How Driver Behavior Monitoring Can Help Fleet Businesses

Driver behavior Monitoring is a cost-saving and safety measure that is very vital for most fleet businesses. This is because driver behavior monitoring aids in alerting and reporting help with compliance and safety. Also, it enables an individual to get the most from every one of their assets and staff.

90% of road accidents are sadly related to driver behavior. Car accidents result in not just injuries but also fatalities, loss in productivity, as well as monetary losses. They also lead to insurance and legal costs.

Such reckless behaviors like sudden acceleration, speeding and swerving through lanes end up putting all other drivers on the road at great risk. The worse thing is that most people do not even know that they are high-risk drivers.

There are so many surveys that have shown that the act of recognizing dangerous driving behavior can be a really powerful motivator for drivers to enhance their behavior.

Furthermore, when people get to see the direct relationship between driving recklessly or become aware that their behavior is being watched closely, their driving surprisingly improves.

The solutions available to curb dangerous or bad driving are being utilized by diverse companies as an aspect of their Fleet Management Systems.

Most transportation companies monitor, benchmark, and actively train their drivers in a bid to create much more environmentally and economically efficient fleets. Also, it can be used to maintain regulatory and corporate compliance.

Most insurance companies make use of applications and devices to monitor driver behavior simply to decrease costs on insurance settlements and to provide their customers with more flexible terms of coverage.

It is vital to monitor driver behavior when it comes down to the fleet business because those drivers who are erratic can cause:

• An increase in the car’s wear and tear
• Accidents as well as injuries
• Increased running costs in fuel and maintenance of the vehicle, and;
• A poor brand value, in case the vehicle belongs to a branded fleet. The whole fleet becomes infamous as having drivers who are a total nuisance.

When making use of accelerometer and smart algorithms, some of the available devices used in driver behavior monitoring can aid in measuring:

• Speeding
• Idle time
• Harsh braking and acceleration

All these can help in generating reports and alerts as it provides the user with evidence of any abuse of the vehicle as well as poor working conditions.

Basically, the driver behavior monitoring devices can be used to apportion confidently blames to drivers or staff members, especially in cases whereby there are diverse drivers for all the vehicles available in the fleet.

Some use cases:

• Health and safety compliance
• Apportioning the costs of repair to a person
• Insurance liability purposes
• Offering evidence in legal matters
• Re-educating staff with much more better driving habits
• Acting as a deterrent to the staff that abuse vehicles, etc.

How Telematics Devices Can Help With Driver Behavior Monitoring

The application of telematics exists in virtually all industries because they are capable of digging deeper and providing distinct advantages for driver safety experts as well as fleet managers.

Furthermore, the customization abilities of the telematics devices that are available today simply mean that driver safety experts can get certain information that was not available years ago.

With this data also comes the ability to efficiently analyze and enhance driver performance at a level that is precise enough to save not just time and money but lives as well.

Also, the role of telematics in effectively analyzing driver behavior is actually its biggest assets. Based on the Cost of motor vehicles crashes to employers’ report of 2015, traffic crashes actually cost United States employers about $47.4 billion in expenses.

These expenses include:

• Medical care
• Lost productivity
• Liability, and;
• Property damage

In the same vein, the clear correlation between crashes and unsafe driving has led to the need for driver safety to be the number one concern of driver safety experts and fleet managers.

As a result of telematics, experts will have straight forward insights into driver behavior like:

• Overspeeding
• Tailgating
• Harsh acceleration or braking, and;
• Problems with cornering

Through the identification of issues, fleet managers can tackle the root cause. An example has to do with the data showing that a driver has continually repeated harsh braking.

The manager may as well conclude that tailgating or the failure to maintain adequate eye lead time is the problem.

Once the cause of the issue is identified, the fleet manager can take some steps, such as extra training to change the driving behavior before it causes a severe accident on the road.

Benefits of Telematics

When a fleet business makes use of telematics to track and correct driver behavior, there are some benefits to it, which include:

Productivity

Been able to monitor the driver activity during the day simply means that you can see wherever the staff are spending their time and swiftly make adjustments when needed. Telematics can offer an accurate and documented record of where drivers are at any time. Also, it can be a vital tool for reducing risk.

Optimization of fleet

Through monitoring fuel usage and fill-ups, idling time, vehicle speed, and maintenance, telematics aids in reducing waste. The things like the amount of time a vehicle will spend idling or the amount of fuel consumed give a very good indication of how the driver is making use of their time and where enhancements can be made.

Compliance

Starting from ELDs; electronic logging devices and fuel tax to FMCSA’s compliance, safety, accountability (CSA) program, telematics can aid in keeping drivers and organizations organized.

Upgrade to Smart Fleet

As mentioned above, devices used in driver behavior monitoring will go a long way in the fleet business. This has led to the development of Smart Fleet – A Fleet Management device which aids fleet owners in keeping track of their vehicles in real-time

Our customized fleet management solution provides exquisite features such as driver behavior monitoring and API integration with the existing fleet Management services.

To Wrap It Up

If you are searching for the best ways to enhance safety, decrease incidents of crashes, and to complement the safety training of your driver, telematics devices like Smart Fleet Management may actually be the best solution for you.

All the features of the device can help in reducing the rates drastically at which accidents happen on the road.

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