FleetManagementWeekly AmeriFleet
April 27, 2016

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Editor's Analysis & Top Industry News


Driver Safety Rules!

We talk a lot about driver safety in this issue. Last week at NAFA I&E, there was a great deal of discussion about the industry’s heightened focus on products and techniques to enhance safety.

Pinpointing some of the problems, Mike Sheldrick has penned an interesting piece about Fleetmatics and how they used big data to score driver behavior by state and industry.

In Safety & Risk, Art Liggio of Driving Dynamics alerts us to the frightening statistic that in one year alone more than 5,000 people were killed and nearly a half million people injured in crashes involving some form of distracted driving! The article includes a superb pass-along communication for your drivers.

Jack Hanley at NETS asks, “Are your employees buckling up?” I honestly thought that this was a basic no-brainer, but, alas, I was wrong.

Janice Sutton
Editor in Chief


Thought Leadership

Fleet Marketing – Guiding principles for fleet providers to improve marketing and increase sales.

Fleet Asset Management – Best practices for work truck management.

On Accident Management Learn ways to save money on your fleet’s collision repair costs.

Safety & Risk — Impactful driver safety and risk management tools and techniques.

The Fleet CX Toolbox – Solid steps to implementing and improving fleet customer experience.

The Sustainable Fleet – Strategic approaches to bring about a smarter, cleaner fleet.

BIG Data. BIG Results. BIG Future– We look at harnessing big data to achieve big results using cutting edge technology.

Talent Management – Smart guidelines to help you manage the talent in your workplace.


frank-dan

VIDEO: Reimbursement is Sometimes the Better Option

Wheels President Dan Frank explains how his company determined that reimbursement is sometimes the better option, and consequently created a new reimbursement program.



VIDEO: The Launch of Fleet Insurance Plus
damen-hans
  Understanding Total Cost of Insurance
 

Backed by 30 years of expertise in the global fleet industry, Fleet Insurance Plus has just launched with a mandate of understanding – and minimizing – insurance costs for fleets around the world.


VIDEO: Have You Taken the Pledge?
alfson-ruth
  NAFA’s Distracted Driving Pledge
 

Stopping distracted driving is a key focus for NAFA — so much so that they are encouraging all members to take the Distracted Driving Pledge.





The Fleet Spot


FLEXY 2016 NAFA 2016 Fleet Excellence Award Winners!

We were excited to be in Austin at the NAFA 2016 Institute & Expo, and are delighted to extend our congratulations to the fleet professionals who were nominated for NAFA’s prestigious Fleet Excellence (FLEXY) awards, honoring the best and the brightest in the industry. The Awards Gala was a stunning event!

And the winners are:

READ MORE

2 seconds to click Are Your Employees Buckling Up?

U.S. employers are collectively spending an extra $5 billion per year on traffic crashes involving employees who did not wear a seat belt while driving or riding as a passenger, whether they were on the job or off.

To help employers improve seat belt usage among employees and, in turn, reduce the human and financial toll of traffic crashes on the workplace, NETS has developed a free online toolkit called 2seconds2click.

READ MORE

speed limits Speed Limit Increases Cause 33,000 Deaths in 20 Years

IIHS.org

If Vision Zero is the destination, higher speeds are slowing us down.

A new IIHS study shows that increases in speed limits over two decades have cost 33,000 lives in the U.S. In 2013 alone, the increases resulted in 1,900 additional deaths, essentially canceling out the number of lives saved by frontal airbags that year.

“Although fatality rates fell during the study period, they would have been much lower if not for states’ decisions to raise speed limits,” says Charles Farmer, IIHS vice president for research and statistical services and the author of the study.

READ MORE

Education Register Now for NAFA’s CAFM® Information Management Boot Camp — May 3 & 4!

Information Management Session 1: Tuesday, May 3, 2016 from 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm EST
Information Management Session 2: Wednesday, May 4, 2016 from 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm EST

Even though many organizations have an information technology (IT) staff to assist fleet managers, there is significant value placed on fleet managers who can understand basic IT issues. With a general knowledge of IT, fleet managers can intelligently interact with their support staff to resolve these issues and enhance IT functionality.

Click here to register now for this valuable educational session

Scoring Safety Data

By Mike Sheldrick

Fleet managers are learning to wrestle with the opportunities — and challenges — of big data produced by telematics, especially when it comes to driver behavior.

And while individual companies can identify risky drivers, and institute programs to improve driver behavior, there has been very little data on driver behavior as a whole,

Now, however, thanks to Fleetmatics, a leading global telematics company, there are some interesting safety data — and analyses — available for service vehicles across the United States. Using its fleet management software, the company gathered data from 177,000 of its customers’ service vehicles, from October 2014 to October 2015.

READ MORE

 
The Fleet CX Toolkit

The CX of a Great Mobile Experience

By Wendy Eichenbaum

The 3 core benefits necessary for a great mobile experience are immediacy, simplicity, and context. Without all three, your mobile app will feel like a stool with just two legs, wobbly or broken.

A great mobile experience enables users to access only the information they want, when they want it, and in an efficient and intuitive manner. If the solution is more difficult than the problem, users will find some other way, or company, to complete the task.

READ MORE

 
A History of GPS

Bloomberg Businessweek

A history of GPS examines the costs of relying on it.

In Pinpoint: How GPS Is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds, Greg Milner tells two stories. One’s about how the Global Positioning System became one of the 21st century’s most important technologies. The other’s about how it may be stunting the brains of the ingenious species that created it.

We use GPS today to guide airplanes, ships, and tractors. It keeps tabs on sex offenders and helps find oil deposits. “GPS surveys land, and builds bridges and tunnels,” Milner writes. “GPS knows when the earth deforms; it senses the movement of tectonic plates down to less than a millimeter.” GPS can tell you how long until your Uber arrives—and even let you know if someone nearby is interested in a one-night stand.

READ MORE








Fleet Trends & Issues


Six Things to Do When You’re About to Run Out of Gas

Cars.com

Admit it: You’ve been there. We all have. You were making great time. You were trying to beat rush hour. You wanted to wait until the next food stop or bathroom break. But you cut it too close. Your fuel light came on.

And now you’re in the middle of nowhere, with no idea how far it is to the next gas station. What do you do?

“The first step is, repeat after me: ‘Our father, who art in heaven … ,’ ” AAA Technical Services Manager Michael Calkins suggested in jest.

READ MORE

The Best Deals In Off-Lease Used Cars

Forbes

As we’ve noted before, car dealers – who’ve suffered through several years of depleted used-car inventories – are facing what amounts to an embarrassment of riches as a large volume of two- and three-year-old vehicles will be coming off leases in the months ahead.

According to data compiled by the J.D. Power Information Network, the number of off-lease models returning to market will increase by around 800,000 units this year, which represents a 33% boost over 2015.

READ MORE

EV and Hybrid Loyalty Falls to All-Time Low, Even as Overall Fuel Economy Thrives, Says Edmunds.com

Edmunds

Only 27.5 percent of all hybrid and electric vehicle trade-ins in 2016 have been applied to the purchase of another hybrid or EV, according to a new analysis from car shopping destination Edmunds.com.

The rate is a precipitous drop from the 38.5 percent of hybrid and EV trade-ins in 2015, and the findings reinforce a trend first identified last year by Edmunds that owners of alt-fuel vehicles are returning to traditional gasoline-powered vehicles in greater numbers than ever before.

But the trend back toward traditional vehicles is not having the negative effect on the environment that one might expect.

READ MORE

8 Mistakes That Make Good Employees Leave

Huffington Post

It’s tough to hold on to good employees, but it shouldn’t be. Most of the mistakes that companies make are easily avoided. When you do make mistakes, your best employees are the first to go, because they have the most options.

When you lose good employees, they don’t disengage all at once. Instead, their interest in their jobs slowly dissipates. Michael Kibler, who has spent much of his career studying this phenomenon, refers to it as brownout. Like dying stars, star employees slowly lose their fire for their jobs.

READ MORE

Stopping Distracted Driving

Wired

For the last seven years, the US government has tried everything it can think of to end distracted driving.

It’s hosted national summits, helped 46 states ban texting while driving, and sunk millions into ad campaigns that discourage the addictive behavior. None of it’s worked. Distraction behind the wheel still kills about 3,000 people a year in the US, and injures 431,000 more. Yikes.

Now, the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) is trying what so many denizens of the Internet do when frustrated: It’s trolling. Its targets are Twitter users who admit to, joke about, or don’t adequately denounce texting and driving.

READ MORE

 
Safety & Risk

By Art Liggio, President, Driving Dynamics

In one year it was reported that more than 5,000 people were killed and nearly a half million people were injured in crashes involving some form of distracted driving.

To help you and your drivers address this issue ahead on, provided is a PASS ALONG communication to share with your fleet in our mutual fight against distracted driving. It includes information about the different types of distracted driving, links to two highly effective Driving Dynamics’ safety tip videos and a copy of our “Be Dynamic Behind The Wheel, Not Distractedpledge sheet.

READ MORE

 
City Car Concepts

The Detroit Bureau

With gas prices so low, is it possible that Shell is looking for another revenue stream with the introduction of is city car concept that could deliver a 34% reduction in energy use over its lifetime?

Maybe it should after the results the current version put up.

The three-seater car is co-engineered – the vehicle body, engine design and lubricants are all created together – using Gordon Murray Design’s patented iStream platform. The process saves on the energy required to manufacture the vehicle. Additionally, since it’s a lightweight city car, it uses a lot less gas.

READ MORE








Fleet Management Resources
 
AFLA – Automotive Fleet & Leasing Association
Providing the advanced forum for corporate fleet professionals to network with industry leaders.
The CEI Group Inc.
CEI is North America’s largest provider of fully integrated fleet accident management, driver safety and risk management services.
PARS
PARS' mission is to provide you with high-quality service at competitive prices for all of your transportation needs.
AmeriFleet
Offering a nationwide vehicle delivery and relocation service; serving the corporate and commercial fleet industry.
LeasePlan
LeasePlan is the world's leading high-touch service provider for vehicle leasing and fleet management.
Wheels, Inc.
First in fleet for 76 years. Wheels helps you build tomorrow’s fleet today.
ARI
Driven fleet professionals. Driving results.
NAFA Fleet Management Association
NAFA is the association for the diverse vehicle fleet management profession regardless of organizational type, geographic location, or fleet composition.



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