Safety Practices for Your Delivery Drivers

Many businesses employ delivery drivers. In today’s world, food, package and hardware material delivery are ever-present.

Your business may not focus on solely on delivery. Nevertheless, you may still hire professional drivers to deliver business items or products.

Drivers don’t even have to work solely from their cars. They may be regular employees who also do delivery work as part of their jobs. If you provide delivery services of any kind, an employee may be on the road on the business' behalf.

You are often ultimately responsible for employees who drive on the company's behalf. Driving incidents involving the employee could impact your business.

If an accident occurs, the authorities could hold the driver responsible for the accident damages. You could lose assets if your employee is in an accident that injures others or damages property.

There are ways to reduce on-road risks from employee drivers. Take these proper business steps to ensure that your drivers are not liabilities.

Get the Correct Insurance

If your business delivers, commercial auto insurance should be a high priority to you.

Commercial auto insurance has higher levels of comprehensive, property damage and liability coverage than a traditional auto insurance policy. You can better protect your assets if someone makes a claim against your company.

If your company has a fleet of vehicles, you often can insure it with commercial auto insurance.

You may say you don’t have a company vehicle. Your employees may make deliveries using their own cars. Why do you need commercial insurance? Won't personal auto policies work?

This is a sensitive question. Theoretically, any incident involving an employee on the job could affect the business. However, the application of this question complicates the answer.

The occasional use of personal vehicles for deliveries may not warrant commercial auto coverage. An employee may be fine maintaining their personal auto policy when making deliveries. This often depends on how much personal auto insurance coverage the employee has. Too little coverage means a greater risk to the business.

If an employee drives a personal car routinely for business, commercial auto insurance is probably a safe idea. This likely means that the employee driver is an integral part of business functions. An incident could very likely impact the business.

The good news is that commercial auto insurance can often cover personal vehicles. Talk to your insurance agent. Your agent can tell you if you need to offer drivers commercial policies.

Check a Prospective Driver’s Background

You want to provide the safest environment for your business, deliveries and employees. However, drivers may even be liabilities within themselves.

Not every driver has a safe driving record. He or she may have a long history of driving offenses. This raises the risk of an incident and also of liabilities for the company.

Before you hire a driver or assign driving duties, check the employee’s driving record. If an employee has a complicated driving history, it may be best not to assign him or her delivery duties. Make sure that you only put the safest employees behind the wheel.

Train Your Drivers

Before putting a driver on the road, make sure he or she knows safe driving techniques. Some companies even offer driver training courses for commercial drivers.

Your company should keep a set of safe driving procedures on hand at all times. These can include a variety of different safety practices.

Drivers should always wear seatbelts and refrain from using mobile devices. Some companies even require drivers to use certain routes or travel at a certain speed limit.

Training employees in company practices can reduce your delivery drivers’ risk of accidents.

Teach Drivers to Properly Handle Materials

Make sure that drivers know how to properly transport company materials.

Even if you deliver simple items, mishandling could be a risk to the vehicle or your business. An incorrectly stored delivery of shoes in the backseat could obstruct a driver’s view. This could cause an accident.

If deliveries are dangerous, use drivers who you have trained to handle the items. Don’t allow an everyday employee to transport extremely sensitive materials like large quantities of money or fragile items.

Don’t Rush Drivers

We all understand that it is good business to make deliveries on time. But, don’t use timeliness as an excuse to rush drivers.

If someone drives distracted or rushed, the chances of an accident skyrocket. Distracted driving is one of the leading causes of costly accidents. You don't want to be the employer who caused an accident because of unfair time constraints.

Some companies monitor drivers to make sure they don’t rush. Many companies have even begun enforcing GPS monitoring to keep a close eye on their drivers.

If a driver causes an accident that is his or her fault, your insurance company may not honor your commercial auto insurance claim. Don't let this happen.