Raising Driver Safety Profiles is the key to reducing the frequency and cost of accidents

The Facts:

1. To reduce fleet insurance premiums you need to reduce frequency and cost of claims
2. To reduce frequency and cost of claims you need to raise the driving safety profile of the insured drivers
3. To raise the driving safety profile of insured drivers you need to work with each driver, assess and train them.

For RVM, the assessment and training needs to be presented to drivers as a positive and supportive process in order to avoid the result of dis-incentivising or even over-incentivising drivers.

Awarding or punishing drivers can lead to non-reporting of damage or the driver paying personally for sub-standard low-cost repairs, both of which can have unacceptable consequences for a well-run fleet.

Non-reporting of damage leads to extra cost when the vehicle is returned to the lease company as well as other problems such as poor brand image and even safety and legal issues. Sub-standard repairs can also carry safety risks and lower residual values.

The importance of assessment, education and training

The issue therefore for a fleet is how to raise the safety profile by assessing and training drivers in a supportive manner.  Communication is crucial. It’s important to engage with your drivers fully so that they can have confidence in any safety initiatives introduced.

They need to know what you are doing, why you are doing it and how it affects them. 

Assessment, education and training needs to be at the heart of any approach to fleet safety, there needs to be a range of initiatives aimed at raising the safety profile of these drivers.

Answering the tricky questions

Once you have the drivers on board, you then need to look at things from a practical viewpoint in terms of implementing these initiatives. Fleets often find themselves asking the following questions:

•    Should we use internal resource or external or a blend of both?
•    How can we bring all risk result data into one receptacle?
•    Which external resources should we buy and at what cost?
•    What rules should we apply to measure what constitutes a high risk?
•    How should we then deal with high risks in terms of appropriate action?
•    What measures are available to identify success or failure of the investment?

For a fleet that wants to control road risk more effectively these questions are tricky to answer without specialist guidance.

On behalf of our clients, we constantly trawl the market for the best products and prices and internally we have trained risk managers using specialist software so that we can answer all these questions for you.

To find out the answers call us on 0113 224 8888 or visit our website www.rvmfleetservices.co.uk

Are your road safety efforts still in the starting blocks?

It’s all very well saying;

• We need to pay more because Health and Safety law now extends to vehicles being used for business
• We need to assess and train drivers to reduce claims so our fleet insurance premium stops rising
• The directors will go to prison unless we spend money on a road risk management program 

But where is the extra resource going to come from?

That’s just what I would say to my Broker in a fleet insurance renewal meeting. Of course the problem is that it’s all “jam tomorrow”! In other words, pay today for an uncertain benefit tomorrow. 

Our mission is to reduce frequency and cost of accidents

It’s hard to answer the question and at RVM we are hugely conscious of the investment required and the need to see a result for our customer.

After all, our mission is to reduce frequency and cost of accidents.

In reality, we look at the fleet’s current investment, whether it is working and if not, what is the minimum intervention necessary to get a positive result for the fleet.

Trust is everything when asking a fleet to take a leap of faith and the acid test is whether we have long term and happy customers.

It's time to take that first step...

The first step is to share your journey towards greater road safety with us and let us share with you our opinion of what is working well and what is not. We have a safety barometer on which we can place your fleet. 

We think you should know if your efforts so far represent a halfway point to perfection or whether you’re still in the starting blocks.

To find out more call us on 0113 224 8888 or visit our website at www.rvmfleetservices.co.uk