SmartDrive – a company that provides in-cab cameras for commercial vehicles – will be launching its in-cab video safety system at the annual Fleet Safety Forum conference organized by the road safety charity Brake.
The “Best of the Best” conference takes place on 3 March 2011 at the National Motor Cycle Museum, Birmingham, UK, and is sponsored by Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance. The conference gives fleet managers the opportunity to hear detailed case studies from fleet safety managers and suppliers who have won Fleet Safety Forum Awards for best practice. SmartDrive customer Ocado, the award winning online grocer, will be one of the companies presenting at the conference.
Visitors to the SmartDrive stand will learn how in-cab video safety systems are proving essential to driver and vehicle safety on the UK’s busy roads. The system makes it easy for companies to improve driving behaviour and eliminate noncompliance and risks such as smoking, eating, using handheld mobile phones and non-use of seatbelts. For example, Reynolds, the company that delivers fresh food to Pret A Manger and Pizza Express, wanted to reduce the collision rate among its 235 drivers. It uses the SmartDrive system cameras to record exactly what happened during the 15 seconds before and after an incident – giving fleet managers a detailed view of what led up to an event, and how to avoid it happening again.
Since installing the system, Reynolds has benefited from a 61% decrease in the number of collisions, and weekly minor damage costs have decreased by 50%. The company has also reduced their annual insurance costs by over £250,000 and these costs continue to decrease. This represents a better than 4-to-1 return on the company’s investment in the SmartDrive Safety System.
SmartDrive is also working with customers to help prevent their commercial vehicle drivers from being targeted by criminals who deliberately cause collisions. This so-called crash for cash is used by fraudsters to make illegal claims against companies for personal injuries and vehicle damage. This is not only dangerous but is pushing up the cost of motor insurance. SmartDrive technology is helping to contest such claims successfully and bring the fraudsters to justice.
At the forefront of road safety research, SmartDrive gathers conclusive evidence proving that distracted drivers using mobile phones or other in-vehicle gadgets are more likely to be involved in a road traffic incident, either a full collision or a near miss. Its research also shows that eating, drinking or smoking while driving should be avoided so that drivers can concentrate fully on the road ahead. The SmartDrive Distracted Driver research uses the world’s largest database of risky driving incidents. So far more than 34 million incidents have been recorded on in-vehicle video cameras by the SmartDrive Safety programme in the UK and USA.
