How to Reduce Fleet Vehicle Accidents: 3 Expert Tips

Fleet accidents, fuel theft, and vandalism are all significant risks in the fleet industry. These risks can result in higher costs, such as insurance premiums and deductibles, reputational harm, and legal fees. In addition, because fleet accidents are expensive, companies risk emptying their pockets by operating without an effective safety policy and putting drivers with risky driving behaviors out on the road.

It's more important than ever for fleet enterprises to promote fleet safety with effective policies, training programs, and cutting-edge technology. This article will briefly overview fleet accidents and discuss their associated costs. We'll review the most common causes of fleet accidents and offer tips and strategies for avoiding them.

We will also highlight the benefits of incorporating advanced AI-powered technologies into your fleet management processes, emphasizing how Tourmo AI can help maximize workforce safety. It achieves this through improved accuracy, program automation, and its ability to identify and address risky driver behaviors when they occur and before they lead to accidents.

The Costs Associated with Fleet Accidents

A single accident can cost a company anywhere from $15,000 upwards of $75,000, even if it doesn’t involve injury. While high, those numbers can skyrocket when there’s a fatality involved, and the statistics are grim. According to the CDC, approximately 38,000 people are killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes in the United States each year. In 2018, traffic fatalities cost companies over $55 billion in medical and lost-work costs.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMSCA) reports that driver behavior, such as speeding, and a lack of focus, such as being distracted, are the primary cause of driver-caused commercial vehicular accidents yearly.

Regardless of the cause or severity of the accident, a fleet enterprise will be held financially liable when accidents occur. It is also important to consider both the direct and indirect costs of accidents. Direct costs of accidents are what you pay upfront, such as vehicle and property repairs, fines, and legal fees. Indirect costs can sneak up on you, such as increased insurance premiums and deductibles, lost productivity, and a tarnished business reputation.

How to Reduce Fleet Accidents: 3 Expert Tips

A single fleet accident can result in large costs for a company. In best-case scenarios, a company can be held responsible for vehicle and property damage, as well as the costs of unexpected repairs. However, in the worst cases, a company's liability can be enormous when an accident results in death.

Fleet directors and upper-level executives responsible for the development of a company’s fleet safety initiatives should take every precaution to avoid fleet accidents, liability, and legal issues. To help you avoid the worst outcomes, we’ve listed some expert tips on reducing fleet accidents below. 

1. Gamify and Incentivize Fleet Safety

The first step in reducing fleet vehicle accidents is for company stakeholders and employees to work together to create a company culture of safety and compliance. Creating and sustaining a work environment that consistently reinforces driver safety and compliance is critical to reducing accidents and risk. This process should include the creation (or revision) of an up-to-date fleet safety policy.

Your company's fleet management efforts should consistently reinforce safety policies to achieve the best results. Further, telematics systems and dashcams, commonly used in the fleet management industry, can support your company's training programs and safety initiatives.

It is essential to incorporate gamification, recognition, and reward system features as they can significantly improve driver engagement and participation in your safety initiatives. If your current technology lacks these features, Tourmo AI's Driver Behavior solution can be used to provide AI-guided, automated driver feedback that rewards and encourages driver participation and enables drivers to address safety concerns soon as they occur. 

2. Implement Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technology

Fleet managers and other company stakeholders can significantly benefit from implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies. These technologies can monitor vehicle assets, driver behavior, and road conditions and deliver consistent training programs, significantly reducing a company's number and severity of accidents and safety incidents.

Tourmo’s AI technology can analyze massive amounts of telematics data, identify and reveal valuable insights, and initiate immediate responses to safety events. Further, our patented technology improves data accuracy and assists fleet managers in understanding the context of safety events to determine if a driver's behavior is out of the ordinary and riskier than other drivers in similar vehicles, areas, and conditions. Our approach identifies and separates the risky and the very risky which efficiently prioritizes coaching.

3. Video Telematics and Dashcams

Video telematics and dashcam systems are practical and effective ways to improve fleet safety. These technologies rely on specially designed camera systems installed on fleet vehicles to record safety events while they are in motion. 

While you can use this technology to provide remote driver training, you can also defend drivers involved in accidents against false claims. These systems can provide video footage to help determine responsibility in accidents, which can help keep your insurance rates and claim costs low. They can also be used to identify the cause of asset and property damage and vandalism. 

Suppose your company uses video telematics and dashcam systems but needs help obtaining data from an event or more visibility in your complete, end-to-end lifecycle of scheduled services. In that case, Tourmo’s AI-powered technology can help. Tourmo AI’s Video Analytics solution can be used to automatically detect impending safety incidents and respond in ways that protect your customers, team, and company.

Tourmo’s AI-Powered Driver Behavior Solution

When using Tourmo AI, fleet managers can gain valuable and insightful real-time information about vehicles, driving behavior, and risk. Our patented technology enables users to monitor, control, and address risky driving behavior in real-time, significantly improving driver safety.

Tourmo AI's Driving Behavior solution encourages drivers to participate in gamification and improve their driving skills without the need for intervention. When the system detects a pattern of unsafe driving behavior, it will contact a supervisor for further assistance.

Furthermore, it will improve the accuracy of your data and provide reliable, safe driving analysis, giving you the confidence to act on your data to reduce the risks of accidents and lower costs.

Example benefits of using the Tourmo Driving Behavior product include:

• Up to 25% fewer accidents
• Up to 10% reduction in insurance premiums
• Up to 10% reduction in fuel and maintenance costs
• Up to 50% increase in driver engagement and satisfaction
• Increase in driver retention

Tourmo AI — Advanced Solutions to Reduce Fleet Accidents

Tourmo is dedicated to helping businesses learn more about how to reduce fleet accidents using advanced AI-powered technology and getting more from their existing fleet management solutions, with no rip and replace involved. If your current solutions lack advanced AI-powered features, our solutions can drastically reduce your company's accident rates, risks, liability, and costs while improving driver engagement.

If you’re concerned about improving your existing safety initiatives, training, and coaching programs and encouraging your fleet drivers to take action to improve their driving behavior, Tourmo can help.