Ensuring safe driving practices is extremely important for pest control companies because driving is a big part our businesses. Let’s consider what is at stake.
Vehicles today are made to protect drivers as much as possible. Crumple zones and autobody parts are designed to “take a hit” and keep the driver safe. This is important, but costly. If your vehicle is involved in the smallest accident — like in your company’s parking lot between your company’s own vehicles — the cost of repairs has skyrocketed.
In the “old days,” vehicles were more solid, which means the force of the impact was transferred to the people inside the vehicles. The use of safer materials and configurations in vehicles has been critical in reducing injuries but has also made vehicle repairs more costly and frequent.
The author’s company car is a 1967 Chevy Suburban. His dad, Pest Management Professional Hall of Famer Bob Jenkins Sr. (Class of 2005), was also a fan of the three-door models. (Photo: ABC Home & Commercial Services)
Seeking solutions
In addition, distractions to drivers are at an all-time high. We have always had technicians driving who have had to contend with a distracting array of invoices and printed schedules all over the front seat — and, of course, also had to share the road responsibly with other drivers.
Running a route back then was accomplished by using maps, which not that long ago were bound books with hundreds of pages. Getting from one stop to another meant we were reading more than one page. Today’s route maps are typically in your smartphone, a distraction unto itself.
Being a safe driver in today’s world, when such a high percentage of drivers are inexperienced and distracted, is one of the biggest issues currently facing the pest management industry.
The solution is both simple and complex. The simple part is for your whole company to put down the phone. Having a smartphone in your hand or taking your eyes off the road to look at your phone is the problem.
But the complexities of practicality creep in: Bluetooth allows the phone to be hands-free, but the distraction is still there. How often are you in a hands-free conversation and yet you look at your phone or talk adamantly to your phone? This is distracted driving!
The problem worsens when you are texting. Even when you try the “voice to text” feature you are distracted. More distraction — and irritation — stems from when the phone does not quite understand what you are trying to say, and you look directly at your phone to correct the mistake.
Avoiding accidents
We have devices in our vehicles that track driving habits, and we have cameras that face both directions: the driver and the road. They are very useful in case of an accident; if it was not your driver’s fault, you have proof. These cameras have saved us from liability many times in accidents involving our vehicles because they were able to prove we were not at fault.
But it is still not enough. Our insurance carrier is pushing for us to install devices that basically block a phone and lock it down while the vehicle is in motion. They want this for one reason: to prevent distracted driving and the accidents that happen from distracted driving.
Honestly, I am considering these devices, even though I still have some questions. The biggest one is: Can we still give our drivers the agency to change a route on a dime? Can we still get hold of them quickly if new information — like a cancellation —needs to be conveyed? We must find middle ground on this issue.
As long as we drive, we will have distractions. But we should eliminate the ones that we can. Safe driving is possible!
<p>The post Eliminating distractions ensures safe driving first appeared on Pest Management Professional.</p>
from Pest Management Professional https://www.mypmp.net/2024/07/24/eliminating-distractions-ensures-safe-driving/
Sacramento CA
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