Slam the Brakes on Speeding in Your Fleet

Every fleet manager has had them, the drivers that must be tying bricks to their feet as they zoom around their job sites. Speeding is a serious problem among fleet drivers and isn’t just costly for businesses, it can cost people their lives.

Speeding isn’t worth the risk for gains of a minute or two that might be lost due to traffic or traffic signs and lights, and it isn’t worth breaking the law over.

Reducing speeding incidents in your fleet also helps you save on fuel costs as the U.S. Department of Energy found that gas mileage decreases rapidly at speeds above 50 mph, and aggressive driving behaviors can lower gas mileage by up to 30% at highway speeds, and up to 40% in stop-and-go traffic. That’s a lot of wasted fuel for minuscule time savings.

Start saving lives, reducing fines, and improve fuel efficiency in your fleet by stopping drivers from speeding. Let’s review four ways to stop speeding in your fleet and keep your drivers and others on the road safe.

A four-step approach to stopping speeding in your fleet

Leadership support

Like any part of a business’ culture, safety as a priority has to start at the top. The leadership team and managers have to be on board with safety policies and procedures and take responsibility for making sure everyone follows them.

A safety-focused leadership shows that it’s a company-wide effort to reduce accidents and that everyone has a role to play in following policy.

Safety campaign

Next, you should launch a safety campaign focused on speeding. You could have special driver training, create a presentation with the help of a safety committee that identifies common areas where drivers speed or addresses why they feel they need to speed on the job, or simply reward drivers who go a certain length of time without speeding violations on their driver scorecards.

Telematics

Use your telematics to your advantage by tracking driver behaviors and setting up alerts for real-time visibility into speeding violations. Like with the safety campaign, you can gamify scorecard results and use reports to make having a perfect safety record a goal every driver wants to achieve.

Speed limiters

Finally, you could invest in engine calibrations that stop speeding events from happening in the first place. Speed limiters are a common engine calibration we help our customers with so that no driver, no matter how hard they’re pushing the gas pedal, can go above a specified speed limit. Instead of managing your drivers, manage the vehicle itself to reduce on-the-road risks.

With Derive VQ, you can get two safety solutions for the price of one! Our approach lets you pick and choose which fleet management tools you need most out of telematics, calibrations, and Active Vehicle Management features. Combine all three for an innovative, integrated approach to managing your fleet’s safety, productivity, and sustainability.

Need help addressing other safety problems in your fleet? Download our new, free safety ebook!