Distracted driving kills and injures every year thousands of people and professional drivers are not exempted from that. With the increasing pressure drivers suffered with the pandemic that has seen Covid-19 as an extra source of risk and distraction and with the global number of fatalies on the road caused by distraction increasing, some countries decided to strengthen measures against it. Now companies are following the example and are taking action to tackle distraction - here you have some steps you can actually take.
1. Know your enemy. Education is the first thing. Employees need to be sensitized and be aware of what is at stake: their health, their job, the reputation of their company... The driver errors mostly related with distraction are connected to cognitive distraction and blindness caused by inattention, slower times of reaction and drivers not staying in lane. Gathering information on distracted driving and sharing them with your employees, even creating ad-hoc material, can help reinforce the importance of safe driving in your staff.
2. Monitor your employees. The installation of dash-cams or vehicle telemetry is useful to prevent distracted driving. It might also help planning ahead in some cases, for example if you know your driver is on the way you won't contact him/her while he/she is driving or you won't let him/her join a meeting or a call while he/she is in transit.
3. Train employees to be safe. Offer ongoing education to your staff on the implication of distracted driving crashes, create posters and infographics to display at your headquarters, set up digital notifications of what is required, create a comprehensive distracted driving policy to break their worst dangerous driving habits.
4. Consider technology. Superior distracted driving solutions that are including AI features can give you control over employee mobile device use behind the wheel and are effective against driver fatigue and drowsy driving - don't hesitate to contact us if you want to learn more about our new collision management system.
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