Health and safety awareness are important aspects to keep on to off, whatever type of business you run, and if you provide a company car to some of your workers, it is equally important to extend safety awareness to those that are behind the wheel for business purposes.
Tate Law Offices PC, a car accident attorney in Dallas, are accustomed to handling claims resulting from injuries sustained as a result of a vehicle collision, but of course, it would be better if the drivers of your business vehicles avoided an incident in the first place, as a result of increased safety awareness.
Managing risk
Your business will have some fundamental aims when it comes to company vehicles, which is to prevent accidents occurring and to provide safety awareness training that will help to protect your employees and the vehicles they are traveling in.
When formulating a company policy that helps you to manage risk as best as possible, there should be some mandatory rules that simply have to be followed at all times.
A good starting point would be to ensure that you introduce mandatory seat belt use. Virtually every state in the US has a seat belt law, so you will need to ensure compliance anyway, but there is no doubt that seat belt use does help to prevent unnecessary deaths on our roads reduce the amount of injuries, so make sure your employees wear a seat belt at all times.
No alcohol
Workers should not be intoxicated in the workplace period, but there should ideally be a zero tolerance policy regarding alcohol consumption and company vehicle drivers.
Just one alcoholic beverage can affect and impair a driver’s reaction times and awareness of conditions around them. Ensure that your employees understand that they must not drink or use any other intoxicants prior to getting behind the wheel of one of your vehicles.
Distracted driving
Distracted driving is a major issue and is a leading cause of death and injuries.
Even if your employee is driving a vehicle during business hours and may need to be contacted for any reason, they should be aware that cell phone use is not permitted while they are driving.
To ensure greater safety and to prevent one of your employees becoming a distracted driving statistic, make sure that employees are aware that taking calls or texting while driving is prohibited.
Cost benefits to safer driving
As well as enjoying a greater peace of mind that you have done what you can to promote safety awareness amongst your company car drivers, there is actually the added bonus of a cost benefit to your business.
It is estimated that company car crashes cost employers about $60 billion, when you add up medical and legal expenses, property damage and lost productivity, as well as other factors. If you actively promote safer driving practices and a greater level of awareness of the risks they face behind the wheel, there is every chance that you can improve your bottom line.
Safety should always be a priority when you are employing people and if you can make your company car drivers as safe as possible, it should benefit everyone in a number of ways.
Aidan Cooke has worked as a fleet manager for the past few years, and as a car fanatic really enjoys his job to keep all the vehicles in top condition and on the road. In his spare time you’ll find him writing articles or attending track meetings.
There are many different types of company vehicles. It is very important if an employee is entrusted with driving one in some capacity – that they be given policies up front right away. I would also recommend discussing a smoking policy in regards to the vehicle as well – I am not sure that a company would want the vehicle smelling of smoke. Great tips, thanks for sharing!
Prioritizing the safety of your personnel can keep them from leaving the job because of work-related illness, keeping financial losses secondary to lack of skilled workers at a minimum.
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Employers who take measures to keep their workers safe are also more likely to earn the loyalty of employees, and as such, highly valuable skilled workers are less likely to leave and transfer to other companies.
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Risk assessments must be recorded with actions agreed to control and minimize identified risks (and in a timely manner). Employees must be made aware of risks and any procedures implemented to ensure personal safety, including the use of personal protective equipment.
In case you have someone close to you having problems with DUI, call us 🙂 It is really a legal problem all in all when you get caught intoxicated
Glad you bring this topic up!