Every fleet management company has had an accident or near-accident that put drivers and other parties at risk, jeopardizing their driver’s safety, cargo, and the fleet’s tight timelines. In these scenarios, it is incredibly valuable to know whether the drivers were acting appropriately or making easily correctable mistakes. It can also be important for liability issues to know who is at fault.
Fleet management companies have a duty to keep their drivers safe, which they can address through education, training, and helping drivers take better care of themselves. According to the most recent available data from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, there were over 36,827 large truck crashes in the first quarter of 2024. Plus, the number of distracted large truck drivers involved in fatal crashes rose from 16 to 39 from 2018-2020. In 2020 alone, 248 large truck drivers had at least one driver-distraction-related factor involved in their crashes.
While there are numerous factors that could’ve contributed to these crashes, there is a key tool fleets across the U.S. may not be using that is now affordable for fleet operators of all sizes: dash cams.
Incorporating dash cams into fleets can provide various benefits, including driver safety improvements, insurance claims efficiencies, or reduced insurance costs. These factors contribute positively to a company’s bottom line and improve their drivers' lives.
However, introducing a new system of checks and balances to your employees’ daily routines can create concern and confusion if not rolled out intentionally and thoughtfully. Below are a few steps fleet managers can take on how to best incorporate dash cams, what questions may arise from drivers, and what benefits fleet operators should expect.
How it works
Typically, the owner or fleet manager will purchase dash cams and install them in the company-owned vehicles. Videos are then recorded on an SD card or uploaded to a cloud database through cellular or wireless internet. In the former example, the SD card records on a loop, overwriting itself at a specified interval and saving clips of an incident if the device suspects that something has occurred. To watch a video, the owner must remove the SD card and view the video on their computer. In the latter scenario, suspected incidents are uploaded and made viewable in a cloud platform, while the remainder of the video is stored on the device for a specified time interval. A handful of hardware providers now record and upload everything they collect, making all videos accessible via the owner’s cloud portal. It’s important to determine how you want to obtain video, and how much of it you want to be readily available when selecting the right solution for your fleet.
The benefits
Dash cams are valuable for various important reasons:
- Safe driving coaching notifications: Many dash cams are AI-enabled and can help reduce the likelihood of accidents by sending audible in-cab coaching notifications of risky behaviors like tailgating, speeding, or becoming drowsy or distracted. Dash cam notifications can be the first line of defense when a vehicle brakes directly in front of your drivers or some unanticipated object enters the road. In these scenarios, the alert can help prevent drivers from having accidents.
- Claims solution: In the event of a collision or traffic violation, submitting a video collected via a dash cam can help provide proof that a driver was not at fault, which will improve the speed of the claims process and keep insurance costs as low as possible. These same videos can be used to help dispute any incorrectly issued traffic violations as well.
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- Improved employee experience: Fleet operators can also use dash cams as a coaching tool for their fleet. They can sit with drivers to go over their habits, review their scores (many products offer a driver score of some kind), or even watch their videos together to let them know what they’re doing well and what can be improved upon.
Tips for rolling out dash cams
Before reaping the benefits of dash cams, fleet operators must have a strategic plan in place for introducing this technology. Otherwise, they may encounter resistance from employees or not be able to collect the footage and data they need.
- The importance of communication: Dash cams are intended to help drivers in many different ways, but they are only likely to see it that way if they understand their purpose. Let them know this is about safety, not about needless tracking of their activities. Overtly communicating how the technology is being used, what exactly you are tracking, and why it’s a benefit for them will help them embrace it and empower them to become safer drivers. At the end of the day, everyone wants to return home to their family.
- Understand the possibility of an initial uneasiness: For fleet drivers, the truck cabin is their office. So it’s understandable that some drivers may resist dash cam technology at first. Communication, as described above, is very important. But so is understanding the motivations behind any initial reluctance and answering any employee questions honestly and openly. This will help drivers understand the true intent of the introduction of dash cams. Also, the fleet managers should ask themselves how important the internal camera feed is. Many programs start successfully with only a forward-facing camera.
- Make the role of the technology clear: What you don’t want is for your drivers to let their imaginations run wild about a man in an ivory tower watching their every move. Tell them that this is about protecting their lives and livelihood and making the entire company more efficient. Talk about how this will improve the company’s bottom line, which could lead to raises and increased bonuses.
- Keep employees updated: Dash cams are not a technology to remain ominously in the background as employees worry about what it’s tracking and doing. This technology should improve safety at the company, and that is something you definitely want to share with your workers. In some use cases, fleet managers can even give drivers read-only access to their footage so they know what the executives see and can feel confident that this data will be available to them should they ever need to defend themselves.
- Embrace gamification: One way to embrace the positive aspects of dash cams is to acknowledge the improvements of the entire team and identify ways to reward the best drivers. Once drivers see the dash cams as ways to demonstrate their skills instead of thinking of them as punitive, they’ll be happier they were installed.
A win-win for drivers and fleet operators
Dash cams improve the drivers’ safety while providing fleet operators with intel on ways they can better manage their fleets. It is abundantly clear that this small investment will pay dividends repeatedly by helping coach drivers to become safer, ensuring their safety and that of other drivers on the road.
Additionally, more and more insurance companies are introducing their dash cam technology, or subsidizing it, so before you go and buy dash cams for your fleet, see what options are open to you via your carrier. Depending on fleet size, it may even make sense to consider switching carriers to a company that incentivizes or subsidizes safety technology.
