The role of preventative maintenance in workplace safety

Blown tyres, binding brakes, an overheated engine – all safety risks to the driver and other road users, and all completely preventable.

Preventative maintenance plays a key role in safer driving. With vehicles or machines considered a workplace, if you’re an employer, owner, or manager in industries that involve driving or machine operation, you need to be on top of maintenance.

The new Health and Safety at Work Act which came into force at the beginning of April stipulates that organisations must be pro-active in identifying all risks and mitigating them. Correctly maintaining your vehicles or machines is a vital part of meeting your legal responsibilities, so having a regular maintenance schedule is essential. A maintenance schedule ensures the safety and roadworthiness of your vehicles to:

•    increase driver safety and improve their working environment
•    increase passenger safety
•    increase road safety for other road users, and
•    ensure your vehicles meet the minimum standards defined by law.

Preventative maintenance is as important as driver safety training. If a vehicle becomes unsafe due to lack of maintenance or repair, the fleet manager could be held liable for failing to take reasonably practicable steps to ensure safety. 

What to do?

Keep things simple, and they are more likely to happen. Use the acronym POWERS for an effective preventative maintenance programme.

•    Petrol – do I have enough petrol and is it the right type?
•    Oils – engine and hydraulic oil?
•    Water – coolant, battery and washer reservoir?
•    Electrics – do the electric systems work?
•    Rubber – tyres: condition, do I have enough air, enough tread? What about the windscreen wipers?
•    Safety equipment – flashlight, reflective triangle, mobile phone

How a fleet management system can help

The Teletrac Navman DIRECTOR software includes a maintenance module that allows you to optimise your service schedules and keep your fleet maintained to the highest standards. 
Using DIRECTOR you can:

•    See a complete overview as well as detailed summaries of fleet maintenance activities.
•    Receive alerts for upcoming maintenance needs or milestones, from oil changes to licence renewals, tyre rotations to inspections.
•    Manage your service intervals more accurately with options to report service requirements by date, number of miles, or even days on the road.
•    Track and report user-defined data such as service dates, times, costs and providers to identify patterns and spot trends.

The DIRECTOR maintenance module provides a complete overview of your fleet maintenance so you can ensure the highest possible safety standards.