Auto accidents are serious and costly. They can cause injuries, some of which result in permanent disability or even death. Costs also include damage to vehicles and property, lost work time for injured employees, lost productivity and third-party liability.

These simple suggestions may help you reduce losses from auto accidents:

• Permit only properly qualified persons to operate your company's vehicles.
• Evaluate your drivers' Motor Vehicle Records periodically (we recommend annually) against defined acceptability criteria.
• Road test potential drivers using vehicles that they will be expected to operate.
• Establish "Rules of the Road" defining acceptable day-to-day use and operation of vehicles including but not limited to:
• Drivers must inspect vehicle prior to use
• Mandated seat belt use
• Prohibition or "hands free" only use of cell phones and other electronic devices while driving
• Operate within posted speed limits and obey all traffic control devices/signage
• If personal use of company vehicles is permitted, define who can drive and permissible personal use.
• If employees driver their own vehicles for business you should:
• Qualify employees the same as you would a driver of a company vehicle
• Verify that adequate insurance is in place for the vehicle being used
• Ensure that the vehicle is in good condition and generally meets today's safety standards
• Require that business operations of personal vehicles be conducted under same rules and requirements as company vehicles
• Consider the use of telematics/GPS tracking as part of your fleet safety management program - through the monitoring of driver activities such as speeding, hard braking, seat belt use, etc. you can improve behavior by positive coaching and counseling drivers.
• Enhance driver safety performance and awareness through structured safe vehicle operations training, incentives and defined accountabilities for unacceptable performance.
• Ensure that your vehicles are maintained in accordance with the manufacturers' requirements. Establish a system to ensure that drivers report any maintenance issues in a timely manner.
• Ensure that drivers know what to do in the event of an accident and equip each vehicle with an accident reporting kit.
• Analyze your accidents and reported near misses to better understand the cause and to minimize future occurrences.

Our loss control service is advisory only. We assume no responsibility for management or control of customer loss control activities or for implementation of recommended corrective measures. These materials were gathered from trade services and public information. We have not tried to identify all exposures. We do not warrant that this information is consistent with Cincinnati underwriting guidelines or with any federal, state or local law, regulation or ordinance.