In the August issue this year Company Vehicle magazine profiled the health & safety implications for business fleets and described Crash Management as ‘critical’ for any responsible employer wanting to ensure it is fleet fit and fully compliant with the new H&S at Work Act. See more at https://companyvehicle.co.nz/article/crash-management-critical.
Any vehicle used for business purposes is deemed to be “a place of work” so fleet operations are subject to the obligations imposed by the new Act. Empolyers must take ‘all practical steps’ to address vehicle hazard and ensure the business is fleet fit. Crash Management can assist with a comprehensive range of accident prevention strategies and products. Unfortunately car accident claims can’t be completely eliminated, but our 24/7 emergency response and driver support programme will provide peace of mind at half the cost of our competitors.
There are a range of car accident prevention products and services available to help get your fleet fit:
FLEET ANALYSIS:
A full review of the fleet safety rating, age and condition, as well as its itended use and environment to determine whether it’s fit for purpose
DRIVER EVALUATION & TRAINING:
On-line models or simulators are a good place to start but unfortunately many SME and even corporate employers don’t realise they are “fleet operators” so don’t put any time or resource into vehicle use. They also fail to recognise that driving a vehicle is the most dangerous aspect of work and accounts for the highest proportion of work related injuries and deaths, with over 12,000 serious car accident injuries reported last year and almost 300 car accident fatalities. Simply sighting a driver’s licence at recruitment is no longer sufficient and employers are at risk of significant penalties if fleet vehicle use is not given sufficient health & safety priority.
TECHNOLOGY:
Guardian System – in vehicle units that detect driver fatigue or distraction activate alarms to alert the driver, and automatically trigger video recording when alarms are activated.
In vehicle cameras – the fleet operators “black box”. The device can detect and over-ride risky driving behaviour or manouvers before an accident results. These units provide video and audio records whenever a vehicle is involved in a high-risk situation including aggressive breaking or swerving. Recordings can also be used to support not-at-fault insurance claims, helps promote safer driving, and are also proven to reduce fuel use, excessive vehicle wear and tear including tyres.
GPS- also proven to improve driver behavior including speeding, and can be programmed to trigger an automated impact alert to Crash Management – the ultimate fleet fit feature, ensuring instant vehicle and location identification. This functionality is particularly relevant for lone workers or environments likely to be out of cell phone coverage, and could be a life saver in an injury accident.
DOCUMENTATION – H&S loves a paper-trail:
Vehicle Use Policy – you can’t expect drivers to comply with procedural fleet guidelines and expectations if it’s not documented and available to them!
Driver Rescue & Repatriation Plan – Your company can be fleet fit with Crash Management, fully prepared to limit the impact of vehicle hazards, and well served when accident claims and collision repairs are needed. But we’ll need to know how you would want us to treat your driver in an injury or non-driveable situation. Talk to us about a tailored plan to transport and accommodate drivers away from base or after-hours, which of your company contacts or departments we need to trigger instant alerts to in the event of injury, and what you’d like to see from our incident reporting programme.
Risk is a factor inherent any aspect of business, and we understand the risks that fleet operators face. Ensuring your company is fleet fit with Crash Management supports health & safety obligations, frees up non-productive time to focus on core business and means you can continue to be successful and profitable. You need a service partnership with an accident management provider who is expert, independent and willing to understand your business and operational requirements. That’s Crash Management approach to getting your business fleet fit. We can be trusted to understand what it takes to be prepared for the unexpected.
You can read more about Crash Management in this month’s Company Vehicle profile at https://companyvehicle.co.nz/article/crash-management-101
Talk to us about how we can get your fleet fit, compliant and operating efficiently. Or just call 0800 2CRASH for emergency accident assistance, car insurance claim facilitation, fast-tracked assessing and quality collision repair management. There will be over 4,000,000 vehicles on NZ roads this summer – please drive carefully!
Jenni J
Great publicity for a great service, well done Crash Management, I like the ‘ fleet fit ‘ descriptor too. It is indeed surprising how many organisations don’t understand the ‘vehicle as a place of work concept’ and do not treat driving as a workplace hazard or seem to care, even professional H&S Managers are guilty and fob it off as an operational problem outside their mandate. Unfortunately it’s probably take a tragedy and some case law before all fleet operators wake up.
Ken
The panelbeating industries in enough trouble without fleet services companies trying to manipulate car insurance claims down thanks. The margins insurance assessors ‘allow’ for top quality collision repairs is pathetic compared to other trades. Mechanics can charge almost double the hourly rate insurance companies will pay . At least this year has been busy with high volumes so we can work longer hours and spread our costs and hope to make a tiny profit. Driving down accident repair rates will just kill us off faster. Not helpful Crash Management.
Hans
Excellent article Crash Management, its good to see some Health & Safety focus on vehicle fleets finally , the vehicle hazard and risk to drivers has not been adequately addressed by the market despite the HSWA. I note that SafeGuard has now picked up on fleet hazard this month with a profile of the tragic incident involving the Veolia rubbish truck crash last year . Its a double tragedy that its taken an employee death and a court prosecution to highlight the importance of vehicle maintenance standards (or lack thereof). The fact that the head contractor Auckland Council got off with such a light fine is a complete miscarrage of justice though for which they should be ashamed as should Veolia, particularly the inference that the small mechanical firm was responsible for the shoddy maintenance when it was acting under instructions from the vehicle owner Truck Leasing. the fact that Truck Leasing is pursuing a defenced hearing is appalling. If Crash Management genuinely pursues the high technical standards of R&M implied then I commend your stance. The additional feature of 24/7 driver support services also fits well with the HSWA and is to be applauded. I can’t see anything similar offered by any other company in New Zealand so you must have a monopoly on the fleet health & safety solution market. Congratulations and keep up the good work!
Tui Kane
Since Crash Management raised awareness of fleet health & safety implications I managed to do a lot more research on the subject as we plan our own fleet review. I’ve found a number of relevant and very interesting case studies including British Tabbaco so thought I’d share some of their stats and objectives for reducing car accident claims and other driver safety initiatives. The BT fleet is enormous so perhaps not all details will be relevant to New Zealand vehicle fleet operators, but the concepts appear sound. Hope you enjoy the read!
Carel Aucamp, Global Category Manager of British American Tobacco (BAT) presented the BAT approach to successfully addressing safety management using telematics, at the IFMI Experts’ session in Barcelona on the 15th November 2016.
BAT operate 26,000 vehicles and motor-bikes. So, any consolidation of data on its fleet, determining the essential operating needs and successfully developing and comprehensive strategy is no mean feat. It would appear that BAT under Carel’s leadership have achieved these objectives well.
Two key areas have become the main thrust of BAT’s approach – Safety and the reduction of the Co2 output by the fleet by 48% from a base of 120 g/kg.
From the fleet data compiled regarding its global vehicle assets, BAT quickly ascertained that there are 318 accidents per year. Significantly, BAT determined that by utilising the right tools, driver training and effective processes, 50% of these accidents in the Trade Marketing Division could have been avoided altogether.
The project to effect these three requirements has been formed under the name: ‘Closing the Gap to Zero’, with the aim to ‘Mitigate vehicle related incidents’.
As with all of this vehicle project, a cross functional team has been formed to address the employees’ safety.
Carel Aucamp presented an additional phase to the IFMI attendees regarding Vehicle specification. This title included consolidating the number of OEMs, standardising the safety elements and installing telematics.
In order to achieve these objectives, BAT have formed a logical, sequential and thorough series of project stages and time deadlines. But, there is also a high level of pragmatism involved in this key stage, insomuch as the timing is set to get the work completed properly: speed of accomplishment is important, but not at the expense of a thorough job being achieved. The attendees were shown an excellent, clear and simply presented roll out plan, comprising of eight stages; the commencement having been January 2016.
In addition, BAT intend to standardise the fuel policy, achieve ‘route to market optimisation’, Global Hazard Perception training and achieve a management of the correct driving behaviour.
This entire project, with its multi layered approach would be very difficult to achieve without data. As Carel commented ‘What gets measured gets improved’So, this is where BAT’s decision to install a global telematics programme in 41 countries for around 15,000 vehicles comes into the frame of the entire project.
Big Data derived from the telematics, and the subsequent analysis of that data, will assist in establishing not only what needs to be done with the fleet, but also to measure the efficacy of the decisions made and actions taken. Via telematics British American Tobacco expects to increase fuel efficiency with 6.8%, reduce insurance premium with 8.5%, and improve route optimisation with 20% while reducing accidents and administration with 35%. In all the telematics project is set to deliver a Return on Investment of 2.65 over a 5-year period.
British Tabbaco have undertaken a thorough and efficient evaluation as to the current status of the global vehicle and motorbike fleet. It has taken some significant steps to improve the safety of the drivers, the Co2 emissions, and have committed to installing the right telematic tools to accurately measure progress
Adrian
Good briefing doc thanks Crash Management. The fleet fit concept is excellent and helps broaden thinking from vehicle health & safety compliance being focused solely on your 24/7 driver response service (excellent though it is!) into car accident prevention as well. Technology is obviously an excellent enabler of the fleet fit product/ range but in itself wll not deliver full wrap-around support to drivers to reduce the accident rate, though at least the safety net 24/7 emergency response is available when the inevitable car accident claims occur. In the past Fleet Managers have focused on the asset only, whether that be fleet fit for purpose spec, ANCAP ratings, correct vehicle fit out etc but that in itself contributes little to wider driver awareness or safety. Potentially one of the most powerful tools is your incident data, this has proven extremely inciteful to our business and would be essential to any company pursuing a meaningful fleet fit programme . Once the precise reason and circumstances of a vehicle accident is understood and multiple incidents analysed, trends are soon revealed thus allowing the Fleet Manager AND the Health & Safety Manager to work TOGETHER to identify underlying reasons causing car accident claims. Only then can appropriate remedial action be taken either at a vehicle or driver level. Our company has just embarked on the Fleet Fit journey and results are already clear. We do have some ‘driver issues’ we weren’t aware of and are now researching the market for driver assessment and/or remedial driving resources. If you have more detailed info on this subject I would be interested in any provider recommendations too.
Crash Management
Thanks for your thoughtful comments Adrian. We can partner with AutoSense, NZ’s premier driver assessment & training provider. Call us anytime to discuss the on-line modules available and/or specialised practice-based training. We’ll schedule a dedicated article soon that will profile AutoSense, who will help accelerate your fleet fit journey!