Public Service Fleets

Market

Excluding police, fire, EMS and teachers, there are approximately one million public service employees engaged in white fleet activities (e.g. driving work trucks). Until now, any efforts to improve employee/driver safety have been sporadic and inadequate. Some ambitious superintendents have purchased generic truck, bus or car training programs and attempted to “make them fit.” Others, have created their own home-spun programs, relying on the tribal knowledge of senior employees to provide junior employees with informal on-the-job training.

There has never been a focused safety and risk management solution tailored to the needs of those who drive work trucks for government fleets.

39,044 incorporated municipalities, cities, villages and townships (https://www.nlc.org/)
3,033 counties
500,000+ public sector vehicles (includes heavy duty, light duty and sedans).
This is an untapped market – no one exists to serve their safety and HR needs.
These entities use their own home-spun, self-made processes, if they do anything at all.

Exposure

The exposure to loss is significant. Based on three years of data search across 15 pertinent key words (e.g. city employee killed), research and ongoing analysis we have confirmed that annually there are approximately 11,500 PSS on-the-job injuries and 160 fatalities resulting from motor vehicle collisions.

Through Voice of the Customer (VOC) interviews with mayors and service directors and learned about some specific fatal accidents. We also learned that even small cities often carry a sizable deductible for both their AL and WC insurance coverages. This means they must pay the first layer of cost (e.g. $50,000 to $1 million), directly out of the budget. In one case, a single large loss forced the delay of a promised repaving program that, in turn, caused the mayor to be voted out of office.

Benefits

Outcome-based training makes drivers safer. Avatar has a 26-year history of producing custom-designed safety programs that have reduced annual losses by 30, 40 and 50%.

Public Service Safety Portal

PSS is a free website that serves as a central clearinghouse of safety information for public service entities, their leaders and employees. It has pertinent articles, breaking news (e.g. “City worker killed while patching roadway…”) and weekly tips, etc.

PSS Defensive Driving

PSS Silver subscribers have access to the defensive driving course. It provides low-cost, outcome-based safety education and training. The current system has instruction across six vital topics: