Coronavirus Safety Tips for Fleet Drivers

Companies in the U.S. are pushing for, or required to mandate, staff members to stay home while coronavirus cases continue climbing. Unfortunately, along with healthcare providers, service workers and other individuals with at-risk jobs, a common job title in the U.S. where employees can’t work from their home is fleet drivers.

As public health officials and medical professionals work diligently to slow down the spread of this virus, truck drivers have to work 24/7 to deliver food, critical medical supplies and other essentials to grocery stores and hospitals nationwide. In fact, around 1.8 million individuals in the U.S. are truck drivers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And, the job calls for truck drivers to travel all over the country, and come in contact with shipped goods from overseas, which can not only impact them, but everyone they come into contact with. So, what can truck drivers do to stay protected from the coronavirus?

1. Sanitization

It’s essential for truck drivers to keep up with their personal hygiene to help decrease their exposure to germs associated with arising viruses. Proper hygiene is critical for fleet drivers since they often travel to numerous locations and come in contact daily with new bacteria and germs.

Truck drivers should:

• Wash their hands for a minimum of 20 seconds with water and soap often
• Not touch their face
• Use hand sanitizer
• Maintain a healthy lifestyle to keep their immune system strong

Other things fleet drivers can do are continuously wipe the steering wheels of their trucks with Clorox or other sanitary wipes. They should use hand sanitizer every time they touch another metal surface or use a touch screen at gas pumps.

Some truck drivers express sanitary concerns about roller grills and food buffets that remain open at convenience stores and truck stops until the coronavirus is contained. Others are raising concerns about disinfecting their restrooms and showers.

2. Quarantine

Fleet drivers should attempt to stay more “self-contained” in their trucks by preparing their meals at home and eating them in their trucks. Rather than talking with other fellow fleet drivers while drivers wait for paperwork, they should quarantine themselves in their trucks right now during this crisis. It might become lonely not having that face-to-face contact, but it’s necessary since they are the ones who are hauling emergency supplies.

3. Fresh Cups

A fresh cup policy should be implemented for all refills, which includes using new cups for pouring beverages into personal mugs.

4. Provide Cleaning Tools

Fleet managers should provide cleaning tools to their truck drivers. Trub cabs become dirty. Provide your fleet drivers with things like cleaners and disinfecting wipes for their trucks and advise they wipe down surfaces they touch regularly, such as:

• Door handles
• Steering wheels
• Mobile phones
• Tablets

You could hand out antibacterial hand gel that will attach to their keychains easily so they can sanitize when they can’t wash their hands.

4. Encourage Awareness

Advise your truck drivers to be aware of what’s going on around them, especially truck stops and gas stations, and keep an eye open for people who might be coughing frequently or who appear sick. Advise them to keep their distance, and to make sure all food places they stop at are noticeably cleaned by employees and employees are practicing good hygiene.

5. Share Information

Educate on regular hand washing, how to avoid the spread of germs in employee bathrooms and driver’s cabs and more. Post up notices regularly. You can obtain various downloadable posters through the CDC and print them out.

Here at LiveViewGPS, we wish all of our nation’s truck drivers well and thank them for their dedicated service during this time and always.

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