How digital checklists can help with driver safety
June 09, 2021
Anything that helps drivers stay safe on the roads is worth talking about, and digital checklists are a great tool that do just that. Drivers can use them in different ways including both pre- and post-trip vehicle checks, known as a Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports (DVIR), as well as for customized pre-trip personal safety checks.
When completing a DVIR, drivers check mechanical and safety issues on their vehicle and ensure that everything is working as it is supposed to. Digital checklists have several advantages over traditional paper vehicle inspection reports, including visibility for management on how much time drivers spend completing them – ensuring that checklists have been done properly and not just quickly skipped over. As well as this they are generally easier for drivers to fill out resulting in a higher level of accuracy. If there are any errors in the completion of the checklist, management is immediately notified by email.
Keeping track of all of your vehicles’ maintenance needs can be difficult when running a large fleet, requiring a lot of time and organization. DVIRs let you know when upcoming maintenance is scheduled or overdue, allowing you to keep record of end-to-end maintenance on all of your vehicles, simplifying management of even the largest fleets and keeping them safe on the road.
If a driver flags an issue when they are completing a report, it is immediately sent to your maintenance team allowing them to schedule repairs as soon as possible. When the repairs are complete, the driver is notified, allowing them to check that it is fixed properly, and rounding off a feedback loop that ensures the highest safety standards for your vehicles. As well as this, if an issue is considered serious, a vehicle can be automatically deemed unsafe to drive until it is resolved, reducing the chance of any incidents.
Drivers can also provide a photo of an issue which gets sent straight to your maintenance team. This provides greater detail of the issue than a paper report and gives maintenance wider context on issues such as tire wear. This information can then be used for preventive maintenance, fixing things like alignment issues before they happen, and avoiding accident-prone break down situations on the side of the road.
DVIRs also allow you to customize your checklists to ensure that every vehicle in your fleet is specifically catered for to meet their needs. Forms can include prefilled fields, drop downs, buttons, signature capture, photo capture, check boxes and more. Not only is this great for meeting legal requirements, but you can also use it to create personal safety checks for your drivers. These can cover things like wearing the proper clothing and ensuring they have the correct signage on board to maximize safety around pedestrians, the worksite, or any other situation they may find themselves in.
To find out more about how Coretex can help you with DVIR solutions get in touch today.