Safety

Why Dash Cams are Vital to Commercial Vehicle Fleets

What if someone told you that you could save hundreds of thousands of dollars with a new fleet investment? Would you be interested? The obvious answer is yes. And the fleet investment is dash cams.

Years ago, commercial dash cams were primarily used by buses and police vehicles. However, today it is no longer a prerogative of just big organizations and government fleets. Commercial fleet industries, such as trucking and delivery services, are increasingly integrating video technology — for all the right reasons.

Keep reading to learn about the benefits of a dash cam and why they are vital assets to businesses with commercial vehicle fleets.

Elimination of Fraudulent Claims & Driver Exoneration

Research shows that in almost 80% of accidents between trucks and passenger vehicles, passenger vehicles are at fault. With dash cams, fleet managers can see the road just as the driver does and capture real-time footage as evidence and protection against fraudulent claims.

If your driver is not responsible for an accident, the video evidence from your video dash cam is a valuable tool in exonerating them. If other road users are driving haphazardly or poor road conditions are causing lower visibility, timely alerts to things like lane drifting and being too close to a vehicle in front will also provide your drivers with an added layer of risk detection.

When driving in highly populated urban areas with more community speed safety zones, more frequent traffic lights and narrower streets, a driver’s focus is split many ways at all times.

An in-vehicle camera that has an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) in place will alert to:

  • Harsh braking, acceleration & cornering
  • Lane drifting
  • Rolling stops
  • Speeding
  • Tailgating

While Driver Monitoring System (DMS) in the cabin-facing camera will help with drowsy or distracted driving.

Enhance Driver Training

With video footage from dash cams, it is easier than ever to analyze driver behavior and solve issues quickly. You can also gain insight into:

  • Trip history
  • Event videos playback
  • Monitoring distracted driving
  • Flagged videos to review
  • Pre-configured harsh events thresholds for different vehicle duty types
  • Multi-driver trip tracking
  • Requested download events

This way, by using dash cams, fleet managers can improve their driver coaching programs. If crucial safety events occur, managers can use the captured video to give feedback to drivers.

The Vision dash cam solution, for instance, also offers audio feedback. So, along with video replays, these two features enable drivers to keep themselves in check. They enable the driver to review all trips in an app to monitor their improvements.

Some video telematics technologies for commercial fleets, like Fleet Complete’s Vision, include an analytics dashboard and a Companion Mobile App with features like:

  • Video trip review
  • Overall ranking among their peers
  • Driver Scorecards

Since fleet managers have access to this safety data, they can incentivize safe driving by running rewards programs and giving recognition to drivers who adhere to safety.

Incentivizing safer driving has many added benefits from lower vehicle wear and tear to reduced fuel use. Insurance premiums can also be positively affected. Many insurance companies today will give discounts if driver monitoring technologies, such as video recording, are implemented.

Streamline Insurance Claims and Reduce Rates

Dash cams can radically improve the insurance claims process. With clear video evidence, you can give insurance providers more context, which leads to quicker claim resolutions.

Plus, integrating dash cams in your fleet tells insurance firms that you take fleet safety seriously. Most insurance businesses offer discounts if you install dash cams, as dash cams help to improve driver behavior and the fleet’s general safety level.

Why Dash Cams Are the Right Choice

Dash cam technology is quickly changing the fleet industry for the better by ensuring vehicle and driver security, safety, and much more.

Fleet Complete’s Vision dashcam and mobile application automatically starts and stops recording at the beginning and end of each trip and then uploads captured videos to the cloud for access via the centralized web platform and app. It also integrates seamlessly with Fleet Complete tracking features and gives fleet managers an in-depth view of all trips, allowing them to review events in real time.

If you’d like to find out how Fleet Complete can empower your fleet, learn more by requesting our Fleet Complete demo.

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