. Write it down. And I don’t mean just your ideas on a cocktail napkin. A policy and protocol gets ingrained and practiced constantly when there is a clear and concise policy written out and posted in visible places around the worksite. Clear communication, especially written, mitigates confusion and ignorance.
  3. Pinky-swear. Make a contract or agreement with each of your drivers, making sure they understand the safety protocols and policies.
  4. Get on the record. Check the driving records of all employees who do or may drive a vehicle for company business. Know who the highest-risk drivers are and have protocols in place to help them be safer.
  5. Report the news. Make sure yoru drivers understand the importance of reporting crashes as quickly as possible, and provide clear guidance in your policies so drivers can correctly report an incident with as little hassle as possible. This can also go for moving violations, as well.
  6. Inspect your gadgets. Do routine and spot inspections of all vehicles in your fleet and/or any employees’ personal vehicles that are used for work-related travel.
  7. Truth and consequences. Have a policy for disciplinary action against drivers who don’t follow policy, get in an accident or have a moving violation. Make the consequences appropriate for the offense, however.
  8. Scooby snacks. On the other side of the coin, see where you can implement an incentive program for drivers to be safe and have excellent driving records. After all, every incident  will involve more time and paperwork than a clean drive would – encouraging behaviors that lessen workloads should be part of the overall culture.
  9. Redundancy. Don’t just post your driver safety program, train everyone once and leave them to their own devices. Whether you have a lot of turnover or not, make sure your re-visit your training on a regular schedule (once a year, twice a year, etc.)
  10. Stop, regulate, and listen. Pay attention to federal, state and local laws and regulations regarding driver safety and include them in your training and policies. And stay abreast of any and all changes and brief your drivers and their supervisors accordingly.