The trucking industry is one of the most dangerous, most essential, and most underappreciated industries in the United States. Truck drivers carry important goods from Los Angeles all the way to the opposite coast and back again all the while responsible for the safety of their cargo, themselves, and other drivers. It’s a thankless job that gets way too much blame and not nearly enough credit.
If you own a fleet, then you’re all too familiar with the pitfalls that await your company if you’re not on your Ps and Qs. You have to worry about everything from hijackers to newbie drivers on the roadways who don’t know to respect large trucks. It’s imperative that you do everything possible to protect your fleet from physical and financial damages, so continue reading to learn how.
Install a dash cam inside of every truck in your fleet
Because they’re so large and difficult to control in certain conditions, tractor-trailers can be easy targets for blame when involved in car accidents. Collisions with 18-wheelers are often catastrophic and even fatal, but that doesn’t mean that every accident is due to negligence on behalf of the trucker.
It’s easy to arrive at the scene of a car accident involving an 18-wheeler and assume that the mangled car was run off the road by the unscathed large truck. However, this isn’t always the case, and truckers often catch the brunt of the blame for collisions when they aren’t culpable.
One way to prevent people from taking advantage of your truckers and getting rewarded for causing accidents is to get dash cams for your entire fleet. Having a front camera and a rear camera on your tractor-trailers can help you to avoid bogus insurance claims resulting from truck crashes. Depending on the video quality, dashcam footage can help to make sure that the at-fault party is the one that pays the price for causing the accident.
To find the best dash camera for your fleet, you need to look no further than your smartphone. The best dash cams are only a Google search away. Some of the best cams can live feed video files to computers and deliver high resolution up to 1080p and even 1440p resolution.
Equip your fleet with advanced driver-assist systems
While there is no substitute for the experience and skill of truckers, technology has made life easier for truck drivers. The best way to keep down insurance claims is to avoid them altogether, and advanced driver-assist systems help large trucks do some pretty amazing things.
Some driver-assist features include lane departure sensors to help you avoid drifting into other lanes and G-sensors to monitor acceleration. You can also outfit your fleet with rear-facing cameras to make backing up easier. Some rear cams even come with night vision to help truckers avoid backing into dark objects at night.
Keep lawyers on retainers
One of the downsides to owning a business is that you’re always a potential target for a lawsuit. We all make mistakes but when businesses do, someone usually gets paid.
As an owner of any type of business, it’s wise to keep lawyers on retainer so that you’ll have access to legal advice and representation should you need it. If you run a fleet out of Southern California, then you should build a business relationship with an experienced Los Angeles truck accident lawyer.
The more trucks you have on the road and the more hauls they make, then the more likely a truck from your fleet is to be in a truck accident. You don’t want to be scrambling for a lawyer while the accident victim is rounding up their team of lawyers to sick on your business.
You also need to have a business lawyer on retainer, especially one with years of experience in dealing with the federal regulations regarding interstate transport. Regardless of the unsavory reputation lawyers have, you’d much rather have a lawyer on retainer and not need one than to need one and not have one.
