With fuel prices going up and up, driving is rapidly becoming a major expense for companies. Those with fleets of lorries and vans are finding themselves especially hard hit, but there is a way that savings can be made with some simple fuel efficient driving rules.
Some are obvious, such as making sure your vehicles have regular MOTs, ensuring that the tyres are fully inflated and making sure the vehicle carries as little weight as possible. However seeing as many companies that use fleets work in logistics, saving weight isn’t always an option. There are some rules though, that if followed, can facilitate fuel efficient driving and therefore greatly save costs.
Driving speed is an important factor. As you’d expect, the faster you drive, the more fuel you burn so if you want to save money on your fleet, get your drivers to maintain a moderate pace. One way of doing this is to have a fuel consumption read-out, which allows the drivers to identify bad habits as well as keep track of consumption.
Changing to higher gears when the traffic allows, as well as avoiding heavy congestion, also provides savings, but there are little changes that can also assist fuel efficient driving. These include:
- Not starting the engine until you’re ready to go
- Driving smoothly, accelerate gently, anticipate
- Cutting down on the air-con
- Turn off heaters, demisters, headlights
- Turning off the engine if you are stuck in a queue
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For UK companies, Driving Risk Management offer a range of products and services to help you reduce your vehicle fleet running costs such as fuel efficient driving courses and high performance driving courses.
