Failure to wear seatbelts 'a massive problem'

Do your drivers always wear a seatbelt? Fleet decision-makers voiced their concerns this was still a live and ‘massive’ problem.

In-vehicle technology priorities and on-going challenges around corporate safety culture were raised by members of the Fleet200 Strategy Network at its last meeting in 2022.

Here is a selection of comments made by members.

• We’ve got a massive issue with seatbelt avoidance amongst commercial vehicle drivers. Some have bought additional belt clips to plug in and fool the sensor, some drivers have been to scrapyards for the clips. I’ve been in a 4x4 where the driver used on in front of me.
• My companies very prescriptive on what must be available as standard. So, a telematics system is one. Beyond that, we’re not specific, but accept what safety features are already fitted to the vehicle. Our priorities are quite minimal beyond requirements on Euro NCAP safety ratings for insurance reasons. We very much focus on employees driving safely, the focus on the vehicle is miniscule.
• My company had a hideous accident a few years ago - a fatality - and from that moment on every vehicle was of the highest spec, even heated seats, as well as more traditional features such as lane assist. Now, if anything new comes to market, it goes on our cars. Cost is no longer an issue. It took the incident for this business to take safety seriously, but now its focus is second to none.
• The focus should not just about what you put on the vehicle, but the person behind the wheel. Fleet policies must be aligned to ensure you’re not getting them to do anything silly.
• As an industry I believe, anecdotally, we’re seeing EVs having less crashes – and nobody knows why. It could be that the newest vehicles on the road are the safest and they get looked after better. Or EVs give drivers a little more control over the power available.
• An EV does a lot of the driving for you. There’s no gear changes, of course, and as such you can concentrate on your journey. Plus, you keep an eye on the battery regeneration and the range you have left. The eco driving mode is a safer one as you’re looking to conserve energy. We may lose this benefit as EV ranges increases.
• Safety begins in our company when the worker gets to the job. We are quite prepared for a driver to get in a vehicle with faults, without checking it, illegal tyres, wiper blades not working etc. Drivers wouldn’t accept their own vehicle in this condition, but not when they don’t own it. So, we’re putting in telematics now, which includes gamification, a light bar that alerts staff to issues, and it records the presence of maintenance faults and how long they’ve been an issue. We’ll be able to see if drivers are ignoring them. We’re also bringing in a vehicle check app to ensure drivers ensure there are no faults, do they get them fixed and are there common issues across the fleet.
• There’s no system in the world that can stop a delivery driver from getting stressed because he’s not working to his allotted schedule due to circumstances beyond his control, and they’re worried about having their pay docked.
• We’ve got speed limiters on all our vehicles, but they don’t kick in until you’re 10mph over the limit. So, we’re simultaneously saying we don’t accept speeding and yet we clearly do. And, we’re not going to address the problem, until we’ve caught you doing it.