2020 has shown fleet safety is more important – and challenging – than ever. It has never been more important to ensure first-rate driver performance. COVID and lockdown subjected the parcels, distribution and haulage sectors to enormous pressures, including new ways of working, social distancing, contactless deliveries, and unpredictable but often surging volumes. These stresses have also affected every sector where employees drive in the course of their job.

Workforces everywhere have been depleted through shielding, sickness or self-isolation. Whilst the driver pools have reduced, the demand for home delivery has increased substantially. Deliveroo is expanding to 100 new towns and cities across the UK to reach a potential 4 million new customers. Laundries, pharmacies, local specialist retailers and restaurants are all turning to delivery platforms to survive – all of which makes the roads more congested with commercial vehicles in urban areas. See a detailed overview of the 2020 growth in e-commerce here.

While we can’t know the future, the government are already suggesting that the 2021 lockdown will continue past February. Overall it is unlikely that many of these pressures on logistics and delivery will reverse.

Fleet managers should also take into account the long term psychological pressures, on staff and the public, of pandemic uncertainty, broken routines, money worries and the difficulties of juggling home-schooled children and jobs. We’ve all lived with rapid change and ever-shifting rules for 12 months, meaning no one has been able to settle into a routine, or make any lasting adaptations. This panoply of anxieties affects our ability to focus, to form short-term memories, and to process the many things happening around us. Remember, that isn’t just a problem for drivers but for all the vulnerable road users around them who may also not be functioning quite as attentively as before.

How do we ensure that none of these stresses impact the safe running of our fleets?
By taking fleet safety to the next level.

 At SmartDrive Systems, we capture video footage from outside commercial vehicles and inside the cab, saving 20 seconds of footage of significant incidents. We analyse and risk score all the data in line with individual fleets’ operating policies, and feed that back to our clients in simple, actionable, proactive coaching insights.

In this blog series we will walk you through:

• the different types of fleet safety interventions available
• why you are probably only looking at half the data available to you
• the benefits and advantages of a managed video safety system
• our unparalleled knowledge of collision risk factors, based on over 300 million incidents
• and how your fleet can embark on a real journey towards zero collisions

We all know that improvements in industrial safety come from data collection, objective analysis and the implementation of actionable findings. Road safety is the same – and we will show you how.

Join us on the road to Next Level Fleet Safety.