One of the most important responsibilities when starting a trucking company is reducing accidents and injuries.
According to https://simplexgroup.net/how-to-start-a-trucking-company/, there are several ways in which you can reduce accidents and injuries in your trucking company, reduce your costs, improve employee wellness and safety, and boost your company’s efficiency. Here are some strategies for reducing accidents and injuries in the trucking industry:
Work With Qualified Drivers
When you start a trucking company, driving errors might be among your biggest fears and unfortunate events that will set you back tremendously. Yet, if you focus on working with qualified drivers and only hire experienced individuals with good records, you can easily reduce the risks of accidents.
The trucking industry is often frowned upon when it comes to vehicle crashes, which are very costly to mitigate. Double-check your driver’s history and credentials before making a decision, and think about it long-term.
Provide Proper Training and Encourage Safe Driving Behaviour
Your truck drivers might need to receive additional training for certain driving techniques, handling emergencies, or other safety procedures. To remain on top of your game and ensure your company’s trustworthiness, review and update your training programs to remain relevant and effective for any kind of situation.
Many drivers might drive while fatigued to meet their deadlines and deliver the cargo on time. However, you should encourage safe driving behavior before anything else, and you can do this by rewarding your drivers. When these drivers demonstrate safe driving practices, the moment you reward them, you actively promote safe driving behavior within your company, and everyone will take notice.
Some ways in which you can implement this is by using driver scorecards to track and monitor driver performance. This way, you discourage other employees from driving recklessly.
Conduct Vehicle Inspections Regularly
Suppose you don’t inspect your vehicles regularly and ensure that they are in good working condition; you are asking for accidents or injuries to occur. Then another party involved in the crash will sue for personal injuries; when inspections find out about the poor state of your vehicles, you will face some harsh liability costs.
When you conduct regular vehicle inspections, never do it half-heartedly. Do it with the same pride you put into creating your company, and always ensure that the lights, tires, brakes, and other safety features work accordingly.
Implement Safety Programs and Be Tech-Savy
Among the best strategies for reducing truck accidents and injuries from occurring is to implement safety programs that include policies and procedures for the drivers and your vehicles.
Your safety programs should address issues such as driver fatigue, vehicle maintenance, distracted driving, and accident reporting protocols. Apart from this, you should use technology to your advantage and implement electronic logging devices to monitor driver working hours to prevent driver fatigue, collision avoidance systems, and GPS tracking, among others.
Consider these things and continuously improve by regularly reviewing and analyzing your safety data to identify potential areas where you can implement changes.
