2,132. That is the number of passenger vehicle occupants killed in truck accidents involving two or more vehicles against only 72 large truck occupants. A whopping 97% of the total. So, leave alone reasons such as a better CSA score, fewer violations, and getting more clients: taking all the steps to reduce the risk of accidents is primarily about saving lives. It is about caring for others. And then while you are at it, you get to enjoy the benefits of a lower CSA score such as fewer compliance checks, lower insurance premiums, more clients, and peace of mind.
The generally accepted way to improve your CSA score is to sift through countless data by vehicle type from the DOT Safety Management System (SMS) in order to understand the causes of a low score and then work on them to make your truck safer. But what if there was a way to know and eliminate these causes before the data is captured and published on the SMS website?
Introducing Whip Around and CSA Score
You remember Motive (formerly KeepTruckin), right? That AI-powered fleet management platform that detects unsafe driving with industry-leading accuracy, prevents accidents, and even coaches drivers? Well, they are now offering another level of performance insights and compliance features to make it even simpler to manage your fleets. These new features are powered by their integration with Whip Around.
What is Whip Around? Whip Around is a leading fleet maintenance solution that provides electronic driver vehicle inspection reports (eDVIR) and work orders to fleet operators to ensure safety and efficiency. There are four things it can help you with:
- Sending alerts when issues and defects occur
- Storing and reporting documents
- Conducting electronic inspection on a mobile app
- Triggering preventative and reactive maintenance schedules
- Generating, recording, and tracking work orders
- Tracking mileage and engine hours
- Lastly, combining vehicle defects with regular maintenance tasks in work orders.
These improve the performance and safety of the truck, making it easier to manage fleets.
Motive + Whip Around
All the causes of truck accidents can be grouped into two: driver error, and truck error. Although they aren’t mutually exclusive, we are going to work with that for now.
That said, to prevent incidents or accidents for a higher CSA score, you only need to reduce driver error, and prevent truck errors or solve them as fast as possible.
That is what the integration of Motive and Whip Around will help you with. It gives you a way to prevent truck accidents before they happen and violations before the inspection. And the longer you go without any incidents and violations, the lower your CSA score.
I won’t go into too much detail because you already know how handy Motive is, and have a glimpse into what Whip Around can do for your truck and/or fleet. Their integration makes it easy to sync vehicles, capture DVIR defects, mileage & engine hours, location data, and engine faults within Whip Around without breaking your existing workflow.
Here is how it will help you streamline your fleet maintenance & compliance.
Automatic Odometer and Engine Hour Readings
Normally, maintenance schedules are usually based on the number of miles traveled. For trucks, it is generally every 10,000 – 20,000 miles. Although it is generally effective, your truck could have some problems that could cause an accident or an incident before your next maintenance schedule.
With this integration, odometer readings, engine hours, and fault codes sync in real-time. If the need arises, your maintenance schedule could be moved up to prevent violations, inefficiencies, or in the worst case, a road accident.
Trigger Alerts for Missed Inspections on Moving Vehicles
A DVIR report confirms that the driver has fully inspected the truck before taking it out on the road. There are lots of risks for not completing an inspection. You could miss an important issue with your truck that could lead to breaking down or causing an accident. This could lead to a much higher CSA score.
Failure to perform the inspection could lead to civil penalties and fees which will reflect in your CSA score. To prevent this from happening, this integration notifies the manager of any vehicle that is missing a DVIR as soon as it’s moving.
1. Manage Diagnostic Trouble Codes and Engine Faults
Diagnostic trouble codes are used by mechanics to understand what is wrong with your truck. Instead of reporting manually when the engine light comes on and having the mechanic look for the problem, this integration uses diagnostic tools and telematics to identify issues and trigger alerts to reduce any risk immediately.
The diagnostic trouble codes reduce the downtime of fixing your trucks as mechanics don’t have to tinker around to find out, saving you money.
2. Group Faults, Defects, and Servicing Into Work Orders
For some faults and defects, the maintenance history of the truck is very important. That is why it is important to keep all the details in one place. This integration groups all the maintenance details and faults in one work order, making it easy to track them.
This grouping also allows you to track the total cost you have spent on each asset so you can easily estimate its true value.
3. Manage Motive DVIR Defects
As aforementioned, a DVIR is required by law. And no driver in their right mind should take the risk of driving a truck with a defect detected in the inspection. If any fault occurs during the inspection, the driver takes it off the road and repair it.
This integration allows all that within the app. From inspection to creating the work order to certification, you can do it all. It is the most convenient way to comply with DOT requirements before taking out the truck to the road.
4. Compliance With Confidence for CSA Score
This integration is in line with all the requirements of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for DVIR. As such, drivers and fleet managers can rest easy that their truck(s) are not violating any rules and requirements.
If you would like to learn more about the integration of Motive and Whip Around and how it can improve your safety scores, you can watch our webinar.
Easier Than Ever to Stay Ahead of the Game for a CSA Score
There is no instant solution to improving and maintaining your CSA scores. But luckily, we are not focusing on that. We are focusing on ensuring we are doing our part to keep all road users safe. An improved CSA is a welcome bonus. That is why a fleet management solution like Motive is vital to the success of every trucking business. Now, if you integrate such a powerful tool with Whip Around’s intuitive maintenance tool, you can run a safer, more compliant operation.
To improve your trucking business efficiency and performance, enable the integration today.
