Corporate Driver Safety Training: Benefits and Drawbacks of Not Prioritizing Safety

Workplace safety training is standard for many industries: manufacturing, electrical, construction. Generally, the more dangerous the work, the more likely there’s mandatory training around it. It’s why the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) exists: to ensure employee safety in the workplace. But one dangerous area that lacks mandatory training is driving for business. Corporate driver safety training doesn’t exist at companies that don’t see it as a priority. We’ll dive into why companies should prioritize driver safety before it’s too late.  

Cost 

When it comes to making business decisions, cost will always play a big role. Often, it’s a reason against adoption. “We’d love to do corporate driver safety training, we just don’t have the budget for that right now.” That’s understandable. But there are also costs for not having one. 

Lost Working Hours 

According to the 2021 WorkAnywhere Benchmark Report, companies lose 100,000 workdays to accidents each year. That’s a big number. Think about employees involved in serious accidents. Either their return to work is delayed by weeks or months, or they’re no longer capable of returning. The result? Either the company shifts duties to coworkers who already have their work cut out for them, or the company begins the hiring process. That process involves vetting, interviewing and finally training a candidate to a point where, three months later, they’re hopefully in a position to fulfill all that’s required of them. Unfortunately, in terms of cost, these are best case scenarios. 

Liability 

The 2021 Driver Safety Report found that on-the-job highway crashes cost employers upwards of $66,119 per million vehicle miles traveled. As the CDC revealed in their findings, medical care and work loss make up a large part of the cost of fatal crashes to employers. Another area of potential cost? Liability. 

How liability impacts a company depends heavily on their vehicle program. For example, businesses with company-provided vehicles are often targeted by lawsuits following accidents involving fleet cars. These lawsuits often involve millions in settlements and legal fees. 

Benefit 

In light of the costs, a couple of benefits are easy to jump to: fewer work hours lost, reduced liability. Those are two huge benefits. As much as we’d like to believe otherwise, driving is inherently dangerous. It doesn’t help that we surround ourselves with things that can distract us, helping us form bad habits. In fact, distracted driving has resulted in 74% of accidents that occur while employees drive for work. Corporate driver safety training exists to protect both employers and employees. Its benefits do stretch beyond liability and work hour costs. 

Recruiting and Retention 

Time and time again, employees have been found to engage more when they think their employer cares about them. It might not be the first thing on their list, but it has an impact and it matters. By implementing a corporate driver safety training program, companies show not only current employees, but potential employees as well.  

What does the right training program look like? 

There are many ways a company can go about driver safety training. The best approach focuses on the individual. A group of driving employees may walk away from a training with some new tips, but when their training is specific to their issues, they have an easier path to correct bad driving behavior. Following an assessment of their driving behavior, the right program shares learnings that help the mobile worker correct poor driving behavior.  

More Than Corporate Driver Safety Training 

Companies can do a lot to help their mobile workers by implementing a corporate driver safety training. However, with only safety training, there are several gaps. By taking a more comprehensive approach, businesses can protect both themselves and their employees from potential hire to seasoned mobile worker. In addition to individualized training, that approach includes insurance verification and motor vehicle record (MVR) monitoring. Implementing all three may seem like a lot of work, but with the right vendor it doesn’t have to be. 

Comprehensive Driver Safety with Motus 

With Motus, you can handle insurance verification, MVR monitoring and corporate driver safety training from one platform. No worries about working with multiple vendors for each offering. We handle those pieces for you, delivering the information you need and sort through what you don’t. Interested in learning more about our comprehensive safety offering? 

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