The Most Common Fleet Accidents (And How to Avoid Them)

Operating a fleet requires constant attention to a million details. Some of them are small and easily tracked. Others are large and require custom solutions. Whether you’re dealing with automatic route optimization and planning, fleet telematics and usage optimization, proactive maintenance scheduling, or other details, you need to manage it properly to have any chance of keeping your fleet moving and your business rolling.

One of the details that can, unfortunately, slip the minds of fleet managers is accidents and accident response. Accidents happen, whether you go a million miles between them or they happen every month. Many different factors play a role, from geographic location to weather conditions to vehicle maintenance.

Part of handling these is incident response and accident management, which we’ve talked about here. Another part, though, is taking preventative measures to avoid letting those accidents happen in the first place. So, what are the most common causes of fleet accidents, and what can you do to try to avoid them?

Don’t Let Perfect Be the Enemy of Good

Before digging deep into the specific causes and options you have for mitigating those causes, it’s worth taking a moment to discuss the high-level view of accidents.

We live in a chaotic world. Millions of people take to the roads every day, and there’s an estimated 36,000+ motor vehicle accidents every day across the roads of the United States. 

It’s critical, then, to acknowledge that accidents will happen. Any driver with a long enough career will experience one, and they’re often through no fault of the driver. If you’ve ever seen dash-cam compilations of irate commuters pulling in front of commercial vehicles and brake-checking them, only to be hit, that’s a prime example. Short of not being on the road, there’s no way to avoid that kind of incident.

The goal is not to have a perfect record nor to punish drivers who encounter incidents. Sure, if it’s firmly their fault, action can be taken, but that’s a matter for well after the incident, not during or before.

Some people get it in their heads that perfect is the only option and end up refusing to take measures that end up not being perfect. The end result is an endless quest for perfection that doesn’t exist and a broadly less safe fleet along the way. Don’t let that happen to you. Many small changes can add up over time, and even if none of them are individually perfect, the results speak for themselves.

So, let’s talk about the various causes of fleet accidents, and how you can avoid them in ways both big and small.

Cause: Tired Drivers

Perhaps the single largest cause of accidents in fleet driving is drivers who are too tired. The longer you go without sleep, without proper nutrition, the slower you become. Your thoughts grow sluggish, you end up drowsy, and your reaction times get dramatically longer. What you might notice right away normally can slip by unnoticed entirely, and things you could previously react to just fine end up lost in the haze.

Drivers pushing themselves beyond their limits will inevitably end up in a collision. It’s not an if; it’s a when. That’s why there are so many laws and rules against long hours, limits on how many hours in a week a driver can drive, and stiff penalties for violations.

All the laws in the world can’t prevent a driver from making a bad decision when faced with a bad situation, though. Some of the ways you can address this include:

• Ensuring your delivery schedules are loose enough that your drivers don’t need to push their limits to make those deliveries in time.
• Giving leeway between trips for a driver to rest and recuperate.
• Encouraging lengthy breaks as necessary through flexible scheduling so that a driver who recognizes the need to stop for a nap or snack can do so without feeling like they’re going to miss critical deadlines in doing so.
• Ensure you have enough drivers to cover all of your deliveries without forcing too much work out of any of them.

The federal government has rules about how long a driver can spend on the road at a time and what their hours can be, but you should view these as an upper limit, not a goal to be reached. The more leeway and flexibility you have for your drivers, the less likely they are to end up in a dangerous situation.

Cause: Distracted Driving

Distracted driving is very likely the greatest cause of motor vehicle collisions in the United States as a whole, taking non-commercial vehicles into account. While there’s nothing your drivers can do except remain vigilant when drivers around them are distracted, it’s imperative that they do not become distracted themselves.

Distracted driving can take many forms. Talking on the phone, eating, interacting with a navigation computer or tablet, texting, or worse; there are many different actions that are both readily available to drivers via the use of cell phones, and incredibly dangerous.

Preventing distracted driving comes down to a few key points.

First, make sure your drivers have as few reasons as possible to interact with things like their navigation computers while on the road. Data should be fed and controlled as automatically as possible to avoid the need.

Make sure your drivers have time to stop and eat when necessary so they aren’t rushing to eat while driving, which is another primary distraction. Ideally, even something as simple as a sip of coffee can be avoided while behind the wheel.

One of the biggest ways to prevent an accident stemming from distracted driving is to train your drivers on what it means and what not to do. It’s not very useful to say, “don’t drive distracted,” when you don’t explain what constitutes a distraction, after all.

It can be tempting to use a monitoring solution to enforce company rules about distracted driving. Amazon, for example, has experimented with monitoring systems for drivers to detect if they’re driving distracted. They’ve faced serious criticism for it, and there’s not a lot of evidence that it’s very effective. More importantly, though, it’s highly intrusive, uncomfortable, and a potential violation of legal privacy. While you can get around some of this by requiring consent to install the systems, it’s still a technological solution to a human problem.

It also goes without saying that certain kinds of distracted driving – such as driving under the influence of a drug or alcohol – are not just incredibly dangerous but illegal to boot. While we generally advocate for fair treatment of drivers, especially when accidents aren’t their fault, if a driver is caught violating a law and endangering others on the road, there should be zero tolerance. Strict policies and enforcement for lawbreaking are required for smooth operation.

Cause: Reckless Driving

Unlike distracted driving, reckless driving is more easily monitored. You can check to see if your vehicles are:

• Accelerating rapidly.
• Decelerating rapidly.
• Changing lanes aggressively.
• Speeding above legal and safety limits.

Vehicle telematics can monitor this. Moreover, some can even be controlled, such as by using speed governors to prevent a vehicle from maintaining too high a speed. Forward-facing cameras can also catch tailgating and lane changing in ways that aren’t intrusive to the driver line cab-facing cameras are.

Reckless driving can also include other issues, such as tailgating the vehicle in front of them, running red lights and stop signs, and even behavioral problems like failure to yield, failure to use turn signals, and failure to check blind spots.

Driver training programs, including refresher safety courses, can be a big help here. You may want to go above and beyond the courses required to earn a CDL in the first place just to ensure proper compliance.

Cause: Equipment Failure

Another common cause of accidents is an unexpected equipment failure. Equipment failures can range from tire blow-outs to engine overheating to catastrophic failures that render a vehicle entirely inoperable. 

In the best case scenarios, a sudden and unexpected failure is still not going to cause an accident. A driver can recognize the problem and pull over safely. Even in extreme cases, like brake failures on steep mountain roads, there are solutions. 

The solution here encompasses two aspects of the problem.

The first is the driver. Your drivers must be trained on how to handle an unexpected situation. While there aren’t many ways to simulate a catastrophic failure, you can still drill them with the right way to handle a breakdown, flat tire, or other problem. Even just having a policy and a procedure for dealing with any issues that arise can be enough.

The second is the vehicle. It’s critical to keep all of your fleet vehicles well-maintained. Checking tire wear, oil levels, filters and fluids, even the soundness of joints and welds can all be important to review. Schedule regular proactive maintenance to have your vehicles inspected and have maintenance tasks performed, and to identify and address potential longer-term issues that could arise.

It’s important not to defer maintenance because of the expense or the scheduling constraints involved. Schedules can be shuffled, and you can offset inspections by a week or so, but make sure to keep mileage in mind as well. 

Further, sometimes you’ll reach a point where you have to decide between a new vehicle or a costly repair. This can be an important situation to consider all of the possible options, including different kinds of leasing, the financing you have available, your potential future needs, and even the benefits that come from a newer and more updated vehicle model. There’s no one right answer to this decision, so evaluate it in the context of your fleet and your business needs.

Cause: Inclement Weather

Another common cause of fleet accidents is inclement weather. Driving rain that makes visibility low and raises oils on the road to reduce traction. Snow and ice have the same effect, but worse. High winds that can blow a laden truck off-course. There are many ways that weather can get in the way of successful operation and lead to accidents.

This, again, comes down to two factors: the driver and the vehicle. Drivers need experience and training on how to operate their vehicles in inclement weather, which generally simply requires driving in it, alongside general rules on how to handle those situations. It’s not hard to say simple tips like driving more slowly and carefully, but when a vehicle completely loses traction, how do they handle it? There are specific techniques that can be learned.

In part, though, it simply comes down to avoiding it if possible. If the weather is bad enough, sometimes the best option is to pull over or off the highway entirely and wait it out. This also goes back to scheduling to allow extra leeway, especially if hazardous weather is incoming.

To help facilitate this, many modern fleet management platforms have options to tap into weather feeds to give you real-time alerts for incoming and hazardous weather, which you can pass along to your drivers as appropriate. When you’re shopping for a fleet management app, make sure to keep this kind of functionality in mind.

Keeping your vehicles in good shape is also essential. You have better traction on better tires, and your brakes work better when they aren’t worn down. Even something like maintaining lights can be essential in lower-visibility conditions. Sooner or later, it all comes back to maintenance.

That’s a big part of why we’ve put together our nationwide network of service providers for fleets. From the first mile you drive a truck off a lot, to the millionth mile of service, we’re here to help make sure your vehicles are kept in top condition along the way. A variety of brands under our banner, including the ones listed here, are available to work with your fleet anywhere you might be. All you need to do to get started is find a service provider near you.

• Category: Blog