Category: Safety

Whether we like to admit it or not, winter is coming, and it’s important that we be prepared. Some parts of North America have already started experiencing heavy snowfall.

It’s crucial we do everything we can to keep our roads as safe as possible throughout the winter months.

Check out these 10 tips to follow to stay safe this winter.

1. 1. Create a ‘Survival Kit’
      Your kit should contain items such as: booster cables, small shovel, gloves, snow brush, windshield wiper fluid, first aid kit, torch, safety vest, candles, water bottles and non-perishable energy foods. Keep this kit located in the trunk of your car.
   2. Check Weather & Road Conditions Often
      Choose your route ahead of time and check the forecast to make sure you know what you can expect before you hit the road.
   3. Allow for Safe Distance Behind Snow Plows
      If you get caught behind a snow plow, keep a safe distance. Snow plow drivers don’t always have the greatest visibility and often create snow clouds that can reduce your visibility.
   4. Get Winter Tires!
      They provide much better handling, braking and traction; they can also shorten your braking distance by as much as 25%. All-season tires are not equivalent to winter tires. They can lose their grip if the temperature drops below 7 degrees Celsius.
   5. Slow Down; Give Yourself Extra Travel Time
      This one is quite obvious and very important. Always drive according to the conditions of the road and do not rely on the estimated time of arrival your GPS gives you.
   6. Clear Ice & Snow From Your Vehicle
      Clean all mirrors, windows, lights and the roof; wait for foggy windows to clear up completely so your visibility isn’t effected.
   7. Wear Comfortable Clothes
      It’s normally a good idea to layer up in the winter but having too many layers can be restricting on your movement and make it hard to check your blind spots.
   8. Keep Your Gas Tank Full
      It helps to reduce moisture in the fuel system and also adds some extra weight to slow your vehicle down faster.
   9. Avoid Using Cruise Control
      You can easily lose control of your vehicle in bad weather by relying on cruise control. If driving conditions are very poor, or if there is a serious blizzard or ice storm, it’s best to avoid driving completely.
   10. Learn The Best Way to Recover From a Skid in Your Vehicle
       How your vehicle will respond to a skid depends on whether or not it has front wheel, rear wheel, or 4-wheel drive. If your vehicle has ABS brakes (anti-lock braking system), you should learn how to use it properly.

Source:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/11-tips-to-prepare-you-for-winter-driving-safely-1.3310894

Image: “Coming plow (8413903563)” by Oregon Department of Transportation – Uploaded by Smallman12q. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

For fleets, focusing on safety means more than reducing personal injury or eliminating the potential for vehicle damage. Safety behind the wheel can result in many direct and indirect benefits for your fleet.

MyGeotab, our easy to use fleet management software, has easy to setup driving rules that help fleets monitor unsafe driving behaviors. These rules are easy to configure and can be turned on or off with a simple mouse click. Manage seatbelt usage, speeding, harsh braking and more. Watch this video to find out how you can use GPS telematics technology to improve fleet and driver safety.

Start improving the safety of your fleet, contact a fleet consultant today!
1-888-998-1122 | [email protected]

Tires are often overlooked and forgotten when it comes to passenger vehicles. Not only do they have an affect on the mileage of the vehicle but also on the overall safety of the vehicle.

Let’s take a look at a few tips from Automotive Fleet that will help you & other fleet managers ensure proper tire safety on a passenger cars:

Tip #1: Understand how to properly inspect a tire.
Before heading out on the road, drivers should inspect all four car tires for any damage, including nails. Also look at the tread depth and tire inflation.

Tip #2: Understand how to check the tire pressure.
Yes, many vehicles today may already come equipped with a tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) but it’s important drivers still know how to properly check tire pressure and where to find the OEM’s recommended tire pressure rating. Tires can lose up to one psi per month under regular conditions and an addition one psi for every 10°F drop in temperature.

Tip #3: Get periodic tire maintenance.
Take the car in for regular tire rotations, alignment and balancing to help evenly spread tire wear and to provide another check for any damage. Our software offers the option to add in scheduled maintenance reminders so you’ll never miss tire maintenance and keep your vehicles in the safest condition.

Tip #4: Check the tread depth on tires frequently.
There are a couple easy and fast ways to check the tread depth on tires; use a small tool specifically made for the job, or a penny can work fine just to eyeball any problems. If any part of Abe Lincoln’s head is covered up by tire tread, that’s a sign you are safe and good to go!

Tip #5: Know how to read a tire’s sidewall.
This skill allows a quick check to know if on a specific vehicle type, the right tire is being used.

Source:
Author Lauren Fletcher in Automotive Fleet: Keeping Passenger Car Tires Safe

Basic Recipe to Fleet Safety

Companies use countless tactics to enforce fleet safety and promote positive driving behaviours but the question remains: are your drivers actually listening? Fleet safety is on the radar making management more sensitive to enforcing safety policies due to lawsuits or fleet-related fatalities caused by distracted driving. Safety is a growing concern within all industries and with advancements in technology, cars today are as safe as they can be. Equipped with crash avoidance systems, automatic parking control and other features there is no doubt that vehicles today have evolved and become much safer. Yet, as much as these systems are promising there is no better safety feature than the driver themselves.

According to Automotive Fleet, 25-30 percent of all fleet-related accidents are a result of distracted driving; vehicle accidents represent about 14% of total fleet expenses. Although, these figures should probably be higher since it does not take into account additional costs such as downtime, lost employee productivity and liability exposure. It does show that distracted driving can in fact become a nuisance for fleet companies.

What Should You Be Doing?

It is already established that companies regularly send internal newsletters with tips and strategies about safe driving. A few even have fleet management software to encourage positive driving habits in real time but a more compassionate solution to fleet safety might just be getting to know your drivers.

Gain Driver Buy in

Fleet management software comes close to resolving the problems with encouraging positive driving behaviours but teaching might bring forth different results. Informing your drivers about the benefits of fleet management software’s and sharing savings should be distributed to all staff members so they feel motivated. Some drivers might just see the solution as a device that monitors their driving behaviours instead of a beneficial solution; it’s important to be clear about how the company plans to gain from this change with greater profits or reduced costs before actually implementing the solution without their knowledge.

Invest in your Drivers

It is important to make drivers feel like they are an added value to your organization and the best way to minimizing distracted driving is to make sure your drivers feel important. This will require a period of induction training coupled with on-going development; but by making an investment in your drivers, you’ll be demonstrating respect and appreciation and this often goes a long way. Training programs can include driver development processes; a good example would be graduate certificates from bronze to silver to gold standard drivers. The progression can be award based on training level completed to complement fleet safety.

Communicate

Communication is always key and although safe driving is a known fact it is important to reiterate the significance of safe driver behaviours and how positive habits can help reduce costs but more so minimize the number of collisions in the first place. Making your employees feel like they are part of the solution might give them a sense of responsibility.

Reward

Safe driving recognition or incentive reward programs reinforce good driving performance. These programs can be generated within the company and awards can range from a monetary prize, gift certificates and newsletter announcements to appreciation gear. GoFleet’s telematics devices are capable of generating reports that easily rank driver performances (Driver Score Card Report). Giving your drivers a benchmark, and rewarding them for their improvements is beneficial, what gets recognized gets repeated.

 

1-888-998-1122 | [email protected]

 

Source:
Automotive Fleet: Implementing a Single Strategy to Improve Driver Safety & Lower Fuel Spend

Seatbelt Data Reporting

Seatbelt information is very important to many of GoFleet’s customers yet it is not always as easy to retrieve as one may think.

Seatbelt data isn’t mandated by OBD-II specifications
Different vehicle years, makes, and models can all report seatbelt data differently. Geotab goes the extra mile because of this, to acquire seatbelt information. The plug-and-play GO device uses an intricate detection and verification algorithm to tackle these difficulties to be able to cater to as many vehicles as possible. The GO device will report all data it thinks is seatbelt data but only the data that passes the verification process will be used as seatbelt reporting data in My.Geotab.

Obtaining Seatbelt Data
It may seem seatbelt data should be very straightforward to report since there are only two different states, unbuckled or buckled, but it isn’t! Some of the complexities include:

• Seatbelt data is proprietary, meaning different makes and models report data in different locations through different Parameter IDs (also known as pids, code used to request engine data). Where one car may report seatbelt data another car may report an open door.
• Sometimes seatbelt data is voluntarily broadcasted, while at other times data needs to be requested from the engine computer; sometimes data is only reported once when the state is changed. The GO device needs to have the ability to process all different circumstances the seatbelt data is presented in.
• Seatbelt data can be very “bouncy” as it tends to jump around for the first few seconds of start-up before it settles to the correct value. One would not expect 20+ buckled and unbuckled events within the first few seconds of ignition on! The GO device must determine this is the correct seatbelt data once it settles.
• Some drivers fail to use a seatbelt, while others use it in an abnormal manner, for example taking it off in the middle of a trip. Taking into account abnormal driver behaviour also makes it challenging for the GO device to verify seatbelt data.

Detecting and Verifying Seatbelt Data
The following describes the different stages the GO device goes through in the seatbelt detection process to be an “all in one” solution:

• Scan through the broadcasted data and try each of the different seatbelt requests.
• Once the GO device has identified all possible seatbelt data, it then detects if it is in fact seatbelt data, and not other pieces of data such as the driver door being opened.
  • If it is incorrect data, the device will skip it and return to search for other data that could be seatbelt
• Account for different random seatbelt events such as:
  • Drivers unbuckling their seatbelt after ignition off
  • Drivers unbuckling to deliver a package but leaving the ignition turned on
  • Drivers unbuckling at high speeds to reach something out of their pockets
  • Drivers unbuckling before coming to a full stop
  • Drivers buckling up before ignition is turned on

One can surely speculate how the list can go on and on for different driver behaviors. Geotab’s detection system looks deeper into these events to verify seatbelt data before it starts being reported to you, the customer. The GO device processes when unbuckled and buckled events occur during the trip and use other pieces of engine data before the device decides how likely that this piece of data truly is seatbelt data.

Next Steps
Geotab is constantly adding new seatbelt data for more and more years, makes and models. The detection and verification process is continuously being updated to account for new seatbelt information and the different ways seatbelt can behave in vehicles.

Original Article Written by: Paul Ciolek, Junior Systems Developer at Geotab
http://www.geotab.com/blog/reporting-seatbelt-data-not-easy-buckling-seatbelt/

Increase Driver Safety With Driver Coaching

GoFleet’s driver coaching not only has a significant impact on fuel economy, it also greatly increases driver safety. Drivers often do not realize that they are driving in an unsafe manner. They are just trying to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. Drivers encounter many distractions that have their minds on other things other than on the road. Audible driver coaching provides beeps that will alert the driver when they are driving unsafely. The alert gives the driver an opportunity to change their driving behavior as soon as they become aware of the way they were driving.

Driver coaching provides audible beeps to alert your drivers when they are speeding, accelerating rapidly, harsh breaking or idling excessively. You need to explain to your drivers how GoFleet’s driver coaching works. Educate your drivers on the importance of driving safely. Additionally, adopt a company culture of safety. Target measurable improvements that will be measured on the weekly Driver Scorecard Report. The weekly results should be shared with all of your drivers.

Make sure your drivers understand that the driver coaching will alert them when they hit a specific speed, accelerate rapidly, break harshly or idle excessively. Over time, your drivers will automatically drive in a safe manner the moment they hear a warning beep. They will start to notice that they are driving safely every time they drive because they vary rarely receive a driver coaching beep.

Increasing your driver safety will keep your drivers safe, reduce the risk of accidents, keep other drivers on the road safe and increase the life of your vehicles. You can use driver coaching to progressively change your drivers’ behaviors. For example, you can start with audible beeps when your drivers drive 10 miles over the speed limit and then reduce it to 7 miles and then to 5 miles. This will help ease your drivers into driving in a safe manner.

For more information about GoFleet and how driver coaching can greatly increase driver safety at your company, Contact Us.

Stay Safe With Winter Driving Tips

The winter months can prove challenging for drivers. This is because the weather is often unpredictable which places additional demands on your driving skills and vehicle. Safety needs to be a top priority for motorists. You need to make sure you are prepared for the roads this winter by following these winter driving tips. Depending on the weather and road conditions, you need to be ready to adjust your speed accordingly.

Make Sure Your Vehicle Is Ready For Winter

Before winter, take your vehicle in for a maintenance check-up. Do not wait until winter-time to check your battery, tires, belts, radiator, hoses, lights, oil, brakes, heater/defroster, exhaust system, ignition system and wipers.

In addition to having your tires checked before winter, make sure to check the pressure of the tires frequently. The pressure naturally decreases when the weather gets colder. If you live in heavy snow areas that are prone to frosty, slushy and icy conditions, you should consider using winter tires.

Also, it is important that you keep your tank at least half full at all times during the winter. You should also have a sufficient amount of windshield washer fluid in your vehicle’s reservoir.

Keep A Winter Survival Driving Kit

Having essential winter supplies in your vehicle can provide safety and comfort if you and your passengers get stranded. This is one of the easiest winter driving tips; however, it is often overlooked.

Essential supplies include:

• Shovel
• Ice snowbrush/scraper
• Sand (or another type of traction aid)
• Tow chain or rope
• Booster cables
• Warning lights or road flares
• Fuel line antifreeze
• Batteries
• Flashlight
• Fire extinguisher
• First aid kit
• Small tool kit
• Blanket
• Extra footwear and clothing
• Candle
• Lighter or matches
• Non-perishable foods such as soup, juice, bottled water, granola and/or chocolate

Be Prepared

Before you start driving, check the road and weather conditions and plan your route. You may need to give yourself extra travel time or wait until the conditions improve. If you are going to be traveling a longer distance, it is a good idea to let someone know where you are going and when you expect to arrive.

How To Handle Your Vehicle

Skidding

A skid is when the wheels on your vehicle lose traction when driving on a slippery road. When your vehicle is skidding, you can regain control of your vehicle by steering in the direction you are skidding. Steer in the direction you want the vehicle to go. Be cautious not to oversteer. When you are skidding on ice or in a straight line, you must step on the clutch or shift the vehicle into neutral.

Cruise Control

When people think of common winter driving tips, they don’t usually think about the danger of using their cruise control. When you are driving on wet, icy or snowy roads, you must avoid using your cruise control; these weather conditions can cause the vehicle to accelerate unpredictably. It can reduce your reaction time and your ability to control the vehicle.

Distance Between Vehicles

Remember it takes longer to stop on a wet, snowy, icy or slippery road. Make sure to leave plenty of space between your vehicle and the vehicle ahead of you. Under normal weather conditions, a good rule for stopping is the two-second rule. When weather conditions are poor, drivers should double the distance between vehicles.

What Is The Two-Second Rule?

Use a marker on the road such as a road sign. Start counting when the rear of the vehicle in front of you passes the marker. Count “one-thousand and one, one-thousand and two”. Stop counting when the front of your vehicle reaches the same marker. You are too close if your vehicle reaches the marker before you count “one-thousand and two”.

In the winter, remember to double the two-second rule. You are too close if your vehicle reaches the marker before you say “one-thousand and four”.

Follow these simple winter driving tips to not only help keep yourself safe, but those you share the road with. Always remember the most important rule: take your time. It is better to arrive alive, safely and late than to not arrive at all or arrive late because there has been damage to you or your vehicle. Stay safe and take your time on the roads.

Sources:
For more information about winter driving tips, check out the websites below:
Winter Safe Driving
CAA Winter Driving
Winter Driving Tips & Safety Features