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Fleet Services4 MIN READ

Our 2017 Safety Commitment in Review

Monday March 5, 2018
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When it comes to the transportation industry as a whole, SAFETY is always a topic of concern. At Dickinson Fleet Services, we’ve stressed the importance of safety for our technicians and clients since the beginning. In fact, a big part of the training we do at Dickinson Fleet revolves around safety. In 2017, we set a goal to really raise the standard of safety throughout our company. For us, it was about creating a culture that made sure safety was at the forefront of all facets in our business.

We knew it was one thing to say we wanted to focus on safety and another to actually put programs and incentives in place. We decided to take action by executing on several ideas to move us in the right direction. In order to create a strong safety culture, we placed an emphasis on the following:

Strong Safety Program
Safety has always been at the core of who we are and what we do. Our employees are trained with safety as their number 1 focus. In 2017, we stepped it up a notch with updated safety guidelines for new hires as well as current employees.

Extensive Auditing – Each of our shop locations and our mobile fleet undergo monthly safety audits and inspections to ensure compliance with federal and local regulations. Having that face to face interaction with all employees promotes consistency and accountability in regards to safety.

Dickinson Dollars Rewards Program – Incentive programs have been shown to work well in the realm of safety. It’s for this reason that we rolled out our Dickinson Dollars rewards program. This incentive program encourages safe behavior on the job and behind the wheel. It is a behavior based program that rewards positive behavior.

Using the latest technology to improve driving behavior – We want to be the first in using the latest technology to improve driving behavior. By utilizing a safety focused GPS monitoring system , along with the installation of drive cameras in all of our vehicles, we have been able to coach and train our employees to improve driving behavior. We want to be the example on the road of safe driving.

Safety Committees – Each of our DFS shops and our mobile locations have a working safety committee. Our safety committees consist of technicians and leadership. Both of these groups partnering together to ensure compliance in our shops and in our vehicles. Safety committees are a proven tool to engage front line employees into being a part of our growing safety culture.

JUST DRIVE – DFS specializes in mobile maintenance. Our employees are technicians and drivers. When not performing their daily tasks, our technicians are behind the wheel of a mobile service vehicle. To ensure our employee’s safety and other’s safety on the road, we have implemented a “NO TOLERANCE “ cell phone policy. Our policy is entitled “JUST DRIVE” everything else can wait. The cell phone is off limits while driving. This is a strong message that will eliminate the cell phone distraction altogether.

Building a strong safety culture requires significant measurements to monitor areas of improvement and areas of opportunity. Our TIR (Total Incident Rate) and VAR ( Vehicle Accident Rate) is reviewed monthly to measure our performance. We were able to reduce accidents by 112% while increasing our fleet by over 30%.  These measurements allow us to easily “score” the progress we see company wide. Results were the following:

Incident rate improvement (TIR)

2016 – 7.6
2017 – 3.7

Vehicle Accident Rate (VAR)

2016 – 8.1
2017 – 3.0

Annual Meeting Safety Awards

During our recent annual meeting, we were able to recognize those individuals who helped contribute greatly to this effort and celebrate a job well done. The team members receiving awards for exemplary marks in the safety category were:

Mobile

  • Charlie Thomas
  • Dan Polka
  • Jason Coffel
  • Ryan Elmlinger
  • William Harrington
  • Dan Church
  • Alfredo Prince
  • JR Limon
  • Alex Cisneros

Shops

  • Robert Frey
  • Ryan Elmlinger
  • Alex Cisneros
  • Thomas Gingell
  • Clint Turner
  • Alfredo Prince
  • Steve Leber

As we move forward in 2018 safety will continue to be a huge focus for our company and we will keep these initiatives in place. In addition to reinforcing our safety commitment, we will also be looking to set a new “Gold Standard” of customer service for our industry.  We look forward to continuing to challenge those within our company to improve each and every day.

Have Questions or Need Help?

Contact us online or call 855-DFS-4111

More on Dickinson Fleet Services

Dickinson Fleet is the nation’s leader in mobile truck maintenance and repair. We currently have 300 mobile trucks equipped with state of the art technology visiting our customers nightly in nearly every major city in the country.