Road accidents are something fleets never would like to talk about, although when it happens, only their most visible costs are often dealt with, such as the repair bills or the insurance. The rest of the costs, which most likely never make it to the balance sheet, are no less important: losing team members because of injury or illness, loss of business because of delays caused by the accident or the unavailability of the vehicle, replacement expenses, loss of reputation has to be considered too and the best strategy to avoid this situation is to eliminate accidents entirely.
Most companies consider accidents to be unavoidable when in truth most are simply accepting them without taking action. What can companies with large fleets of vehicles do to dramatically reduce the number of accidents they experience each year?
#1 - Select vehicles wisely: choosing the right car or van and have it fitted with the proper equipment can indeed be an excellent start. Think about road safety devices such as advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) technology, parking assistance, emergency braking, distracted driving detection systems or telematics that can detect dangerous patterns and keep an eye on the road for you.
#2 - Speed of response after a crash: this is critical to minimising costs, as delays in reporting the incident to an insurer or incident management company drastically reduce the opportunity to capture and control the third party costs.
#3 - Complete driver training with human support: collisions, aside any physical injury, do have an effect on employees morale, particularly of those involved. Make sure you consider the driver's well-being, check if they are not suffering from depression or stress because of the incident and offer your help.
To learn what steps to take to lower accident costs, see our blog post here.
