While the average U.S. consumer drives between 10,000 and 15,000 miles per year, the typical fleet driver averages nearly double that — at 25,000 miles per year. It’s generally accepted that the accident rate for fleets is about 20%. And in terms of miles traveled, the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety reported an average of 5.15 crashes globally per million miles traveled and 0.2 injuries per million miles traveled in the U.S. in 2019.

If you’re a fleet owner or manager, you likely already know this. But accident prevention is changing and becoming more multi-faceted by the year. We all know the problem. It’s the solutions and their efficacy that are evolving.

One big component of accident prevention is ensuring the presence of Advanced Detection and Avoidance Systems (ADAS). Features such as blind-spot detection, collision avoidance, lane departure warning, and more are standard on newer vehicles. But there are compelling reasons to make sure your fleet has them and that, fleet-wide, the data informing these systems is close to flawless.

According to a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the crash involvement rate for vehicles with blind-spot monitoring was 14% lower than the same models without the equipment. And Corey Harper, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, says “If vehicle crash avoidance technologies were deployed throughout the light-duty vehicle fleet, we could see crash prevention cost savings of up to $264 billion, assuming all relevant crashes are prevented.”

So, ADAS works. But do the cost savings from avoided accidents and lower insurance rates cover the additional cost of installing, maintaining, and repairing ADAS systems?

We dove deeper into a really interesting research paper out of LexisNexis that uncovers the connection between Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) features and U.S. auto insurance claims. The white paper contradicts the conventional wisdom that accident reduction (and therefore reduced repairs) does not save fleets enough to justify the cost of ADAS.

We found something even more interesting. Depending on the particular ADAS features installed, fleets can realize significant benefits, including:

• 23% reduction in Bodily Injury loss cost
• 14% reduction in Property Damage loss cost
• 8% reduction in Collision claim loss cost in ADAS-equipped vehicles compared to non-ADAS vehicles

Cameras can also help.

According to Mordor Intelligence, the in-vehicle camera market was valued at $5 billion in 2020. At an expected compound annual growth rate of 9% in the next five years, the market is slated to reach USD 8 billion by 2026. That’s a lot of cameras and a lot of data.

Unfortunately, relying solely on cameras to reduce accidents is like driving while looking in the rear-view mirror. By the time you look back and analyze why an accident happened, it’s already too late. The vehicle is out of service, insurance claims have been filed, an employee may be injured or worse and unable to work, and your brand may be at risk.

Increasingly, the ways to train drivers to become safer are becoming more and more intelligent and impactful. The secret is promoting safe driving behavior in real-time instead of after an accident happens. Adding present-tense, in-the-moment coaching at the time of dangerous behavior gives safety a level of impact not seen in past decades.

Emerging “In-vehicle coaching” (or IVC) services analyze real-time data feeds from vehicles, then compare actual behaviors relative to policies (i.e. speeding, hard braking, seat belt use, etc.), and then alert drivers to change risky behaviors.

In addition to real-time coaching, some companies offer dashboards of aggregated driver behavior across the fleet. Clients use this to incentivize individual drivers as well as fleets at large to compete for prizes and incentives based on overall improvements in driving behavior.

As a fleet manager, you now have more tools than ever to keep your drivers and your community safe. Doing so benefits not only your company but your drivers and the broader community.

Motorq partners with General Motors’ Onstar Business Solutions to deliver data insights straight from the vehicle source to fuel in-vehicle coaching, vehicle diagnostics, and driver performance. Learn more about the everyday fleet challenges this partnership solves in this candid conversation with General Motors and Motorq CEO and Co-Founder, Arun Rajagopalan..