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Fleet Management: Better To Be Safe Than Sorry
1 Jul, 2008 By: Jim Harmon Pest Management ProfessionalKnowledge of the law can help protect you and your employees
As business owners, we have to always keep an eye out for new laws and legislation that will have an impact on our business. Just because you hold a training meeting on safe driving with your staff doesn't necessarily get your company out of any liability of employee wrongdoing when behind the wheel.
If you ask most of the larger pest management companies in the market now, the No. 1 problem regarding fleet management and operations is speeding, followed by using seat belts. The rising cost of fuel is a close third, but many of us are more concerned about driving under the speed limit and simply clicking the seat belt with our technicians.
Some new laws on the books have made most business professionals with fleets of vehicles — or employees who drive their personal vehicles for business — think again about their liability risk and how to mitigate it.
KNOW YOUR DRIVERS
One of the first areas in which you can be proactive with your employees is to do thorough background checks, and verify what those actions on the license record actually are.
Take this example from Robert Murtaugh, a Philadelphia-based lawyer with Harvey Pennington Ltd.: "A driver failed to stop at a red light and hit four vehicles, injuring 12 people — including a 5-year-old who suffered brain damage and a 37-year-old pregnant woman whose fetus died. The driver had six prior accidents, about which the company's management knew."
 The Real Impact of a Crash |
The suit resulted in an $11 million settlement. "When businesses are involved, courts are more likely to put responsibility on the business," Murtaugh says. "The onus of responsibility is then on the business to know its drivers."
LIGHTEN THE LOAD
More states are looking closely at overloaded trucks on the road and their propensity to be involved in accidents. If you take an average driver and put them in an overloaded compact truck, the potential for an accident increases dramatically.
Auto insurance companies are starting to look at this as negligence by the vehicle owner. In a court of law, even if your driver is not at fault in an accident, the vehicle owner (that is, the company) could be held liable if the truck is overloaded to the point of being unsafe to drive.
You need to pay attention to how much weight your vehicles are carrying on a daily basis. If the rear end of the truck is almost on the ground, the front wheels are almost off the ground. The braking system may be compromised, as is the stability of the truck. These situations are more common than not and open the company and its ownership to serious liability risk.
While the outfitting of a work truck is based usually on how many truck storage boxes you can fit on that truck or miles per gallon, as a company owner, you need to start thinking of safety as well.
PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE
The concept of negligence on the part of the business owners also extends to proper maintenance of the vehicles, including replacing those almost-bald tires before the first rain and other potential safety hazards.
This represents another legal model cited in suits as "vicarious liability," which allows an employer to be held liable for the negligent acts of the employer or employee, acting in the scope of his or her employment. This includes the manager denying an expense for new tires or maintenance service of the truck for the purpose of bettering his own bonus.
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