Identifying the Riskiest Driver Behaviors to Improve Fleet Safety

Drivers are the most valuable asset of your fleet business, and how they operate on the road represents your company's culture.

Your company's success will depend on recognizing risky driving behaviors, such as speeding, phone use, aggressive acceleration, hard braking, and cornering. These behaviors dramatically increase the risk of accidents, maintenance costs, and increased fuel consumption.

This blog will explain how to protect your drivers and vehicles by identifying risky fleet safety driver behavior. We'll also discuss advanced technology, such as AI-enabled contextualization and scoring, which, combined with telematics, can monitor safety incidents, lower the risk of accidents, and provide actionable tasks to prevent the riskiest outcomes.

How to Identify the Riskiest Fleet Safety Driver Behaviors

Technology has progressed beyond observed and reported behavior, both internal and external, to telematics that can capture it in an automated way. With the addition of sensors and the ability for vehicles to report data automatically, companies were able to detect things other than speeding. However, as a consequence, there was an overabundance of data.

Big data exceeded management's ability to stay on top of it. Companies subsequently elected to get weekly reporting instead of being notified when single risky events occurred. The data problem was still present, and supervisors had to pick and choose what to coach about.

During coaching, drivers would frequently claim incorrect speed limits or incorrect recording of risky events. Companies struggled to deploy and maintain driver safety programs without access to highly-accurate data. A solution was needed for the above two areas.

The latest and advanced AI technology used in Tourmo’s Driving Behavior product allows companies to address fleet safety driver behavior issues effectively. First, AI dramatically improves the accuracy of collected data. Second, AI helps us understand the context of events to determine if a driver's behavior is out of the ordinary and riskier than other drivers in similar vehicles and in similar areas and conditions.

Tourmo’s AI-powered platform provides advanced big data analytics and automated workflows that enable fleet operators to immediately access contextualized safe driving analysis. Further, it allows drivers to quickly identify and address risky behaviors, resulting in fewer accidents, lower costs, and improved driver engagement. 

Examples of The Riskiest Driving Behaviors

Driving behavior, such as speeding, distracted driving, aggressive acceleration, braking, and cornering, frequently lead to accidents and higher maintenance, insurance premiums, and fuel usage costs.

The first step to correcting dangerous driving is recognizing it when it occurs. The risky behaviors are commonly associated with non-cell phone electronic device distractions, cell phone distractions, failure to pay attention, and eating behind the wheel. 

We’ve listed specific examples of the riskiest driving behaviors below:

• Rapid acceleration and deceleration
• Hard braking and sudden stops
• Hard turns, also known as hard cornering
• Not wearing a seatbelt
• Driving above the speed limit
• Failure to use signals when changing lanes
• Failure to yield to traffic or pedestrians
• Tailgating other vehicles
• Cutting off other vehicles
• Other safety events

It's important to note that speeding, failing to signal, and tailgating are serious offenses that can result in significant fines. 

Empowering Drivers to Make Changes

Even the riskiest driver behaviors can improve with consistent encouragement and follow-up training. Fleet management should constantly monitor and make efforts to improve driving behavior to keep everyone safe on the road.

If you haven’t implemented a driving improvement program, start by empowering your drivers to identify unsafe driving behaviors and take corrective actions to improve. 

Tourmo's AI-powered driver behavior workflows make the process easy for drivers to identify and address risky driving behavior through:

• Automated driver feedback, coaching, and recognition 
• Individualized driver risk assessment
• Driver scorecards and gamification to encourage participation
• In-Cab driver audio notifications
  

Tourmo quickly identifies and addresses risky fleet safety driver behaviors across all drivers, resulting in a dramatic reduction in the occurrence of speeding, hard acceleration and braking, and hard cornering events. 

Tourmo’s AI-Powered Driver Behavior Solutions

Without accurate data, fleet companies cannot deploy and maintain much-needed safety programs, raising the risks of accidents and unexpected costs. Further, attempting to work with inaccurate data can lead to the wrongful termination of drivers, increased turnover, and other costly liability. 

Tourmo’s AI-powered Driving Behavior solutions will improve the accuracy of your data, providing reliable, safe driving analysis. Accurate data will give you the confidence to make decisions that reduce risks of accidents, lower costs, and improve employee engagement. 

Benefits of using the Tourmo Driving Behavior product include:

• Up to 25% fewer accidents
• Up to 10% reduction in insurance premiums
• Up to 20% reduction in fuel and maintenance costs
• Up to 50% increase in driver engagement and satisfaction
• Reduction in driver churn

Tourmo allows supervisors to maintain complete visibility, while our technology delivers automated driver feedback. Drivers are encouraged to improve their driving skills without the need for intervention and to participate in gamification. When Tourmo AI detects a pattern of unsafe driving behavior, it will request supervisor coaching. 

The Tourmo AI-powered platform will enable you to implement a consistent driving improvement program across all drivers to gain driver confidence and start reducing the risks of accidents immediately.

Partner With Tourmo to Improve Fleet Safety

Traditional driving improvement programs for large fleets are typically time-consuming and difficult to scale, leaving only a fraction of safety events (only 4%) addressed in training. The risks are high for fleet management to operate without an effective safety plan.

The statistical projection of traffic fatalities from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from January through September of 2021 showed a 12% increase in fatal traffic crashes nationwide compared with 2020.

When it’s become critical that fleet enterprises adopt a company culture that embraces safe driving habits, Tourmo allows drivers to take ownership of their driving behavior to produce better performance levels immediately.

Whether you develop a driver safety program for yourself or invest in a pre-existing product, your efforts and resources will pay for themselves.