A newly released study delves into the greatest pain points for fleet managers, revealing top concerns like staying up to date on Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regulations and keeping employees safe.

The fourth annual study from the J. J. Keller Center for Market Insights highlighted trending concerns from 2021 to 2024, taking a look at many challenges commercial and other fleet managers face. When comparing results year-over-year, analysts noted increases in concerns including:

• Struggling with hours-of-service (HOS) limits and use exemptions jumped 13% from 2023 to 2024.

• Finding and retaining high-quality drivers remained a top item from prior years and grew 12% from 2023.

• Understanding how the FMCSA regulations specifically apply to them stayed on the list of top concerns, increasing 9% year-over-year.

“Despite widespread use of electronic logs, hours-of-service compliance remains a key issue, with HOS violations making up over 40% of all roadside violations and nearly 1 in 5 violations found during audits in 2023. Toss in a variety of exceptions, and it’s no wonder that drivers struggle with HOS compliance," J. J. Keller Senior Industry Advisor Daren Hansen said.

Staying Organized with Recordkeeping Remains a Challenge

For the past two years, the most important aspects of FMCSA compliance concerns remain unchanged, analysts noted. A total of 47% of fleet managers who participated in the study stated that 'having accurate and well-organized Driver Qualification files' was the most important aspect of FMCSA compliance. This was up 5% from 2023.

Comments from respondents regarding the most challenging aspects of their job included, 'staying up to date with changing DOT and OSHA rules' and 'ensuring all parts of compliance are monitored and records centrally retained.'

One respondent said this includes the 'constant changing of FMCSA rules and regulations.' Another respondent said they struggled with 'having all the paperwork needed and filed.'

As the risk of 'nuclear verdicts' and FMCSA audits continues to increase, fleet managers are likely to continue to prioritize staying up-to date with regulatory requirements and improving driver knowledge and skills.

Additionally, ongoing economic challenges mean that avoiding costly incidents, removing inefficiencies, and minimizing driver turnover are crucial to fleet success.

Keeping Focused on Improving Driver Knowledge, Skills, & Safety

More than half of respondents — 65% — agree that continuous learning is 'mostly' or 'completely' emphasized by their company.

When it comes to driver training, 47% of respondents believe it’s most important that their training is specific to the unique needs of their drivers, operations, vehicles or industry and 45% said drivers apply what they learn in training.

Drivers appear to want the training. In another survey, recently released by Nationwide Insurance, 72% of drivers said they wanted their management to increase the training being provided to them to help prevent accidents and improve safety.

Training issues showing year-over-year increases involved flexibility and efficiency in delivery. Respondents stated a strong desire for drivers to access training whenever and wherever it’s needed with minimal disruption to daily tasks.

Additional top training concerns included:

• Having accurate and well-organized training records (30%)

• Having engaging and interesting training (28%)

• Being able to prove, if needed, that a driver understood the training content (25%)

A proactive approach, including training, to building a safe and compliant fleet, can minimize the impact of litigation by helping carriers uphold their 'duty to act' — a primary consideration for a jury. A 'duty to act' means that you should have been aware of and corrected any safety issues before they resulted in incidents.

“The most successful carriers leverage dash cams, electronic logging devices, and telematics data to find and fix compliance and performance issues leading to prevention of crashes, citations, and unnecessary turnover," J. J. Keller Senior Editor Mark Schedler said.

However, 35% of respondents stated that they receive less than ideal support from their company for continuous learning.

The most important aspect of overall safety that 51% of fleet managers want to see is leadership consistently showing that safety is important. A close second is employees knowing that they are valued, and that is why fleet managers want them to be safe (46%).

Other Fleet Mangement Concerns

Additional issues that have appeared as top concerns every year of the survey include:

• New Vehicle Technology: Drivers accepting and properly using new vehicle technology

• Vehicle Maintenance: Effectively tracking, planning and scheduling routine vehicle maintenance

• Managing Company Expenses: Finding and retaining high-quality drivers, and effectively managing preventative maintenance to avoid losses due to breakdowns or accidents

Overall, nearly three-quarters of respondents said their job was at least moderately challenging.

"If you want to be a manager in this industry, either in safety or operations, be prepared. 74% of the respondents rated their jobs as moderately to extremely stressful. On the other end, just 27% said their job was only slightly challenging or not challenging at all. It reminds me of the old firefighter saying, 'Everyone wants to be the chief until you have to do chief things. Then the job gets hard.' Having good people around you and leaning on outside resources can make the job much easier," J. J. Keller Senior Industry Advisor Tom Bray said.

Analysts stated that they hope the report will help stakeholders within the industry better understand the priorities and constraints fleet managers face and continue to help them going forward.

The full study can be downloaded here.