Fleet Safety Tips: How To Detect Drunk Drivers

If you manage a fleet of trucks, one of your top priorities is fleet driver safety. Managing and operating semi trucks and similar vehicles comes with great responsibility. These vehicles must be handled properly at all times, or else the safety of your staff and community quickly become compromised. 

Unfortunately, there are times when external factors, such as other drivers on the road, become a hazard to your fleet safety. Learn how to detect drunk drivers and what your drivers can do if they become aware of one. 

Fleet Truck Safety

Fleet safety begins with excellent maintenance and thorough training. By ensuring that your drivers truly understand the implications of their actions when operating trucks, you make the road a safer place. Cutting down the risk of accidents keeps your staff, assets, and community safer. 

In many cases, fleet accidents are caused by malfunctions that could have been prevented. Staying on top of routine maintenance and addressing all vehicle concerns promptly is a crucial element of fleet safety. Unfortunately, this is often more easily said than done. Operational constraints, tight budgets, and labor shortages can all make it difficult to get trucks into the shop in a timely manner.

Fortunately, Torque provides mobile fleet maintenance to help ensure fleet safety. No more scheduling an extra stop on your route to head to the shop. With Torque, technicians come to you on your schedule to provide excellent, reliable service while conserving uptime for your fleet. No need to pay a driver to sit at the shop when maintenance occurs right at your lot! 

On top of high-quality training and consistent maintenance, keeping your drivers aware of the signs of drunk drivers can also improve fleet driver safety. 

The Importance of Spotting Drunk Drivers

All drivers on the road have a responsibility to be on the lookout for drunk drivers. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that 32 people are killed in alcohol-related traffic accidents every day. Learning to recognize the signs of drunk drivers and quickly taking action can help save lives. 

Staying vigilant and quickly spotting drunk drivers is especially crucial for fleet driver safety because, unlike small cars that can easily swerve in response to an unpredictable driver, large trucks require much more skilled handling. For the safety of everyone on the road, fleet drivers must remain one step ahead of their surroundings whenever possible. 

How to Detect Drunk Drivers

Being an active observer is an important aspect of being a safe driver. Train your fleet drivers to look for signs of drunk driving. A drunk driver may:

• Follow too closely to the vehicle in front of them
• Swerve or weave between lanes
• Speed up or slow down very quickly
• Make sudden stops or take a long time to accelerate after a light turns green
• Stay between lanes
• Drive far below the speed limit
• Drive with their lights off at night
• Make wide turns
• Signal inconsistently
• Drive in the wrong direction

Weekends and some holidays carry a higher occurrence of drunk driving. Regardless of the time of day or night, it is always possible to encounter a drunk driver. Staying vigilant at all times can improve fleet driver safety.

How to Prevent Accidents

The responsibility of preventing accidents falls on every driver on the road. Fleet managers can help prevent accidents by encouraging drivers to report drunk driving and by thoroughly maintaining all vehicles. 

Seeing a drunk driver on the road is alarming. It is important to try to stay calm and take action to prevent an accident. Drivers can take a mental note of the make, model, and license plate details of the car operated by the drunk driver. Fleet drivers should distance themselves from the drunk driver as much as possible. If it is not possible for the fleet driver to safely continue to drive, they should pull off to the side of the road when it is safe to do so. They should never try to engage, stop, or talk to the drunk driver. 

Once the fleet driver is safely stopped, they should call 911 to report the drunk driver. They should then give the operator their exact location, the direction the driver is headed, and any details they can share about the drunk driver, their car, and their license plates. 

The best way to ensure fleet safety is through vigilance. When operating such large vehicles, staying in control and aware of all surroundings is crucial. Aside from driver training, vehicle maintenance plays a large role in preventing accidents. Unexpected malfunctions and mechanical issues can quickly become life-threatening.

Stay on top of maintenance and repairs without sacrificing your schedule or your budget. With Torque, skilled technicians come directly to your lot. Get started today!

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