Traffic laws and vehicle safety technology have improved immensely over the past few years, but accidents still happen all the time.
Even if you follow the rules of the road and drive carefully, you might not be able to avoid an accident, as accidents can be caused by other drivers. It’s not in your control.
There are things you can do, though, to reduce the odds that you’ll get into a collision. These tips are especially useful for courier services, telecom companies, and all other businesses that regularly send staff out into the field.
Avoid Accident-Prone Areas
There are probably spots in your service area that are more accident-prone than others, such as busy intersections or rural roads with lots of hairpin turns.
You’ll be better off avoiding these areas entirely, but figuring out how to do that can be complicated.
Routing optimization software can handle this complex task for you. All you need to do is draw a boundary around the areas you want to avoid, and the software will take that information and show you the most efficient way to visit your stops while avoiding those areas.
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Keep An Eye On Your Field Employees
One of the biggest problems with managing field employees is that you don’t know where they are. You can’t see them. And they know you can’t see them, which means they know they can get away with taking extra breaks or running personal errands while they’re on the clock.
Then, they’ll need to break the speed limit in order to make up for all that slacking off and stay on schedule.
This is why you need your routing optimization software to have a GPS tracking feature. That way, you can see where your field employees are and how fast they’re going in real-time. If an employee starts speeding, you’ll know about it right away. You can call them up and tell them to stop immediately.
Offer Safety Training Courses
The following eight training courses will drastically improve the driving behavior of your field employees:
- Basic Vehicle Maneuvers
- Collision Prevention
- Driver Readiness
- External Risk Factors
- Intersections
- Managing Risk
- Signs and Signals
- Substance Impaired Driving
But you should do more than just give your field employees access to training courses. You should also personalize the training material according to each employee’s needs, monitor their progress, and confirm that they’re learning what they need to learn. For that, you need Predictive Coach.
Predictive Coach makes it easy to manage your training process. It detects the actions that you want to prevent, such as speeding, swerving, and sudden acceleration. Then, it uses this information to automatically assign relevant training lessons to the field employees that need them. And with Predictive Coach’s comprehensive dashboard and reports, you’ll get a complete picture of how everyone is progressing through their training.
Use Tracking Data To Your Advantage
In addition to helping you stop your drivers from speeding, GPS tracking allows you to learn more about your business. For example, you can use it to figure out how effective your fuel efficiency techniques are.
Tracking data can be used to give your field employees an incentive to drive more carefully as well. Such data will show you how often each field employee breaks the speed limit, how often they take a turn too fast, etc. It gives you the information you need to know which of your employees deserve rewards, such as gift cards or raises, for being the most cautious.
Also, tracking data makes it easier to stay on top of vehicle maintenance, so your field employees will be able to avoid breaking down in the middle of the road.
What have you been doing to minimize accidents? Do you have any questions about this article? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below.
Finally, answering these three questions correctly will confirm that you understand how route optimization software prevents accidents:
- How does routing optimization software improve safety?
- How can you make sure that your field employees avoid accident-prone areas?
- What incentives can you use to motivate your field employees to drive cautiously?
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