As Fleet Operators know, a primary focus is to ensure that all of your vehicles are meeting the proper standards for registrations, insurance, and inspections. Without properly managing and preparing for these issues, you may start to accrue costs that can significantly affect your fleet’s bottom line.
Preparing your fleet for registration, insurance, and inspections is an integral part of fleet safety. While fleet safety solutions drastically reduce the chances of an accident occurring, understanding compliance risks will mitigate your fleet’s losses significantly if one of your drivers are in a preventable incident
Fleet Registration
“A good safety management system can help remind you what is due and when.”
When you are renewing or adding vehicles to your fleet, ensure they meet all local, county, and state licensing requirements to avoid costly fines. To better prepare for fleet registrations, you can:
Keep Accurate Records of Assets
Be organized and compile your registration documents in one secure location. Safety management systems such as the Idelic Safety Suite can hold all your asset details in one place and automatically remind you which records are past due, urgent, or upcoming.
Plan for When to Register
Add new trucks to your fleet near the vehicle’s expiration month. You will lose any difference in registration fees if you add a vehicle prior to its expiration date. Most states allow Safety Managers to register multiple vehicles at once, which can make fleet registration renewals a relatively quick process and easier to manage.
Fleet registration details can vary state-by-state, so be sure to look at the rules exclusive to your area to ensure you are making the best, most cost-effective decisions for your fleet.
Fleet Insurance
“A proper fleet coverage plan and attention to insurance
renewal dates is a must for even the safest fleets.”
Commercial fleet insurance can undoubtedly be expensive, but the impact of being caught in a situation without it can result in significant losses. Being unprepared can result in hefty penalties for invalid insurance, full liability for any potential accidents, and even more long-term costs due to increased insurance premiums. Added costs and time-consuming litigation processes can result in forfeiting fleet assets or closing up shop if there is an inability to cover the damages incurred without fleet insurance. To properly manage your fleet insurance you can start by:
Hiring an Insurance Risk Manager
An effective way to strengthen your safety team is by having a professional that specializes in identifying potential causes of accidents or loss, recommending and implementing preventive measures, and devising plans to minimize costs and damage should a loss occur.
Choosing the Safest Drivers for Your Fleet
Before hiring new drivers, check their driver history for any preventable accidents. After onboarding, continue to follow up with your drivers to ensure they are following safety best practices. Checking in with your drivers and never missing a renewal date will prevent against substantial fees. The Idelic Safety Suite allows safety managers to keep all their driver’s pre-hire and current data in one place so you know your entire fleet is following safety best practices.
Even if your drivers aren’t getting into major accidents, officers will check for coverage for even minor violations and safety checks, and getting caught without proper fleet insurance creates serious issues.
Fleet Inspections
“Always be prepared for an inspection, even if the likelihood is slim.”
Don’t be caught unprepared for state safety inspections. Make sure your drivers adopt the following:
Ensure Proper Training and Compliance with Driver Vehicle Inspections (DVIRs)
At the beginning of each day, drivers are responsible for their trucks’ DOT pre-trip inspection and should know they are liable for any missed inspections. Keep your drivers accountable for completing these daily vehicle safety checks so they are ready for their annual or semi-annual review and will pass penalty-free.
Avoid Fines Due to Failed or Expired Vehicle Safety Inspection
An expiration can cost anywhere from $25-$50 per inspection that occurred less than 60 days ago or $50-$100 for each that hasn’t been valid for over 60 days which can become costly for your fleet over time. Some states will even prevent you from registering or renewing registration for a vehicle that does not pass proper inspections. On top of that, failing a safety inspection puts the truck temporarily out of service which will negatively affect your fleet’s bottom line.
As a Safety Manager, you are accountable for training your drivers and staying on top of expiry dates. Standardizing practices and using software to effectively track all fleet data will keep inspection fees low.
Be Prepared
A simple way to minimize a fleet’s expenses and mitigate fines, penalties, and legal issues is to be prepared. As a Safety Manager, your focus is risk management and maintaining control over your fleet and driver performance, but you also have the responsibility to ensure that your drivers are performing the necessary steps to mitigate potential losses.
If your fleet is using the Idelic Safety Suite, the Driver Watch List gives you access to a deep neural network of machine learning algorithms to predict when drivers are more prone to getting into a significant safety event. You can then assign corrective action to keep your drivers safe and insurance premiums low. You are also able to track all renewal dates on a single dashboard for total transparency of your assets. Whether or not your fleet utilizes data management and predictive analytics software, you should still protect against incidents with proper registration, insurance, and inspections of each vehicle in your fleet.
By proactively planning for risk mitigation as it relates to registration, insurance, and inspections, you are taking essential steps to ensure that your fleet is operating most efficient and safe.
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