Between 2023 and 2024, Australia experienced a significant road safety crisis, with 1,300 fatalities recorded in 2024—the highest annual toll in over a decade. This increase underscores the critical need for heightened awareness and responsibility among drivers.

When traveling at 100 km/h, a heavy vehicle covers approximately 28 metres per second. This rapid speed amplifies the potential consequences of poor driving habits, making it essential for drivers to maintain vigilance and adhere to safe driving practices.

Vehicles are vital assets in modern society, but operating them comes with significant responsibility. Adopting safe driving habits is crucial to prevent accidents, protect drivers, and ensure the safety of all road users.

1. Speeding

Speeding is a major factor in road incidents involving heavy vehicles in Australia. In 2023, there were 190 fatalities in crashes involving heavy trucks, including 104 deaths from articulated trucks and 95 deaths from heavy rigid trucks.

Driving at high speeds in HGVs or vans not only increases the risk of accidents but also causes additional wear and tear on vehicles, higher fuel consumption, and can encourage other road users to exceed speed limits.

Speeding also leaves vehicles vulnerable to damage from road hazards such as potholes, leading to suspension wear, tyre damage, and axle distortion. Given that a single HGV can have multiple wheels, even one instance of speeding can result in significant vehicle damage.

2. Rapid acceleration

Rapid acceleration is another dangerous driving habit, which can often go hand-in-hand with hard braking and speeding offences. While it may seem like a good way to cut down journey times, excessive acceleration can result in a loss of traction and control, putting drivers and other road users at risk and increasing fuel costs.

3. Hard  braking

Hard braking is often a sign that your drivers aren’t paying full attention to the road, or are travelling too fast for the current conditions. It can be a symptom of road rage, tired driving, speeding or unpredictable hazards, and it’s one of the quickest ways to wear out your brake pads. When a brake pad is worn through, your vehicle may veer to one side or fail to stop completely, causing a serious hazard for road users.

4. Taking corners at speed

One of the worst driving habits is taking corners at speed. During corners, vehicles are at a heightened risk of overturning, skidding or overshooting the road. When a car turns a corner too fast, it’s at risk of crashing into hidden hazards, flipping onto its side or skidding out of control. When this happens, they may crush other cars, damage roadside properties and cause legal repercussions for your company - not to mention the risk to life.

5. Accelerating in a high gear

‘Engine lugging’ is a term used to describe a vehicle stuck at low RPM, driving at a much higher gear than necessary. The ‘lug’ refers to a grinding, shuddering motion caused by a protesting engine unable to push down completely on the pistons. When accelerating in a high gear, you ‘lug’ your engine by ignoring the RPM requirement of your speed increase, causing the engine to run hot and putting strain on moving parts. Overtime, this can result in wear and tear on engine components, such as connecting rods, bearings, and even the crankshaft.

6. Engine braking

Although it can be a good option for emergency situations, such as skid hazards and popped tyres, engine braking is not a good thing to make a habit of. Dropping gears too rapidly can put pressure on the clutch, trapping it between fast wheel rotations and a slower engine speed. By regularly doing so, you can wear out a vehicle’s clutch over time, leading to premature clutch failure, costly repairs, and potential safety hazards.

7. Engine idling

Where the environment is concerned, engine idling is one of the top bad driving habits to avoid. From releasing excessive air pollution to burning far more fuel than necessary, idling can cause a lot of strain on the ecosystem, your vehicle and finances. Regular idling can cause carbon build up in your engine, burn through additional fuel, irritate the lungs of road users and increase your company’s carbon footprint.

8. Shifting from drive to reverse in motion

You should always stop before changing from forward gear to reverse, or vice versa. This is because the ‘reverse’ mechanism is made up of a unique idler that needs to slot between the gears, reversing the rotation of the wheel. If you fail to stop before replacing forward gear with the idler, your engine will try to adjust active moving parts, putting strain on the gears. This could wear away the inner workings of the gearbox, which can be expensive to replace.

9. Overloading a vehicle

A vehicle’s manoeuvrability is determined by its weight, so by overfilling it with more than its recommended load, steering can become less predictable, putting your drivers and other road users at risk. What’s more, when an engine is overloaded, the skid risk increases, as does the risk of toppling or overshooting a corner. It’s the employer’s responsibility to make sure any vehicles operated by their drivers are safe, and if a crash occurs due to overloading, they may be prosecuted.

10. Not indicating

Failing to signal is a dangerous practice for any driver, but the potential consequences are drastically amplified for those operating large vehicles. Indicators are an invaluable tool to let other road users know exactly what you plan to do in advance, helping to avoid collisions and emergency stops. If your drivers make a habit of not indicating, they could cause a serious hazard during lane changes or at junctions - especially in vehicles with large blind spots.

11. Emotional driving

Road rage is extremely dangerous. It can lead drivers to exhibit numerous other poor driving habits and puts road users at serious risk of injury, property damage, or death. Road rage can be triggered by anything from time constraints and stress to lack of sleep and frustration with other drivers. If your employees exhibit road rage, especially when driving vans and HGVs, it’s crucial to intervene.

How to stop your drivers using dangerous driving habits

As a company, you have a lot of power to change the poor driving habits of your employees. There are several things you can do to prevent your drivers from damaging your vehicles and putting themselves and other road users at risk. Here are a few ways to discourage bad habits while driving, whether you operate a fleet of HGVs, vans or company cars.

Track your vehicles: When you own a fleet, you can’t be with all your vehicles, all the time. Luckily,  installing a GPS vehicle tracking system will help you to track your vehicles without requiring constant input from you or your management team. Paired up with the Kinesis software, the GPS can even alert you to dangerous driving in real time. Kinesis will also allow you to run reports on driver behaviour and performance, helping you to pinpoint wider issues among your fleet and understand where driver education might be needed

Install dash cams: Dash cams provide valuable insight into driver behaviour and road incidents. A forward-facing camera can help understand events such as sudden braking, harsh acceleration, or sharp cornering, while an inward-facing camera can highlight potential distractions or stressful situations. Reviewing footage allows fleet managers to educate drivers using real-life scenarios, helping to prevent future incidents. Crucially, dash cams also serve as a safeguard for drivers, providing clear evidence in the event of an accident to demonstrate what truly happened—protecting them if they were not at fault.

Set appropriate deadlines: Bad driving habits like speeding, hard braking and rapid acceleration can be exacerbated by time pressure. Making sure your drivers have the right amount of time to reach their destinations - even in heavy traffic - will help prevent instances of dangerous driving on the road. GPS tracking also helps you understand the ETA of deliveries and keep your customers informed, providing a better customer service.

Train your staff on driving safely: Bad habits aren’t usually malicious, and they may happen because a driver is unaware of their implications. Training your employees about the risks and consequences their actions can help to reduce the offending rate in your company.