Driver behaviour directly impacts on the operating costs of your business. If your team drives safely and economically, you will save money and deliver a better service to your customers. In other words, good drivers are good for business. Poor quality drivers, however, increase costs and lower the performance of your business.

Improving the quality of driving in your business takes time as you must engage, educate, and then encourage behavioural change with drivers. That said, the benefits of doing so are significant.

The impact of poor-quality driving on your business

Poor quality driving affects your business in several ways:

Business reputation

Your drivers can damage the reputation of your business through accidents as well as by aggressive or discourteous driving. Your reputation can also be affected in other ways. For example, poor driving increases the amount of maintenance you must perform on vehicles in your fleet, keeping them off the road for longer. This can affect the service you provide to customers which has an impact on your business reputation.

Increases exposure to risk

Poor quality driving can put your drivers, other employees, other workers, customers, and members of the public at risk. The asset is also at risk when it is operated by a bad driver. Every year, fleet vehicles are involved in more accidents than any other type of vehicle. In addition, two-thirds of worker fatalities between 2003 and 2015 involved vehicles.

Increases fuel costs

You have limited options available to reduce the cost of fuel in your business. This particularly applies if you already have fuel efficient vehicles in your fleet. You can negotiate low rates with your fuel supplier but there is only so low they will be able to go. In other words, the best option you have to lower fuel costs is to reduce the amount of fuel you use. If you are not a large business that can replace your vehicles regularly and negotiate the lowest fuel prices, using as little fuel as possible is even more important. In fact, you can reduce fuel costs in your business by up to 7.4 percent by training drivers to drive economically. Driving economically involves maintaining a steady speed, avoiding traffic to minimise idle time, switching the vehicle off when it is not in use, slowing down, keeping the windows up when driving - particularly on high-speed roads and using cruise control.

Damage to the environment

As bad driving often involves using more fuel than necessary, it also has a direct impact on the environment. Operating fuel-efficient vehicles can help, but one of the easiest ways to be environmentally friendly is to use as little fuel as possible, and that can be as easy as changing your fleet's driver behaviour.

Increases maintenance costs

Poor driving can increase the wear and tear on a vehicle which also increases maintenance costs. In fact, up to 75 percent of the unscheduled maintenance costs for your fleet is a result of poor driving.

Lowers vehicle resale value

The increase in wear and tear that bad driving causes can also lower the resale value of vehicles in your fleet.

What does good driving look like?

Here are some key components of good quality driving:

• Awareness of road hazards and potential risks
• Adhering to speed limits and allowing sufficient travel time; reducing speed by 5 km/h in a 60 km/h area can lower crash risk by 31%
• Allowing adequate time for the journey to avoid distractions, taking unnecessary risks to make up time and rushing to avoid being late
• Avoiding driving while fatigued, as fatigue contributes to over 20% of road accidents; good driving means not driving when tired
• Recognising medication effects that can impair driving and avoiding driving under their influence. Drivers must understand this
• Abstaining from alcohol or drug use before driving
• Not using a mobile phone while driving including keeping hands-free calls to a minimum
• Performing basic checks on the vehicle such as tyre condition, window cleanliness, mirror cleanliness, and windscreen washer fluid level.

How to improve the quality of driving in your business

• Identify problem areas: Use telematics systems to significantly aid in this process
• Educate drivers: Provide training on safe and fuel-efficient driving practices
• Implement an induction process: Ensure new drivers understand how to be good drivers from the start
• Inform drivers about monitoring: Let them know that driving behaviour will be tracked through telematics, which can help improve standards over the medium and long term
• Proactively monitor driver behaviour: Utilise telematics to identify trends or individual issues that need addressing
• Conduct regular refresher training: Reinforce safe driving practices with regular driving refresher training.

It is important to also establish a culture of driver accountability and driver ownership of their actions. Some ways to achieve this include setting targets, offering incentives, and ranking drivers so they can see how they drive compared to their colleagues.

Another effective approach is to provide telematics systems that let drivers manage their own driving behaviour to see if they are driving well. Often this is more effective than being told by a manager. With this type of system in place, drivers will self-regulate their driving style and performance.

Improving the quality of driving in your business is an ongoing process, but it will bring significant benefits.