Everyone is familiar with using video to help improve driver performance and fleet safety – particularly when it comes to exonerating drivers when not at fault. Whether it be road and cab-facing, road-facing only or a 360-degree view around a vehicle, video is paramount to understanding what happened at the time of a driving incident or for capturing mystery damage. But, many fleets have found additional benefits to having video in their vehicles.

Protecting Precious Cargo

Cassens Transport, one of the oldest automotive logistics services company in the United States, recently added video safety to its entire fleet of nearly 1,200 trucks to minimize losses related to vehicle damage, as well as improve driver habits and reduce the number of actual incidents.

“Cassens Transport—and most auto haulers—are 100 percent responsible for damage to any vehicles they haul, so safety is of prime importance,” said Joshua Suhre, operations and labor manager at Cassens.

Video provides Cassens with insight into how its customers’ vehicles are being handled and the context it needs to effectively intervene with proactive driver coaching. Suhre commented,“ With comprehensive visibility to how drivers were loading and unloading the cars and trucks we are entrusted to transport, coupled with intuitive coaching workflows that enable us to easily refresh drivers’ familiarity with standard operating procedures, we have significantly reduced our losses.”

Catching a Thief Red-Handed

Video has also been found to be helpful when theft occurs. Not just theft of products and materials, but theft of actual vehicles in your fleet!

Danella, which installs, maintains and supports our nation’s infrastructure, recently experienced an added benefit to having video in its vehicles when the video was used to catch a man who stole one of the company’s trucks!

“We would have lost a $20,000 truck and thousands of dollars of equipment – bags of tools, including several different sets of drills and power tools,” commented James Hensley, Danella regional safety manager. “Things could have been really bad after several of our company’s trucks were broken into and one was stolen.”

But, thanks to the company’s video safety system, the accused thief didn’t get very far.

After this incident, Hensley says he definitely recommends a video system to other businesses with company vehicles. Suhre concurs, “From exoneration to fostering a culture of safety and improving driving habits, video will help any fleet reduce accident frequency, cargo damage and fatalities. It’s an outstanding solution that provides immediate ROI.” 

Improving Driver Satisfaction & Retention

Some drivers need incentives, most deserve rewards. But how do you incentivize – or reward – drivers without actionable data? A video-based safety system can provide the data to help create a well-implemented driver incentive program. One that can provide a considerable positive return on investment as a result of improved driver safety and reduced accidents — while greatly enhancing driver recruitment and retention.

Fraley & Schilling operates a fleet of 500 trucks in the eastern third of the United States. With safety at the forefront, and a variety of safety technologies – SmartDrive video safety, Omintracs, Vigillo and Vertical Alliance – Fraley & Schilling believes that drivers are still the most advanced technology in the truck.  Realizing it could improve its incentive program, Fraley & Schilling dove into the data provided by SmartDrive SmartIQ® Analytics. As Mike Posz, Director of Safety, commented, “The in-depth reporting and key performance indicators give us the data we need to better coach our drivers and make them even safer each time they’re on the road.”

Individual Fraley & Schilling driver scorecards provide weekly updates concerning each driver’s production, SmartDrive Safety Score, CSA Score and paperwork completion. Top 5 Driving Observations are also included and inform interactive coaching sessions. Each of these components affects a driver’s weekly pay.

With a  driver scorecard in place, Fraley & Schilling was able to create a scorecard performance-based bonus program, annual safety bonuses and recognition rewards.

Effectiveness and Efficiency Throughout Your Fleet

Smart fleets around the country are quickly realizing that video is about more than just exonerations. They’ve quickly learned that there’s no better solution for enforcing corporate standard operating procedures, lowering workers claims costs, lowering insurance costs, improving fuel efficiency, deterring theft and solving for mystery damage than a video safety program. In addition, they are increasing their ROI by using the data that’s inherently available to them from their video safety program and creating programs to retain drivers while using the video to protect their assets … and those of their customers.