Discipline for Accident?

lhill

Two days in a row this week we have had employees who had fender benders in company vehicles. One backed into a mail box on a brick stand at the end of a customer's drive way, and the other was backing out of a parking slot at the post office and hit another car. I'm thinking the supvs are not thinking of taking any disciplinary action, but we are going to have to pay damages on both of the accidents. My question is: would you discipline, and how do you feel about employees having to take defensive driving? Just to say, "Be more careful", then do nothing, doesn't seem to offer any encouragement for this not happening again.

Linda

ritaanz

When an employee is issued a company car, are there any procedures that they are made aware of and sign off on? Does the company have a written policy regarding use of company property?

Sorry I cannot be of any help, but some info would be good.

Dasher

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 04-28-05 AT 12:04PM (CST)[/font][br][br]Both would get, at a minimum, an oral (with written documentation) warning about paying proper attention while driving company vehicles. One does not back into mailboxes and cars if they are looking behind them. It would not hurt at all to even have the supervisor demonstrate the proper way to back up a vehicle. It might be a bit embarrasing for the drivers, however, it shows you are serious about safety issues.

Gillian3

Of course. Performance re. safety is the same as performance in any other area of their job. In Ca. required Injury and Illness Prevention programs state that the plan MUST include disciplinary action for safety violations.

Don D

Absolutely! Depending on what else is in their file, I would consider everything from written warning letter in their file, to unpaid suspension, to termination or removal of driving authority.

TN HR

Amen brother Don! This should be an integral part of your driver safety program. I think it was Dasher who also suggested a driver improvement program and I second that motion!

The big brown machine (UPS) used to have a zero-tolerance policy for package car drivers. Any accident resulting in ANY sort of property damage was a terminable offense. According to my neighbor, who is a 30 year KGB (read Teamsters) Ring Leader (read Shop Steward), the KGB finally put the kibosh on that and now there is a bit more leniency but not much.

Gene

Geno

lhill,
We have an established "Clean Driver" definition that we use to determine an employee or potential employee's suitability to drive for us. Employees with driving duties understand from the beginning that “discipline up to and including termination” can occur due to a variety of infractions -- the most obvious being the dreaded DUI and DWI. An employee can also be on the receiving end of discipline for exceeding established point-system maximums which many/most state’s department of motor vehicles access for driving violations such as speeding etc. Finally we include a “catch-all” subsection entitled “Negligent Driving” which establishes property and/or bodily injury dollar limits, beyond which discipline is mandated, for drivers who manage to have repeated fender-bender “accidents” but somehow avoid the accumulation of points on their driving records.

Mandated post-accident training is also a good idea. Whether you require the employee to attend some type of formal training or simply require them to view a relevant driver training tape and write a brief summery it, (pardon the pun) drives the point home and in addition, your fleet auto insurance carrier will love you for it.

GENO

lorrie

I agree a written warning is appropriate. Have them fill out an accident report specifically stating WHY the accident occurred. This puts in writing for them to see their own responsibility, and they know it will be placed in their file.

Anytime you have company vehicles, or any other property for that matter, there will be accidents but it is certainly appropriate to hold the employees accountable for it. Too much damage leads to termination. Your company has the right to decide how much is too much.

We also offer an annual bonus to our drivers as an incentive to pay attention. Any damage comes right out of their bonus, and of course very much damage and they lose their bonus.

lhill

Thanks for the input. Our employees do have to fill out an accident report, but only one of these drivers put down a "why" (she thought the other driver was going to wait for her to back out, but he didn't). I am going to send the other report back and have the ee put down why he hit a brick post. I just talked to one of the supvs who said that she and our safety coordinator met with one of the ee's involved, but she hadn't really considered disciplinary action. Our policy is a little vague on this, which will be next on my agenda. It addresses reporting accidents, and consequences for misuse, abuse, and not properly maintaining vehicles, but that's about it. The other supv just called and said they decided to take no disciplinary action because "it was just an accident".

One more time...the reason I am in Human Resources is_______?

HRLASS

In our company those count as preventable accidents. I believe the limit is 3 in 5 years and termination, of course, depending on the individual circumstances and degree of injury or damage. Accident report required in each case. Number of preventable accidents annually affects the annual bonus in each department with drivers, and a driver safety program is also required, followed by monitoring of the employee.

Balloonman1

I am late weighing in but what the heck. You are not disciplining people for having accidents, motor viehicle or other wise, you are disciplining the unsafe behavior that resulted in an accident.
Don pointed it out earlier, I believe.
"You are being given a verbal/written warning for operating your vehicle in a careless and unsafe manner which resulted in an accident."
Did you drug test them post accident if that is your policy? If you don't self pay the claims it will impact your insurance, so there is cost.

Unless they are broadsided or rear-ended it is most likely their fault. They need to be help accountable. You were just lucky no one was hurt.

You could require them to go to an 8 hour defensive driving course. :-) That is what I do to bad drivers.

My $0.02 worth,
DJ............The Balloonman!

Kiwi

We will also discipline for accidents, with the level depending on severity and previous warnings. I suggest when investigating the accidents and whether discipline is needed, someone else be involved with the supervisor. We have our corp safety guy do it because the direct sups usually didn't want to discipline. I also suggest you consider addressing what happens when they don't report an accident. When we first tightened our policy to give discipline for accidents (when warrented) some just didn't report them. So now failure to report accidents according to policy is a disciplinable offense on its own.

hrdir03nafcu

Ihill + everyone:

My thoughts are, 1st, if you're going to discipline the drivers, you should have something clearly spelled out in your Personnel Policies. Provided it's clearly spelled out in policy, I don't see a problem w/ disciplining a driver for accidents where they are at fault (sounds like your 2 cases clearly are at fault).

2nd, additional driver training is probably a good thing-- and you don't have to have a policy in place to provide training. But doing this under the heading of discipline seems to stigmatize it, and so it probably won't be very well received by the recipients. How about presenting driver training as "employee development"-- in fact, 2 crashes so close together may signal that it would be beneficial to provide driver training to ALL of your drivers? (That would avoid singling out certain individuals, and implications that this is punitive.... and hence to be resented.)

Good Luck!