Employees and Drinking and Driving

It seems that while awareness of drinking and driving has risen over the last few decades, there are still risky people who made bad choices – even while on the clock. As the numbers of people arrested for driving under the influence boggles the mind, so do the insurance costs associated with the act. Company vehicles place an increased risk upon business owners due to employees who drink and drive. In the United States, alone, there are millions of fleet vehicles on the streets every day. Whether faced with employees who order a beer at the company lunch or employees who bring their alcohol with them everywhere they go, the increase in drinking and driving affects companies as well as individuals.

Every two minutes there is an alcohol-related injury on the streets of America and those drunk driving incidents are not only happening on personal time. Companies with fleet vehicles need to consider the cost to their businesses when employees who drink and drive do so on the company’s dime. Not only is the vehicle itself affected due to needing repair or being a loss, but the employee is no longer able to work for a time. This loss of productivity means lost money to the company beyond the costs of vehicle repair or replacement, increased insurance premiums, and health care costs.

Another factor to take into consideration with regard to employees who drink and drive is the company’s reputation. In this day and age, networking and word-of-mouth have become more important than ever. With the use of social media, it is possible to do much damage to a company’s reputation through the behaviors of employees. The upside to this is that it has become that much easier to enhance a company’s reputation through the same avenues.

One of the ways a company can present its dedication to safety and employee integrity is by installing ignition interlock devices on all fleet vehicles. Ignition interlock devices are small and keep vehicles from operating when drivers have a certain level of alcohol detected on their breath. By using this device, companies will not have to worry about employees who drink and drive in their company-owned vehicles. This could even have the added benefit of lowered insurance premiums due to the proactive nature of installing the devices.

Ignition interlock devices are a cost-effective way to avoid an unnecessary problem like drinking and driving. A company can prevent reputation-damaging events from occurring with the installation of a simple device and assist employees in making life-enhancing decisions, as well. Drinking and driving is a national problem and we all can do our part to decrease the harm caused by making such a dangerous decision.