A driver’s compliance with hours-of-service (HOS) regulations can affect your fleet’s Compliance Safety Accountability (CSA) score and insurance premiums. Improve your fleet’s safety score by helping your drivers’ improve their HOS compliance with these useful tips.
1. Explain Hours-of-Service Rules and Requirements
To help your drivers operate in compliance with HOS regulations, explain what the hours-of-service rules are and how they work. Discuss the different limits, breaks, and resets. Be sure to cover any rules that may be specific to your state or industry. In addition, explain when and how they can use Yard Move and Personal Conveyance.
In addition, cover common errors, mistakes, and violations found on driver logs. Provide tips on how to catch and correct those errors. While most of your drivers will be familiar with HOS rules, hosting an informative seminar will give them a chance to ask questions.
2. Incentivize Hours-Of-Service Compliance
Once your drivers have a good understanding of the rules and regulations and how to catch common errors, reinforce good habits by incentivizing compliance. Run a contest or offer a prize to the driver with the most compliant logs in a specified time period. Prizes can range from hats and T-shirts to gift cards. If it’s a longer contest, you could offer a larger prize! If you’re not sure what kind of prizes your drivers would be interested in, conduct a poll to get an idea.
You could also have a ‘driver of the week’ or ‘driver of the month’ prize that is awarded to the driver with the most compliant logs. At the end of the year, offer drivers with the
most compliant logs an excellence award to recognize a job well done. Whichever
incentive program you choose will depend on your fleet’s size, and if it’s made up of
owner-operators, company drivers or a mix of both.
3. Buddy Up to Help Drivers Struggling with HOS Compliance
Many a fleet manager knows this to be true: drivers are more likely to listen to other drivers than they are to a manager. If you have a driver who is struggling to operate in compliance with HOS rules, team them up with one of your stronger drivers. The driver with the more compliant logs can mentor the other driver, offering them tips and strategies to help them avoid common errors.
4. Use an AOBRD to Automatically Record Hours-Of-Service
If additional training, incentivizing, and mentorship doesn’t help drivers struggling
with compliance, we recommend an implementing a solution like our DashLink ELD. It can be used as an AOBRD to automatically record your driver’s HOS, helping them avoid form-and-manner errors and violations.
AOBRDs are similar to ELDs except that they are more flexible with editing and record less data. Plus, they have been grandfathered under the ELD mandate for additional two years. This means fleets using AOBRDs before December 18, 2017, can continue to use them until December 16, 2019. This is a great option for fleets with less tech-savvy drivers.
BigRoad Makes Compliance Easy
Drivers struggling to operate in compliance? Make HOS compliance a breeze with the BigRoad Mobile App. Our free, easy-to-use app helps drivers avoid fines and out-of-service penalties with real-time notifications of violations, allowing your drivers to fix the errors before they’re caught by a DOT inspector. Get your drivers try the BigRoad Mobile App by downloading it to their device or tablet.
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