Do you want to avoid violations and citations this year? Of course you do! You’ll lower costs, reduce headaches, and keep your drivers on the road instead of being stuck on the sidelines during overly long roadside inspections.
What you and your drivers do before they get on the road will make a big difference. It’s all about using pre and post-trip inspections to find and fix problems before an inspector does. Here’s what you can do to lower your costs and avoid unnecessary citations.
Prepare Your Drivers for Inspections
Offer regular training on pre-trip and post-trip inspections for new and long-term drivers. This shouldn’t be a conversation only had during the interview and onboarding. The importance of driver inspections must be stressed as a way to make roadside inspections easier and better for everyone.
Keep Your Drivers Ready for Inspections
Run simulations of inspections with drivers between hauls. Create manuals and checklists and upload them into your fleet management system so drivers always have easy access to the information they need. This is easily done with document management feature within the Gorilla Safety system. Make sure your drivers understand the technology at their fingertips — their ELD, the apps they use, etc. — so they’re always ready for an inspection.
Make Pre/Post-Trip Inspections Easy
If you want your drivers to perform pre and post-trip inspections for every trip, make it as easy as possible. This means eliminating paper reporting and keeping the inspection forms at their fingertips. The Gorilla Safety app offers this functionality with easy reporting of problems and document storage.
Be Consistent with Your Drivers
If you want every driver to believe inspections are important, it starts with you. You must be consistent with every driver. No exceptions to the inspection requirements and no looking the other way when a decent driver “forgets.” You know better than anyone that poor inspections pre and post-trip lead to citations on a roadside inspection. Make this expectation a part of your fleet’s culture.
Incentivize Inspections
Roadside inspection citations are largely avoidable. When your drivers consistently complete pre-trip and post-trip inspections and have clean roadside inspections, reward them for their effort. This can be in the form of bonus cash, small prizes, or contests to see who can improve the most over a given time. Yes, everyone should do their job because it’s their job, but you can often get better compliance (and a bit of a morale boost) by offering a reward for it, too.
Make your life — and your drivers’ jobs easier — by making pre and post-trip inspections easier. At the same time, never let your drivers forget how important they are. A good inspection process before they get on the road will save them time during a roadside inspection. Fewer violations for your fleet and more time on the road for them — everyone wins. Gorilla Safety can help! Contact us today to learn more.
