In 2023, 3,275 people died from crashes involving distracted drivers, accounting for 8% of all fatal crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Between 2014 and 2023, more than 32,000 people have been killed by distracted driving.
The issue: Every six miles, a driver receives a new notification on their phone, and 73% of drivers feel pressured to respond immediately to work-related notifications, according to research by Truce Software, a workplace safety tech company.
How are you keeping your delivery drivers free of distractions and safe on the road?
“Every part of your business can contribute to focused driving,” says Traci Dooley, AAF, of Hortica, a brand of the Sentry Insurance Group. “If you own a small floral shop, it’s important to ask yourself: Can this call wait? Can I wait to send this text (to the driver) until they’ve arrived safely at their location? Business leaders need to embody their business’s safety culture. Minimize the distractions. Maximize safety.”
Hortica, as part of Distracted Driving Awareness Month, is hosting a free webinar April 21 to provide businesses with best practices that encourage focused driving. Attendees will receive access to a toolkit to help them implement the lessons learned.
Some examples embraced by floral businesses include offering incentives for accident-free driving records, establishing driving policies, and examining procedures with safety in mind. Not only do those initiatives curb distracted and unsafe driving and protect businesses’ people, products and financial security, it also keeps them out of legal trouble.
Logoed delivery vehicles are likely one of a business’s largest vulnerabilities to a liability type loss, Dooley says. That matters to any size fleet because accidents caused by distracted driving have serious financial repercussions.
“Lawsuits and large verdicts involving company drivers are becoming more frequent and more costly, but they’re still difficult to predict,” she says. ”Which is why preventing an accident in the first place is so important to protecting your business and your drivers.”
Many shops are well aware of the benefits of keeping their drivers and vehicles safe on the road, and they reinforce safety by rewarding delivery drivers with escalating quarterly bonuses — $100 for the first accident-free quarter, $200 for the second consecutive quarter, $300 for the third, and $400 for the fourth.
Others, such as Family Flowers, are testing incentives based on information from a GPS and camera system. Drivers who maintain certain safety scores on a monthly or quarterly basis receive bonuses.
To learn more, join Horica’s April 21 webinar by registering here.
Sarah Sampson is a contributing writer for the Society of American Florists.
