With the volatility seen in the price of gas over the last several years, it’s nice to see that prices are starting to slowly trend downward. Although prices are not guaranteed to keep falling, this is a welcome change for drivers who have spent more than they would’ve liked to this summer.

Prices in Georgia have gone down about 6 or 7 cents a week for the last month, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Nationwide, prices are also declining by about 2 cents a week. These decreases can be tied to a recent drop in the price of crude oil.

Remember, even though prices are falling now, the sudden and unpredictable changes in the cost of fuel can catch your business off guard. Protect your budget by implementing a fleet fuel management system that will help you to manage costs and be prepared for any bump in the road.

Photo courtesy of Jacob Shwirtz and re-used under the Creative Commons license.

 

A new study by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind research center has shown that the longer a driver spends on the road, the more likely they are to exhibit unsafe driving behavior.. With many fleets making long drives as part of their everyday work, it is important to note that these behaviors can be costly and dangerous for you and your drivers.

On longer trips, drivers are more likely to get distracted and exceed the speed limit.  19 percent of drivers surveyed who take long commutes said they talk on the phone sometimes or very often. That’s compared to 17 percent for drivers with shorter commutes.

The long-haul commuters also believed that their extra time behind the wheel made them better drivers; 76 percent of drivers with long commutes rated their driving skills as above average, compared to 66 percent of other drivers.

If your business frequently makes long trips during everyday operations, your drivers may be at risk for the same overconfidence and complacency that contributes to tens of thousands of accidents every year. Make sure that your drivers know safety is a priority at all times and you’ll save money on accidents…and possibly their lives.

Photo courtesy of Elvert Barnes and re-used under the Creative Commons license.

We talked a while ago about automakers dropping spare tires from new vehicles to save on weight (and money). Now tire makers are beginning to catch up with the demand for tires that don’t need replacement in the event of a puncture or other accident.

Goodyear has spent some time working on a new concept that could change the way you change your tires– they are calling it Air Maintenance Technology.

The new technology uses a miniature pump contained within the tire to maintain pressure under most conditions.  The system would be able to overcome all but a major leak or blow-out.

“This will become the kind of technological breakthrough that people will wonder how they ever lived without,” said Jean-Claude Kihn, Goodyear’s Chief Technology Officer.  “A tire that can maintain its own inflation is something drivers have wanted for many years. Goodyear has taken on this challenge and the progress we have made is very encouraging.”

While this progress is encouraging, you’ll notice that it does not guard against some extreme situations that are experienced on a regular basis by commercial

Photo courtesy of Alisha Vargas and re-used under the Creative Commons license.

 

This week's Automotive Fleet safety tip concerns driving conditions that make it dangerous to pass a vehicle on a two-lane road. Make sure your drivers know this valuable information to keep themselves and others safe when working.

Do not pass when:

• Your vehicle is coming to the top of a hill

• Your vehicle is going around a curve and your view along the highway is obstructed

• Your vehicle is within 100 feet of a narrow bridge, viaduct or tunnel that has a sign posted to let you know it is there

• Your vehicle is within 100 feet of an intersection or railroad crossing

• Your vehicle must go off the pavement or onto the shoulder of the road in order to pass

• There is a stopped school bus in your lane or the oncoming lane, or there is a school bus with its red or amber warning signal lights flashing or its stop arm out

• Oncoming traffic is so close it would be dangerous to try to make it around the vehicle you are passing.

Fleet safety is important, so keep your drivers and budget safe with good fleet and fuel management!

Photo courtesy of Sheila Scarborough and re-used under the Creative Commons license.

More and more advanced technologies are making their way into new vehicles these days. We have GPS systems that tell us where to go, rear-view cameras to give us a better view, automatic locks and ignitions to save time and fumbling with our keys, and even sensors that detect an imminent collision and correct our driving automatically. With all of these technologies being integrated into our vehicles, it was only a matter of time before people started learning to exploit them.

At the Black Hat Conference, an annual Vegas-based gathering of hackers and security experts, two researchers revealed that they had been able to take over the systems in a Subaru outback and not only unlock the doors, but start the engine. Their tools? Only an Android smartphone and a custom program.

Vulnerabilities like this are a natural, if alarming, extension of the proliferation of technology in the automotive industry. And the auto industry isn’t the only group at the mercy of these hackers; government institutions and many corporations have suffered recent attacks from organized hacking groups. In automobiles, many systems operate on the same basic platform, allowing one-stop access to functions that allow thieves to make easy targets of high-tech cars.

 As you integrate technology into your fleet’s everyday operations, make sure you also look into ways of securing that technology. There will always be people looking to exploit new features, but careful operation and safety management will keep your fleet safe for years to come.
 

Photo courtesy of Riley Porter and re-used under the Creative Commons license.

Oil prices have been falling in recent weeks, but the price of gasoline is decreasing at a much slower pace. This is a time-honored tradition in the fuel market, but why is it that fuel prices spike so quickly and take months to come down? US News has some ideas.
First, there is the profit margin for gas stations. The higher the price is above the actual cost of oil, the higher the profit being made. Stations will continue buying fuel at the market price while keeping prices at a higher level in order to recoup any earlier losses or shore up for the next price spike. This reduced speed of price dropping also allows them to minimize their losses from buying their tanks at a higher price.

Competition also fuels gas price decreases, as stations tend to wait for someone else to drop their prices before dropping their own.  If a station buys a new tank just after a dramatic drop in oil prices, they have an excuse not to drop prices until they absolutely must. On the other hand, they can also use the advantage to drop their prices first and pull business from stations still using the old price, ultimately driving prices down, albeit slowly.

 The relationship between gas companies and oil refineries also has a large role in gas prices. It’s a complicated system, but the basic idea is that current inventories of fuel are lower than they have been for the past year, which makes gasoline more expensive even though the price of oil is the same per barrel as the same time last year.

The volatility of gas prices is not likely to go away anytime soon. Good fuel management is the best way to keep your business’ fuel budget stable. To start managing your fuel with the help of our team of professionals, try our FleetMatch™ system at www.FleetCardsUSA.com to find the card that’s right for your fleet.

Photo courtesy of Bill Lapp and re-used under the Creative Commons license.

The continued economic uncertainty in the United States is still having an impact on businesses large and small. Job creation has slowed to a crawl, and even those companies that are hiring are taking steps hiring only part-time employees to avoid paying for employee benefits.

And new jobs aren’t the only problem. Last week we talked about the U.S. Postal Service preparing for massive layoffs, but small businesses are having trouble too. Modesto, California’s family-owned American Lumber Co. recently cut staff in half and sold fleet vehicles– including the fleet’s newest truck– in an effort to cut costs.

With so many businesses feeling the crunch of an unsteady economy, we’d like to hear from you about what your fleet is doing to combat rising costs and fewer jobs. Are you hiring at all, or just in part-time positions? Do you have plans to expand, or just to wait out the next year? Leave us a comment below and let us know how your business plans to get through this rough patch.

And remember, you can always cut costs even more with a good fuel management solution!


Photo courtesy of Clyde Robinson and re-used under the Creative Commons license.

The United States Postal Service is currently looking to cut 120,000 jobs in an effort to keep the struggling agency afloat through 2015, asking Congress to end collective bargaining agreements to allow layoffs. The Post Office has been steadily losing money for years, which has taken a toll on its fleet of mail trucks.

The Postal Service owns more than 161,000 right-hand drive trucks, another 22,000 left-hand-drive minivans and 3,490 delivery vehicles. These vehicles are nearing the end of a 24-year lifecycle, but replacing them would come at an unreasonable cost. A major replacement or refurbishment of the vehicles would cost about $5.8 billion. With the Postal Service expected to LOSE roughly $7 billion dollars this year, a full replacement is simply not possible.

The USPS claims that it is continuously repairing its vehicles due to their unavailability on the commercial market, and due to a contractual obligation with rural branches to retain right-hand drive vehicles for letter carriers. But these repairs come with their own costs; repairs on some vehicles in the fleet cost about 1/3 as much as it would have cost to replace them.

While the Postal Service is also negotiating with Congress to develop a long-term fleet replacement strategy, some members of the House are not pleased with their efforts. Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) said “it’s unacceptable that the Postal Service has no official plans to date to begin replacing its aging fleet, perhaps with more fuel efficient and cost effective vehicles.”

“But it’s also unacceptable that the Postal Service has been placed in this position financially, in part due to acts of Congress,” Carper said in a statement.

Photo courtesy of Zena C and re-used under the Creative Commons license.

 

When the automobile was first invented, you can bet that there were people already selling accessories the very next day. Today, with consumers more and more concerned about the price of fuel, many opportunistic manufacturers are releasing add-on devices for vehicles that claim to boost fuel efficiency and save money. But do any of these enhancement devices actually work? Aol Autos tested a few popular options in search of answers.

The results are not exactly surprising, as none of the devices were able to boost performance to a significant degree, with some even HURTING efficiency.  Here is a sampling of some of the technologies tested:

• Magnetized Line Attachment- Said to keep gasoline from clogging up fuel lines, these devices boast an increase of 5 to 20% in fuel efficiency. But according to the EPA, these products have zero effect of actual fuel economy. Examples include Petro-Mizer, Polarion-X, Super-Mag Fuel Extender, and Wickliff Polarizer.

• Air Vortex Technology- Some products, such as the Tornado Fuel Saver, claim that their product’s effect on air mixture in the engine can boost mileage and horsepower. However, testing showed that there is no measurable improvement on either.

• Fuel Additives: These companies claim that simply adding their product to you car’s gas tank will cause fuel to burn more efficiently and increase mileage. The EPA has tested several of these, including Bycosin, El-5 Fuel Additive, and Dyno-Tab Fuel Booster, and found no positive effect.

Other methods tested included PVC “air bleed” technology, vapor bleed devices, ignition devices, fuel line heaters, metallic fuel line devices and oil additives. You can read the results here.

When it comes to saving money on fuel, a gimmick is never the answer. The best way is with good fuel management practices, starting with a fuel solution that manages, records and controls your fuel spending. And that’s the truth.

Photo courtesy of Charles Severance and re-used under the Creative Commons license.

A recent video from safety company Road ID provides a good overview of safety measures for sharing the road with bicycles:

Photo courtesy of MoBikeFed and re-used under the Creative Commons license.