Your Fleet Vehicle Safety Checklist

The right fleet management keeps your employees safe, and vehicles in good condition. This ensures that your business stays up and running for longer. Even if you’re investing in fleet management, it’s still important to maintain your own checks to protect your employees and their vehicles.

The best way to keep your employees safe is to make sure the fleet vehicles they’re driving are kept in top condition. Whether you’re handling fleet vehicle safety yourself or using an outside provider like Downtown Toyota’s mobile servicing, there are a few basic things that every vehicle should be checked for.

1. Wheel & Tyre Condition. The tyres that keep your car on the road are overlooked too often. Running the right tyres at the correct pressures can have a huge impact on safety, fuel efficiency and the lifespan of tyres. Regularly check tyre pressures and tread depth, and ask your fleet manager about choosing the right tyres for fleet vehicles that travel large distances.
2. Fluid Levels. Among the most important preventative maintenance checks, keeping an eye on fluid levels can significantly increase the lifespan of fleet vehicles. Regularly inspect coolant, oil and brake fluid levels, and ask drivers to watch for signs that the car is leaking or consuming fluids.
3. Braking System Checks. On top of checking brake fluid levels, drivers and fleet managers should also be watching for signs of brake failure. That’s usually as simple as looking out for signs of squeaking or squealing while braking.
4. Engine, Suspension & Driveline Wear & Tear. Fleet vehicles are typically built tough to stand up to the hard use of business customers. Even still, wear and tear on the car’s drivetrain and suspension components should be monitored. Particularly for cars that spend all day travelling, items like suspension wear play a huge role in on-road safety.
5. Check Safety Assist Systems. Many new vehicles now come with sophisticated safety systems that help keep your employees safe. Your regular maintenance checks should include briefly testing systems like reversing cameras, parking sensors, lane departure alerts and pre-collision detection. In most cases these systems can be monitored by drivers, but a mechanic will also be able to check that they’re functioning with specialised diagnostic tools.

While a fleet management service can stay on top of your maintenance schedule, it’s still important to be checking the condition of vehicles in between services. The simplest way to do this is to involve your drivers and employees. Ask them to monitor checklist items as a regular part of their work. Fleet vehicles  are an investment. Looking after your vehicles doesn’t just keep your employees safe, it keeps your business up and running. For large fleets and peace of mind that employees are carrying out safety checks, some fleet managers use fleet tracking software. Fleet software can do things like track the condition of vehicles, unsafe driving incidents and even reward drivers who drive safely and keep up with their vehicle checklist.

Safety is the highest priority for fleet operators. We know because it’s our priority too. Downtown Toyota is proud to say that we’ve been a Certified Toyota Fleet Specialist for more than 10 years now! We’ve worked with fleets all over Brisbane, providing servicing and Toyota Access finance packages that ensure your drivers stay safe on the road. Our Toyota Fleet packages can be tailored to suit businesses with a handful of vehicles, all the way up to the largest fleets in Brisbane. We complete the deal by offering mobile servicing options that mean your vehicles are covered, wherever they are. If you’d like to know more about Downtown Toyota’s Fleet Management services then we’d love to hear from you! Get in touch with us at any time or come down and speak to the team.