By Walt Malo. Loss Control Best Practices Chapter Five The Fundamentals of Fleet Safety

Transcription

1 Loss Control Best Practices Chapter Five The Fundamentals of Fleet Safety By Walt Malo Produced by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health P.O. Box Tampa, FL With a grant from the Public Entity Risk Institute Random Hills Road, #210 Fairfax, VA by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health 1

2 DEDICATION This presentation is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Terry Lee who always regarded employee safety to be the primary objective of any endeavor, entity or enterprise. The countless lives he saved and injuries he prevented through his diligent work will go uncounted but not overlooked. Taken from us far too soon, Dr. Lee will be dearly missed by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health 2

3 Pre-test 1. What percentage of non-fatal occupational injuries is attributable to vehicle collisions? 2. What percentage of on-the-job fatalities is attributable to vehicle collisions? 3. Name three top priorities of a sound fleet safety program. 4. At what point are you required to have a CDL (commercial driver s license) with passenger endorsement on your license? 5. What tools are available for supervisors to conduct performance evaluations? 6. What can be an invaluable tool to reduce your fleet operating costs? 7. What is the formula for determining vehicle collision rate? 8. Name the three causes of vehicle collisions by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health 3

4 FLEET SAFETY FUNDAMENTALS Introduction According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, vehicles cause 15 percent of all non-fatal occupational injuries involving days away from work. Vehicle fatalities account for 24 percent of job-related deaths. The cost of motor-vehicle collisions, both in human life and organizational costs, is staggering. The cost is reflected in higher premiums for property, liability, and workers compensation insurance. Vehicle collisions impact an organization s work and the families of those who are injured or killed. The magnitude of the vehicle-related accidents, injuries, and deaths demands a sound loss-control effort to minimize its impact. As a public employer, you need a fleet safety program that addresses the operation of your fleet, the safety of your employees, and the public you serve. Your fleet safety program should cover a wide variety of management concerns. To highlight just a few: It should require compliance with safety rules and regulations; traffic laws are written with everyone s safety in mind, not to detain your deliveries. Your program should include a section on drug abuse and mandatory drug testing after collisions. Drug testing should be mandatory before employment and done periodically at random to identify drivers at risk. And while your program must make every attempt to reduce potential loss, it must also give safety precedence over schedules and routes. For example, if another route is safer because of weather or construction, drivers should be able to choose that alternative. If drivers are detained because of circumstances beyond their control, safety not time needs to be the prevailing motivation. With these and other concerns in mind let s identify the basics of a fleet safety program. By using the following guidelines, you can develop a program that will serve your organization s fleet management needs. With these general guidelines, you can develop the policies and procedures that are tailored to your operations and overcome the resistance you may face in implementing them by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health 4

5 RESISTANCE Bear in mind that every new program is met with a certain degree of resistance. Even when change comes from the top, it will be resisted on some level. Knowing that is important to the program s success. You need to sell your program to the person at the very top before anyone else. How you sell it is through the avenue all administrators know and understand: dollars saved. You absolutely must use quantitative evidence to demonstrate that your fleet safety program will save money over time. Your best resource for quantitative evidence is the insurance industry, starting with your current carrier/provider. If you are a member of a self-insurance trust, fund or group, it can provide you with as much data as you need. If it can t, it s time to find another provider or fund. Contact people in the marketing department and explain what you re trying to accomplish. They have access to not only your loss runs but also everyone else s in the fund/group. They can do an impressive comparison of your entity with to those with valid fleet safety programs in place. Just make sure they use true comparisons with entities of similar size and operation. Administrators, mayors, city/county managers, all understand one thing above all else: MONEY! If you remember nothing else, remember this: If you can put money back into the coffers through your proposed program, you are more assured of the backing you need from the top. I never said guaranteed, but you have a better chance if you have the numbers. If you work for government, you need to understand tradition. No one likes change especially government workers and administrators. Innovation means change, and change mean expenditures. Safety will always be considered an expense not an investment unless you can show that you will save or recover more than you will spend. There lies the challenge. DRIVER SELECTION A successful program begins with a written plan that provides hiring criteria and requirements. It should address such items as minimum driver experience, acceptable and required licensing, motor vehicle records checks, physical capacity standards, and drug testing. If you fall under Department of Transportation or Interstate Commerce Commission motor carrier safety regulations or if you hold the drug-free workplace classification, drug testing is mandatory. Even without these mandates, you should have an interest in the sobriety of your drivers. You should use a complete and accurate application form designed to meet minimum industry standards, as well as your particular needs, for commercial drivers. It should ask for previous employment history, driving experience, 2003 by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health 5

6 necessary personal data, and medical history without breaching the tenants of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Every state has minimum requirements to obtain a driver's license. If you operate a vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 26,001 pounds, or you carry more than 16 passengers, or you carry hazardous materials in quantities requiring placarding, you need a commercial driver s license. If you operate vehicles involved in interstate transportation with a GVWR of more than 10,001 pounds, or carry more than 16 passengers, or carry hazardous materials in quantities requiring placarding, you fall under the requirements of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, and you need a commercial driver's license. The application should ask for professional and personal references. Contact and verify those references. You may run across the rare but stubborn employer who responds to such inquiries with "no comment." Your first and natural reaction to such a response might be that the previous employer had nothing good to say so said nothing. This is not necessarily true. Ask if you can review the candidate s personnel file if you're really interested. You could otherwise miss out on hiring a good worker. You won't know until you ask. Checking motor vehicle records can help you decide who will be entrusted with your expensive vehicles. They are generally easy to obtain through your insurance agent or carrier or you may even be able to get them directly from the state by acquiring a "vendor number" from the state. Insurance companies and agents generally charge about $5, and states charge anywhere from $5 to $15, depending on the number of reports the more reports, the cheaper the cost. As an important part of your background check, you should check with the National Driver Register (NDR). In 1982, the federal government passed the National Driver Register Act because some states failed to maintain accurate records in accordance with old register requirements. The act imposed penalties, such as withholding federal highway funds, for failure to comply. The new act requires participating states to transmit to the NDR all reports regarding individuals convicted of certain serious violations or who have lost or been denied driving privileges "for cause." The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has compiled a list of violations that must be reported to the NDR. The NHTSA developed rules for the new NDR to identify problem drivers and point to the state of record. Called the Problem Driver Pointer System, it requires automated electronic communications. Prospective drivers should be road tested in the types of vehicle type they will be required to operate to determine familiarity with equipment, ability to operate under various conditions that will be encountered, driving attitude, and awareness of motor vehicle laws. With the CDL legislation now in place since 1990, all the new rules should be well ingrained in truly experienced drivers by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health 6

7 DRIVER TRAINING After new drivers are hired, they must receive some sort of orientation training. All new drivers should be placed on an initial probationary period to allow proper observation and to permit sufficient time for all background reports to return. Assuming that licensed drivers will perform in accordance with your standards through osmosis guarantees catastrophe. Training should focus on defined needs and should accomplish stated, essential objectives. Provided you have conducted road tests before hiring, you have the beginning criteria for training in the observation notes of those road tests. Orientation training normally covers your organization s policies and procedures, state, county and local laws and ordinances, defensive driving standards, customer or public relations, and safety concepts. It also should include specific characteristics of the cargo you haul, the type of vehicle your organization uses, and what is expected of employees. Some topics require detailed discussions: vehicle operation, vehicle condition, company forms, emergency procedures, safety equipment, telephone numbers, incident report form, and conduct at incident scene. Refresher training should occur at least every six months and should cover operational changes, new equipment, new cargo, new routes, new government regulations, and reinforcing defensive driving tactics. Remedial driver training should be used as needed. It should be used to alleviate substandard performance in an effort to preclude termination of an otherwise good employee. Indicators for the need for such training include customer complaints, public complaints, collision involvement, moving violations, or vehicle abuse. DRIVER SUPERVISION A key objective of loss control is to establish and maintain an operating environment that avoids collisions. The program must be carried out at the worker level. Because supervisors control the performance of subordinates, it follows that workers safe performance is also in the scope of their responsibility. Thus, supervisors carry important duties in teaching safety, enforcing safety, and motivating people to work safely. The program you establish should address criteria for unacceptable driving activity and appropriate disciplinary action. Employees with driving responsibilities, predominant or incidental, should have driving performance included in their annual reviews. These reviews should address collisions (regardless of severity), violations of traffic laws, vehicle condition, adherence to 2003 by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health 7

8 maintenance schedules, cargo losses, and anything else that has an impact on your business. Your tools for these discussions can be found in motor vehicle reports, fleet maintenance records, repair bills, traffic citations, lading dockets, etc. When you consider the investment you have made in vehicles and training, you might have a greater appreciation for the value of these reviews. If your drivers don't feel you're concerned, why should they care? You should run motor vehicle reports on drivers at least annually; semiannually is best. If you think a driver will tell you about the speeding ticket he got while going to the beach on the weekend, you need to think again. If that employee doesn't think you'll ever find out about that ticket, why should he tell you? It didn t happen while he was on the job. But when he loses his license because it was suspended for excessive violations, will he tell you about that? How about a policy that says, "If we discover a traffic violation before you tell us, you get a week off without pay; the second time it happens, you're out of a job." Or "If you get a traffic ticket and don't go to a driver improvement class to avoid the points, you're history around here." If you don't show employees that you care what happens to their licenses, why should they care? Identifying the root cause for traffic citations and collisions will lead back to management. Mandated routes, unreasonable time schedules, and required operating hours can all lead to stress and/or fatigue. Examine your policies about these issues before climbing all over your drivers. Federal regulations have set maximum driving hours for interstate transportation and require the maintenance of driver logs. Specifically, drivers cannot drive more than 10 hours in a single day following eight hours off duty. They cannot drive after being on duty for 15 hours until they have been off duty for eight consecutive hours. And they cannot drive after being on duty for 60 hours in any seven consecutive days, unless the carrier operates every day of the week, in which case the limit is 70 hours in any eight consecutive days. An incentive program that awards good performers and punishes poor performers soon turns those poor performers around or they leave. When you think of incentive programs, try thinking of the fable of the donkey encouraged to pull a heavy wagon by dangling a carrot in front of him. Sometimes that carrot is a promotion or a bonus or simply a lapel pin that says "One Million Safe Miles." PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE Each driver should be assigned a specific vehicle to establish accountability for all losses and to instill a sense of pride and care for the assigned vehicle. It becomes a personal issue, and you will find it easy to establish a sense of 2003 by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health 8

9 competitiveness where vehicles appearance is concerned. Many lawenforcement agencies have been using this practice for years, and vehicle condition on trade-in has improved dramatically. Depending on the type of operation you run and the location of your parking facility for these vehicles, you may even want to consider allowing commuter use of the vehicles with certain stipulations. If you decide to provide this privilege, you should establish strict rules. You may want to restrict vehicle operation to assigned drivers only, excluding family members and all others. A logbook will keep track of mileage and keep honest drivers honest. If you dispense fuel at your facility, a control-card system is a valuable tool to encourage honesty and regulate and control maintenance. Before vehicles leave your property, drivers should inspect them to ensure they are safe to operate (known as "pre-trip inspections"). Any deficiencies should be reported to the vehicle maintenance department for correction before they leave the property. Upon return drivers should be required to sign a form that lists any changes in the vehicle's condition. (This is an internal document best designed for the user s specific intent.) Vehicle replacement criteria should be established and strictly enforced. Such criteria could include mileage, repair costs, age, or physical appearance. Valid criteria should have value, and mandatory compliance guarantees validity. A systematic inspection and maintenance schedule should be established based on mileage, hours of operation, the calendar, or a combination of these. The manufacturer's recommended maintenance schedule is a good beginning for minimum requirements. Bear in mind that the warranty requires documented compliance with that schedule. Individual maintenance records should be kept on each vehicle and generally would be an excellent indicator of when vehicles need to be replaced. Several sources exist for fuel access cards, which will track a vehicle's use and raise certain warning flags for needed maintenance, excessive use, unusual fuel consumption, and other issues you feel are important. When used properly these card systems can be invaluable to reduce your fleet operating costs; abused as a management control, it can lead to disgruntled employees and high personnel turnovers by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health 9

10 COLLISION REVIEW Every collision, like every injury, regardless of severity, should be reported to management. A policy that allows minor scratches and dents to go unreported soon leads to a fleet that is a sad representation of your organization s image. Every vehicle should have a standard form in the glove box that asks the basic questions of who, what, when, where, how, and why. (Such a form is best designed by the user to meet internal reporting criteria.) This form then needs to be examined by a collision review board that decides preventability in percentages. The driver needs to be assessed an equal percentage of the repairs or deductible. Every automobile insurance policy contains a deductible, which the insured has agreed to be responsible for and over which the insurance carrier will cover. Should you, the employer, pay for the entire deductible if the driver could or should have prevented an accident? If so, may I work for you? You are a very generous employer. If that is your policy, you have basically told your drivers that it is OK to wreck the equipment. But a fleet operator who fires any employee involved in a collision has to pay for repairs and go through the added expense of replacing an employee. Both extremes are wrong. All collisions should be investigated thoroughly; failure to do this says you don t care about wrecks and that having one is OK. If you do care and if it's not OK then do something about it. Start with a driver's incident report, which should be handed to the driver's supervisor by the start of the next workday. Look into the circumstances leading up to the collision. How did it happen and why? Could it have been prevented? Does the driver need retraining on that type of vehicle? Is there a problem with the driver? Was vehicle maintenance deficient? Were there extraordinary hazards not anticipated along the route? Is driver error a factor and does it warrant disciplinary action? You'll never know the answers to these questions if you don't ask them. I served as a facilitator for a collision review board and can testify that we helped more drivers than we impugned. For example, the board reviewed a police officer with a vision problem created by an incorrect vision prescription, which caused her to collide with objects on the right side of the vehicle, a driver with low blood sugar who kept nodding off behind the wheel, and a bus driver with poor depth perception, which only became evident when backing. This committee helped identify many problems with simple solutions, mostly designed by the employees. They assumed ownership of the program and peer pressure took over to stimulate a sense of caring about the equipment among the employees. The efforts of the committee reduced a collision rate of 42 wrecks per million miles traveled to 19 per million miles, and we did it in three years. This is the type of results any fleet operator can expect when a meaningful program is in place with support from the top by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health 10

11 Vehicle collisions have three causes: 1) the vehicle, 2) the driver, or 3) environmental conditions. According to the National Safety Council, 77 percent of all traffic collisions are caused by driver error. That leaves 23 percent for vehicle malfunction or environmental conditions, such as light, weather, road, or traffic. The most common errors committed by drivers are excessive speed, failure to yield the right of way, following too closely, improper turns (includes signaling and lane changes), improper passing, and improper backing. Backing is a big problem for truck fleets regardless of the size of the truck. VEHICLE COLLISION RATE Few losses are more costly to public employers fleet operations than those caused by employee error. More and more fleet operators realize they can prevent or at least control most of their losses. A collision frequency rate based on number of losses per miles traveled has become a valuable yardstick for measuring safety performance. Collision frequency is computed by multiplying the number of collisions by 1,000,000 and then dividing by mileage: Number of Collisions x 1,000,000 Total Fleet Mileage = Collision Frequency Rate Example: Five vehicles in the fleet travel a total of 5,000 miles per month for a total fleet mileage of 60,000 miles per year. One collision occurs during the year. The frequency rate is 16.66, as shown here: 1 x 1,000,000 60,000 = As a means of measuring safety performance in a fleet operation the rate is most valuable when used to compare one fleet's rate with similar operations. Too often the rate of one insured is taken out of context by comparing it with larger or smaller operations, which leads to false conclusions. For measurements to be reliable, incident rates should be based on clearly defined terms. For example, we must have a clear understanding of what constitutes a collision. The American National Standards Institute and the National Safety Council use the definition, A motor vehicle accident is any occurrence involving a fleet motor vehicle which results in death, injury, or property damage, unless such fleet vehicle is properly parked. Who was injured, what property was damaged, or to 2003 by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health 11

12 what extent, where an accident occurred, and who was responsible are not factors. ANSI Standard D15.1, Method of Recording and Measuring Motor Vehicle Fleet Accident Experience and Passenger Accident Experience, states, It is the intent that those occurrences, resulting because of errors in judgment or technique of drivers, or of maintenance, are to be considered motor vehicle fleet accidents, and that those incidents that merely coincidentally involve vehicles are not to be considered motor vehicle fleet accidents. Whether accidents occur because of any one driver's fault, mechanical failure, or another blame placing factor is not to be considered in determining whether an incident is a motor vehicle fleet accident. Likewise, the rules on any driver award program that may be based on preventability or other such factors has no bearing in determining whether any particular incident is to be considered a motor vehicle fleet accident. The amount of damage or the cost of repair is not to be a factor. The definition includes any property damage. This does not mean, however, that ordinary contact of bumpers while parking vehicles, or any other such contacts that over a long period of time cause an accumulation of small scratches of the normal wear and tear type, are to be reported. A bending, crushing, or breaking of a bumper is not a wear and tear incident. Accidents involving the use of incidental equipment, such as cranes, shovels, and related equipment, mounted on a motor vehicle are not to be considered motor vehicle fleet accidents unless the motor vehicle is being operated as a motor vehicle at the time of the accident. PROMOTION If you tell people you have a safety program but don't ever talk about it and its successes (that s called advertising!), the program doesn't really exist. A paper program is as valuable as the paper it's written on, no more. You should promote your program through bulletin boards, posters, payroll inserts, award contests, newsletters, and any other means available. Summary A vehicle safety program begins with careful driver selection and training as well as establishing criteria for driver suspension. Looking at the vehicle side of the equation, you need to also involve the drivers in your preventive maintenance procedures. Inevitably, there will be collisions. Yet even in the stress of such events there are practices that drivers should follow to limit your liability. Your collision rate will obviously be a big factor in the cost of your fleet insurance policy. Finally, by promoting your fleet safety program, you will encourage drivers and their supervisors to follow your procedures. To be sure you have a well by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health 12

13 rounded fleet safety plan on paper and in practice check your plan against the following sample fleet policy checklist. SAMPLE FLEET POLICY CHECKLIST 1. State law requires all drivers and front-seat passengers to wear seatbelts. As our employee, you are expected to comply with this law when operating our vehicle. 2. Our vehicles are to be used exclusively for the services we provide. 3. Our vehicles are to be used by employees only. Insurance coverage does not extend to family members or friends of employees. 4. All occupants of our vehicles are to be employees and non-employees with prior approval. Drivers are not to have unauthorized riders in our vehicles. All passengers must wear seatbelts. 5. All drivers are expected to operate our vehicles with due care and in accordance with all traffic laws. All traffic violations/citations and collisions, regardless of severity, must be immediately reported to supervisors. 6. Daily vehicle condition reports must be submitted to immediate supervisors before the end of a shift. All necessary repairs and/or scheduled maintenance are the assigned driver s responsibility. Drivers are responsible to determine if repairs or maintenance are needed and affect the safe operation of the vehicle. This must be reported it to supervisors. Supervisors are required to approve all requests for repair or maintenance that has a direct effect on vehicle safety. 7. All drivers of our vehicles are expected to maintain the appropriate license for the vehicle assigned and submit a current motor vehicle report to their supervisors every six months. 8. Compliance with these rules is a condition of continued employment. Any driver involved in a collision involving one of our vehicles may be assessed a portion of uninsured damages depending on degree of preventability by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health 13

14 Post-test 1. What percentage of non-fatal occupational injuries is attributable to vehicle collisions? A) 15 percent 2. What percentage of on-the-job fatalities is attributable to vehicle collisions? A) 24 percent 3. Name three top priorities of a sound fleet safety program. A) Required compliance; mandatory drug testing; safety precedence over schedules/routes 4. At what point are you required to have a CDL (commercial driver s license) with passenger endorsement on your license? A) 16 or more passengers 5. What tools are available for supervisors to conduct performance evaluations? A) Motor vehicle reports; fleet maintenance records; repair bills; traffic citations; lading dockets; etc. 6. What can be an invaluable tool to reduce your fleet operating costs? A) Fuel access cards 7. What is the formula for determining vehicle collision rate? A) Number of Collisions x 1,000,000 Total Fleet Mileage = Collision frequency rate 8. Name the three causes of vehicle collisions. A) Driver error; vehicle condition; environmental conditions 2003 by the Florida Partnership for Safety and Health 14