I speak to many fleet operators who need help preventing collisions and reducing claims costs. They have accreditation to the Fleet Operators Recognition Scheme (FORS) and they are still having collisions and insurance costs continue to rise. In fact, I’ve worked with fleet operators with FORS Gold accreditation who have loss ratios well over 100%
Whilst the FORS scheme does great work in protecting vulnerable road users, The Fleet Safety Academy plugs the collision prevention gaps that FORS doesn’t cover. So why have you got through the FORS accreditation process only to see your drivers continue to damage your vehicles? There are three aspects that are missing:
Communication
The touchpoints with the driver are missing. If managers aren’t talking about driving standards with their drivers on a regular basis, there will be no prevention of collisions. Having lots of procedures and risk assessments that the drivers haven’t read will get a fleet operator through their FORS audit. But that won’t change the behaviour of the person behind the wheel so the collisions continue and the insurance costs rise. The Fleet Safety Academy introduces your touchpoints so driver communication is improved.
A management system
The FORS approach isn’t encouraging a management system to be introduced. Having lots of documentation in place isn’t the same as having a management system. A good system follows a cycle – Plan – Act – Do – Measure and when you figure out what’s working and what’s not, you make changes and move on. There needs to be a feedback loop. Practical consequences for poor driving performance are also needed. This is what creates a positive culture. Having a suite of procedures to pass an audit doesn’t give these essential ingredients
Collision causation factors
The third issue is that we know that fitting technology to a vehicle will help a truck driver see a cyclist in his blind spots. That’s a great step forward and it’s fundamental to the creation of the FORS scheme. But our focus is on stopping all types of collision. Hit immobile object, hit third party in the rear, they are the main categories for fleet claims. There are key aspects that come together to cause those collisions and the FORS scheme doesn’t mention some of them and just touches on others.
The Fleet Safety Academy is the management system that changes driver behaviour and that’s the glue that pulls everything together and makes collisions less likely to happen. If all your hard work to gain FORS accreditation has not resulted in a reduction in your claims frequency, join The Fleet Safety Academy. Go to fleetsafetyacademy.co.uk for more details.
