Knowing how well your drivers are really driving is the best way to foster a culture of complete safety in your business. While your drivers are typically required to be medically cleared, regularly assessing truck driver habits and implementing telematics are the most responsible ways to assess your truck drivers’ fitness states without having to wait for the next medical.
Peek at our comprehensive guide to get more on driver testing, the importance of telematics in driver monitoring, and how Cartrack combines both to help you create a culture of safety & care in your business.
True fleet safety relies on continuous driver habit monitoring—combining AI dashcams, CANBus telematics, and automated driver scorecards to detect fatigue, harsh braking, and speeding in real time.
You can tell if your truck drivers have good driving habits by incorporating telematics and a scoring system to monitor their on-road behaviours. The insights from telematics carefully reflect aggressive and distracted habits, like fatigue, phone use, speeding and other habits. Scoring systems, or driver scorecards, rate drivers by how well or poorly they drive.
This combination gives you a clearer picture of the state of each driver.
As a fleet manager, you’re simply unable to be physically present for each driver’s trip, and even then, drivers tend to behave differently when driving on their own. This is why there’s emphasis on habits rather than skills displayed on the day of a clearance test. It’s how you turn good intentions into safer habits.
Truck driver behaviours matter for fleet safety because safety on the road is literally built around habits that truck drivers cultivate as part of their jobs. A driver’s licence and a passed test are only an indication that the truck driver can drive, but they speak less to the driver’s actual daily operational skills.
Everyday behaviour carries far more weight than the bi-monthly assessment.
While this applies to every commercial driver, it’s especially important for truck drivers. Trucks are bigger and heavier, meaning they need more care and consideration when operating. They need more time to stop, a wider berth when taking corners and a greater sense of responsibility from drivers. Irresponsible and distracted driving undermines their sense of responsibility.
👉 Just one unsafe driving incident can mean:
Now, imagine if that happens on more than one occasion with more than one driver.
This is why adopting a strategy of ongoing safety is the solution to fleet-wide safety, rather than a clearance test that happens now and again.
For a truck driver habits test, five core areas should be explored with ten primary questions to evaluate your drivers’ skills. These core five areas include:
It’s important that drivers answer these questions as honestly as possible, or that you use these questions to guide your scoring process if you do a ride-along with them.
See our simple example checklist to help you create your own truck driver habits test:
These questions help cover all the areas that typically shape a truck driver’s on-road safety. For this checklist scenario, we’ll measure using the terms ‘always’, 'sometimes' and ‘rarely/never’. Each of these would be weighted at 2 points, 1 point, and 0 points, respectively, totalling 20 points.
This will give you a clear opportunity to see where the gaps are and give you a quick but effective read on your drivers’ level of competency.
🥱 Fatigue and exhaustion
📏 Distance awareness
🚗 Braking and taking corners
💨 Speed
📋 Pre-trip inspecting
Based on the above assessment and scoring criteria, this is what the driver evaluation results say:
Self-reporting isn’t enough because it leaves room for many gaps and inconsistencies. Sadly, we often know what’s expected of us, but a self-report is just that; it focuses more on what a driver thinks they do or should do, rather than what they actually do behind the wheel.
A driver fitness assessment shows how a driver performs when they know they're being assessed. But your fleet's safety is grounded in the moments when nobody’s physically observing.
This is where the real gap is. Your driver could do extremely well in a test and pass with flying colours, and yet their general risky habits could reveal themselves the very next day. These are the exact habits that could result in a disastrous and costly incident, and they rarely show up entirely in fitness assessments.
How do you close that gap? You see how your drivers are behaving regularly, not just a few times a month or a year. Accurate, objective and comprehensive continuous data is the solution here. This is the kind of information that fills in the blanks, showing what questionnaires can’t and helping you address offences from a more personalised angle.
When shifting from test results to real habits, driver coaching and safety training are the most useful tools to propel safer driving. Did you know that based on the RTMC (Road Traffic Management Corporation) State of Road Safety Report, human factors account for MORE than 87% of all road fatalities in the country?
Managing driver behaviour is your most powerful tool when it comes to curating a culture of safety, and driver coaching is exactly how you accomplish it.
Here’s how you approach these challenges:
This approach rarely works. Rather, look at one or two major improvement points and focus on those, then move on to other areas if necessary. This also places less pressure on the driver and shows them you’re committed to their growth and safety.
Chat to your drivers about what’s impacting their driving habits. Here you gain direct insight into what could be pushing them to drive recklessly (i.e., too many jobs allocated) or discover shortfalls that could be starting right in the yard/depot.
Giving your drivers praise and recognition goes much further than you’d think, often carrying more weight than just giving criticism. Your truck drivers are likely to stick with their safe driving habits (and stick around) after receiving recognition for improvement.
Keep the conversations about improvement going. Even if it’s a quick check-in, come back to your drivers and see if they’re managing well enough. Also, give them the space to talk freely about how they’re feeling, if they’re struggling and if they have general feedback.
Cartrack’s vehicle telematics helps you build and coach safer truck drivers by offering a comprehensive fleet management solution that covers all your safety strategy bases. They allow you to ensure your drivers remain safe on the road while keeping an eye on them and their performance.
Not convinced by Cartrack’s abilities? Then check out the feedback from Wisani Burial Society.
Wisani Burial Society’s partnership with Cartrack helps monitor driver behaviour by providing them with the monitoring tools and solutions they need. Safe driving is quite literally part of the service. Between transporting the deceased across Limpopo, Mpumalanga & Gauteng and having three hundred vehicles on the road at peak times, proper timing is important, but a safe and dignified arrival is even more so.
With families & loved ones relying on them, it’s up to fleet managers to ensure each trip goes off without a hitch while still honouring their dignity. This is why Wisani decided to put their trust in Cartrack.
They implemented our driver scorecards to keep an eye on driver behaviours and compliance matters, deeply understanding potential safety risks rather than assuming them. Our trip histories allowed the fleet managers to see that the right jobs were allocated to the right drivers, but also gave ample information for any necessary corrective actions.
This is an industry where drivers truly can’t afford to be careless or rushed, especially when there are grieving families and loved ones on the other end. Driver habits can never afford to be just a back-office detail.
Cartrack can offer you a fleet management platform with many driver safety add-ons that include smart camera solutions, driver scorecards, driver coaching and digital checklist tools for pre- & post-vehicle inspections.
Let’s take a closer look at each solution:
Are you ready to see how your drivers are doing on every trip, and not just on assessment day? Find out how Cartrack's driver safety solutions help you catch risky habits early, coach with real data and build a safer fleet. Get in touch with Cartrack today.
Evaluate driver performance and cut risk. Take the truck driver habits test to identify dangerous behaviours, lower maintenance costs, and improve safety.
