Bobit Business Media held its first-ever Fleet Safety Conference May 22-23 at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center Hotel in Schaumburg, Ill. More than 230 fleet professionals registered for the two-day event, which focused on raising the bar for fleet safety.

Additional event photos are available here.

Endorsed by the American Automotive Leasing Association (AALA), the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety (NETS), and the National Safety Council (NSC), the two-day conference covered critical safety topics for today’s fleet manager.

Starting with a keynote address by Maggie Cole, director of Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) for Monsanto, day-one sessions ranged from distracted driving and federal regulations for medium- and heavy-duty trucks to coping with a fleet fatality or serious injury among drivers.

Other topics included how to prepare for a safety-related lawsuit, safety issues tied to maintenance of alternative-fuel vehicles, minimizing risk exposure when expatriates drive company-owned vehicles, ways to encourage safe driving of company-owned vehicles by non-employees, and making safety a top-down effort.

Industry suppliers also had opportunities to share their expertise and latest solutions with attendees during networking breaks and in a panel discussion covering the latest fleet safety technologies.

Day two started off with a keynote address by Louis Tijerina, PhD., senior technical specialist, research and advanced engineering for Ford Motor Co., who shared the automaker’s research updates as it relates to developing technologies that improve driver focus.

Topics on the second day of the conference included liabilities associated with negligent entrustment, best practices for establishing successful fleet safety policies and programs, comparing National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) safety ratings to real-world experience, effectively communicating policies to company executives and to fleet drivers, and benchmarking safety metrics to reduce costs and improve safety.

Adding to the highlights of day two was the Fleet Safety Award luncheon. Pam Sederholm, executive director for AALA, emceed the event and presented the award to Tammy Evans, VP of fleet operations for transportation and logistics company Modern Transportation Services.

Day two also featured a panel of representatives from Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, and General Motors discussing current and upcoming safety technologies in late-model vehicles. Other session topics included developing a driver safety accountability program and predicting and preventing at-fault crashes using driver profiles.

The conference ended with a “town hall” discussion, moderated by Automotive Fleet Editor & Associate Publisher Mike Antich. Panelists including Mark Kreindler, VPSI Inc.; Daniel Smith, NHTSA; Randy Shadley, CAFM, Corporate Claims Management; Beth Ann Stamer, Eli Lilly and Co.; and Louis Tijerina PhD, Ford, answered audience questions.

Event sponsors included 10n2 Technologies, Aegis Mobility, The CEI Group, Driver’s Alert, Fleet Response, Geotab Inc., GPS Insight, Greenroad, LeasePlan USA, Wheels Inc., and ZoomSafer.

Stay tuned to www.fleetsafetyconference.com for updates on next year’s event.