Fleet safety

National Safety Council. Motor Fleet Safety Manual, 3rd edn. Itasca, IL NSC, 1986. 

Accident/Incident Prevention Techniques. New York, NY Taylor Francis, 2001. 

Eidson. Handbook of OSHA Construction Safety Health, 2nd edn. Boca Raton, FL CRC/Taylor Francis, 2006. 

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Fleet safety management is critical to maintaining a competitive edge and a healthy bottom line. Use the ideas, strategies, concepts, and industry best practices provided in this manual to help achieve both. 

Maintain an up-to-date corporate safety reference/training library and other fleet safety resource materials. 

Who at the company is responsible for compliance with FMCS A regulations, document retention, driver qualification and personnel files, driver training, driver discipline, driver termination, log auditing, fleet safety, fleet operations, and vehicle maintenance ... 

Should a fleet safety meeting for all drivers be set up to address this specific issue ... 

The concept of a preventable accident is a fleet safety management tool which achieves the following goals ... 

It provides a means for monitoring the effectiveness of fleet safety programs. 

Is the carrier s standard for safe driving performance sufficiently challenging such that it would serve to highlight areas for fleet safety improvement ... 

Objective To improve motor carrier fleet safety by recruiting qualified drivers and monitoring the performance and qualifications of existing drivers. 

Description The great majority of preventable accidents can be shown to be directly related to the performance of the driver. It is therefore extremely productive to any fleet safety program to have careful new driver selection and adequate monitoring procedures for existing drivers. 

Objective To improve fleet safety by remedial training or termination of unquahfied drivers. 

Objective To improve safe driving performance with an effective fleet safety program. 

Description Fleet safe driving performance is dependent on management commitment to the implementation of a formal fleet safety program. An effective safety program will interact with most aspects of fleet operations and challenge the skills and knowledge of its supervisors and drivers. 

Does your fleet safety program provide the framework for safety management to ... 

Does the manual describe the fleet safety program ... 

Advanced techniques and practices (e.g., awareness, observation, spacing, etc.), used by drivers to protect themselves from the errors of other drivers, unsafe road conditions, and adverse weather conditions that increase driving hazards. The National Safety Council (NSC) launched the first Defensive Driving Course, adapted from techniques used by professional drivers in 1964. Since then, the NSC has trained more than 60 million drivers and today offers more than 25 different defensive driving and fleet safety courses. The NSC offers more courses with the highest success rate in reducing the number and severity of collisions and their related costs than any other driver training provider. 

Management support Leaders provide the direction for safety efforts. The development of a safety policy by senio management should address the expectations of all drivers. Management involvement and support remains the most important aspect of the fleet safety. 

What percentage of all IAQ problems result from insufficient or ineffective ventilation Describe the basic OSHA training requirements for operators of powered industrial trucks. List the key elements of a fleet safety management function. 

Della-Giustina, D. Motor Fleet Safety and Security Management. Boca Raton, FL CRC Press, 2004. 

Motor Fleet Safety Manual, 5th ed.. National Safety Council, Chicago, IL, 2010. 

Christine, Brian. Benchmarking to improve fleet safety. Risk Management. 41(2) 57-58. 

The key challenge concerned the manner in which safety could be demonstrated. Essentially this stemmed from the legacy nature of the platforms. Due to the age of the platform, safety evidence of the type expected today was not available. This meant that safety decisions were always being made on a case-by-case basis, involving the examination of evidence as it could be determined - rather than by recourse to some underlying whole platform analysis. The consequence of this is that whilst individual safety decisions could be assured as sound, there was a risk that whole fleet safety margins were being eroded. 

Fleet safety is often viewed as operator safety, which is definitely a key component of a company s attempt to protect its large dollar investment in vehicles and mobile equipment. It goes without saying that many of the accidents that occur are a direct result of driver error. But driver error is not the fault of the individual. It is the fault of management s failure to institute a fleet safety program that provides organization, direction, and accountability for the fleet of vehicles that the company owns. 

Commitment to a fleet safety program communicates the value that the company places on their property and employees. The care given to both vehicles/equipment and employees conveys the company s true view of the value of accident prevention. 

A fleet safety program should consist of the following ... 

Fleet safety may be viewed as vehicle safety or mechanical safety, but this type of safety depends on both maintenance and operators. An operator s job must include pre-operation inspections and, upon completing his or her use of the vehicle, the reporting of any defects. This should be normal operating procedure for any preventive maintenance program. Nevertheless, what you can expect depends on the quality of your operators. Operators are the center of your fleet safety program. 

Thus, in a fleet safety program, it is important to select the best operators for the job. The operator is vital to the prevention of accidents, incidents, vehicle damage. 

FIGURE 16.3 Qualified, trained, and safe drivers are the key to fleet safety. 

Operators shonld be observed and evalnated on a periodic basis, retrained if necessary, and supervised more closely. If you are sure that your vehicles are in proper and safe operating condition, yonr operators then become the key to your fleet safety program. Good, conscientious operators can prevent accidents from occurring they are the focus of your fleet safety program. 

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