Are Your Fleet Drivers Buckling Up?

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U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood recently announced that while seat belt use is at a record high of 84 percent nationwide, 45 million Americans are still not buckling up when riding in motor vehicles.

Fleet drivers who are not buckling up are not only violating the law, but they may also face consequences on the job. Since a majority of fleet managers have some kind of seat belt usage policy in place, a violation of this policy could obviously jeopardize a driver's employment.

Eli Lilly and Company conducts an annual MVR check for all authorized drivers and uses a point system to determine risk. Drivers with MVR events, accidents, or incidents receive training specific to their offense. But the company has most recently begun targeting their concern on seat belt safety.

"Because we are so concerned about seat belt use, we assign three (3) points for seat belt violations in the risk scoring system," said NAFA Member Beth Ann Stamer, Director, Health, Safety and Environment – Affiliates.  

On any given day about 38 people who are not buckled-up are killed in motor vehicle crashes, according to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). In 2008 alone, nearly 14,000 unbuckled passenger vehicle occupants lost their lives on U.S. roadways. Nearly half of them could have been saved if they had been belted. NHTSA statistics also show that those least likely to buckle-up are teens, young adults, males, nighttime riders, motorists traveling on rural roads, and individuals traveling in pick-up trucks.

Employed drivers in Florida could face a 25 percent reduction in workers' compensation if they refused to wear a seat belt and were hurt on the job, according to the Florida's Workers' Compensation Law. In some companies in Florida the policy states that it is part of the supervisor's responsibility to enforce the use of protective equipment for the employees they supervise.

Most fleets enact a points system as a consequence to their drivers and sometimes the same amount of points for not wearing a seat belt will be equivalent to that of speeding. 

"Occasionally we will see a seat-belt violation on the MVR results and the driver will have the applicable points added to their fleet record," said Jann Stapleton, Manager Corporate Fleet for Safeway in Phoenix, Ariz., and NAFA Member. Stapleton's company, Safeway, instills a mandatory seatbelt policy.

Even law enforcement officials employed in states where it is mandatory for front seat occupants to wear safety restraints are held responsible while they are driving on the job. In Cincinnati, if a police officer is involved in a crash then a Crash Data Recovery report is completed to determine if a seatbelt was in use. Discipline or a citation depends on the outcome of the verbal interview versus the data retrieved from the vehicle.

Currently 30 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands have primary seat belt laws and 19 states have secondary laws. Click here to view states with primary and secondary seat belt laws.   

According to the Almanac on Policy Issues, states with secondary enforcement average only 63 percent belt use but states with primary (standard) enforcement belt laws average 78 percent belt use.

"We've made great strides to get Americans to buckle up, but we must not rest on our laurels," said Secretary LaHood. "Not wearing your seat belt is a serious, life-threatening practice."

To alleviate violations and promote safety, some vehicle fleets are trying new technologies as part of their safety policy. In April, volunteer Arval employees tried a new seatbelt enhancement device as part of their road safety program. The small palm-sized device called a CG-Lock clips onto existing seatbelts to eliminate the slack in the lap belt, keeping the user in the safest possible position and the belt firmly across the pelvis. The findings will be released in June, according to CG-Lock.