Using camera footage to coach drivers and improve driving performance
Vehicle cameras were first seen as a REACTIVE tool to determine what happened in the event of a collision. Whist this is valuable if your driver wasn’t at fault what happens if they were to blame? At this point, you need to start asking the big question……Why did this happen?
Breaking the speed limit, checking their phone, driving while tired or repeatedly having near misses are key indicators that a driver is much more likely to be involved in a collision. This is where using camera footage as a PROACTIVE training tool to prevent collisions from happening can have massive benefits.
In Sept 2020 the University of Nottingham conducted the largest study of its kind involving telematics data from 669 HGVs for the longest period of time (June 2017 – Aug 2019). They analysed three safety-critical behaviours harsh braking, harsh cornering and speeding incidents. The research was split into two groups both of which had cameras installed but group 1 didn’t receive additional coaching using the camera footage and group 2 did. The results were impressive.Â
The research also showed that weather or seasonal changes can influence HGV risky driving behaviours with the highest rates of driving incidents observed during the spring and summer seasons. This is likely due to the vast majority of families taking their summer holidays at this time, thereby creating busier roads and tailgating.
Conclusion
As drivers are made aware of their monitoring especially with the use of cameras and provided with coaching, they become conscious and improve their driving behaviours.
There may be some privacy concerns with collecting and storing videos of drivers, however, there are plenty of resources about managing data privacy. This can guide fleet operators on how to efficiently implement such policies. In addition, decision-makers can provide incentives to encourage frequent coaching of HGV drivers using the videos collected as educating drivers has shown to significantly improve their driving performance.
