Last week in Landover, Maryland, State Police conducted a surprise truck safety inspection off the Capital Beltway where hundreds of trucks were checked for safety violations. You can read the full article from the Baltimore Sun and view video and photos here.
Many vehicles were marked out-of-service and could not be moved until the violations were fixed. The article points out that some of the violations included leaking antifreeze, non-working brake lights, and frayed brake lines, to name a few. These are violations that could compromise the safety of your driver, vehicle, and those on the road around you. As a business owner, dispatcher, or fleet manager, you can only imagine the stress and havoc created by having a vehicle placed out of service for one or more days.
It brings to mind the question – what are you doing to ensure your drivers and fleet are safe every day on the road? In a down economy, it can be a hard decision to push off repairs or maintenance in favor of filling up your vehicle with fuel every day. But why be in the position to have to make those choices in the first place?
Preventative maintenance and modifying risky driver behavior can be an essential part of making sure your fleet is safe on the road. Vehicle telematics software, such as Roadnet Telematics, can help flag problems with vehicles in your fleet before they pull away from the depot. You can prevent downtime and emergency service by monitoring key performance indicators.
Addressing fleet vehicle maintenance issues before they become a larger problem will help save you time and money down the road – you can even schedule this ahead of time via mileage indicators. You can also help to minimize wear and tear on your vehicle and fuel consumption by monitoring speeding, idling, and harsh braking events while the vehicle is on the road. In addition, transportation management reporting tools can be accessed to help make sure you are in compliance with regulations, such as IFTA or FMCSA’s HOS (Hours of Service). This would help greatly if one of your drivers was pulled over for a surprise inspection. We wrote about Roadnet Telematics HOS in a February blog post.
Making sure the roads are safe every day is more than the responsibility of the US DOT and local law enforcement, its responsibility that we all hold. If you’re sending a fleet of vehicles out on the road every day – you’re sending your most valuable assets– your drivers and vehicles. Why wouldn’t you want to ensure they are safe?
