How Can Vehicle Cameras Benefit Your Fleet?

If you're not familiar with vehicle cameras by now, you should be. They’re a tool for businesses that can provide a host of benefits to fleet managers. Footage captured, alongside telematics, becomes a crucial piece of the puzzle to understand incidents on the road and improve driver safety. 

Aimed to reduce operating costs and improve safety, in-vehicle camera systems are designed to integrate directly into the business’s processes, via AI-powered software. The benefits? Here’s three.

Capture proof for collision claims

A truck driver can face many obstacles in their path, regardless if it’s them at fault or not. If an incident occurs and a business vehicle is involved, it often boils down to a 'your word against mine' situation. This is where cameras add value instantly.

By viewing footage from the scene, the business, management, and back-office staff have an instant view into what factually happened, and can therefore successfully combat accusations of any wrongdoing. With undeniable camera evidence, alongside telematics data, you can reduce your driver’s and vehicle’s exposure to third-party negligence, or even fraudulent acts aimed at making money from insurance claims. The insurance industry believes that 14 per cent of all road traffic accidents are fraudulent.

Notably, the New Zealand Transport Agency states that in recent years, fatalities from crashes involving heavy-vehicles represented 17 to 23 per cent of the total road toll, while truck movements represent only around 6 per cent of the total distance travelled on New Zealand roads. In crashes involving a truck and another road user, the truck driver has been found to hold the primary responsibility for only one-quarter (24 per cent) of fatal crashes. However, owing to the vehicle’s large mass, in collisions that involve one car and one truck, 98 per cent of the deaths, 89 per cent of the serious injuries and 83 per cent of the minor injuries are car occupants.

In other words, truck drivers are less likely to be fatally and seriously injured, but they do have to deal with the emotional trauma – the shock and guilt – as well as the legal and financial outcomes. Without technology, there’s only the evidence that’s available from the scene of the accident and witness testimony. With a camera solution fitted alongside fleet management solutions, it can assist drivers and operators to exonerate themselves in these collisions, by giving them an objective recording of the situation.

Slash your insurance premiums

By taking a pro-active approach, fleet managers can use multi-camera solutions to analyse every event, from harsh braking to speeding, and understand the root causes. With this understanding, businesses can improve their risk management and provide proof to the insurance companies that they are implementing the procedures that better manage risk. The insurance industry actively promotes the use of cameras and this serves as a strong motivator for the transport industry to start embracing the technology.

Southland transport operator, Herberts Transport, has adopted the use of Teletrac Navman’s in-vehicle cameras as a tool to help rule out their drivers’ culpability in incidents. The company experienced an incident involving one of their vehicles and a car at a roundabout. After watching the video recording, the team realised that it was the car driver at fault – not the truck driver – as they could clearly see what happened. Herberts Transport Managing Director Scott Hutton says that when you’re in his position, you only use them to get drivers out of incidents.

“Even though I understand that some truck drivers are unsure about having a driver-facing camera in their truck, when you’re in my position, you only use them to get drivers out of accidents, it’s not a surveillance thing,” says Scott.

Increased awareness fosters better driver behaviour

Combining the camera solution and telematics can result in very valuable and detailed insights. Besides the uses mentioned so far, these insights offer a great way for drivers to get clear and objective insights into their overall driving behaviour.

By pairing telematics data with cameras, fleet managers can better understand driver behaviour in real-time which can help them improve the habits of their drivers. And by capturing road events, you can better understand them, which in turn can help further coach and improve defensive driving skills.

Benefits of using the latest technology

Designed specifically for transport and logistics operators, Teletrac Navman’s high-definition multi-camera solution captures more than 10 days of rolling footage from four cameras, or up to 60 days with a single camera, available to view from the back-office without the need to physically get into the vehicle.

The camera solution triggers real-time alerts for out of the ordinary road events, such as harsh braking or swerving via G-force sensors, making it a highly valuable tool for analysing road collisions, and recording the behaviour of other road users for insurance and legal claims.