How Dashcams Can Protect You on the Road

May 19, 2023 Published by
car camera, video recorder, driving, safety on road, camera video recorder

We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words. Imagine how valuable a video could be. Then multiply that by the number of all the vehicles in your fleet outfitted with dash cams. Dash cams keep your drivers safer. Dash cams reduce your operating costs. Here’s how much.

  • One study reported that 87% of all crashes involving large commercial vehicles result from driver error or drivers taking unnecessary risks. That’s a finding of the Large Truck Crash Causation Study by the National Surface Transportation Safety Center for Excellence (NSTSCE).
  • Another study found that 92.6% of crashes involving vehicles of any size involved human factors, characterized as decision errors, recognition errors, performance errors, and critical failures to perform. These findings were reported in the Large Truck Crash Causation Study (NSTSC).
  • There was a 60% reduction in the number of crashes by large trucks after dash cams were introduced to a large fleet. A study in the Journal of Safety Research says.
  • There was an 87% reduction in the cost of crashes by large trucks after dash cams were installed fleet-wide, in a study in the proceedings of the 2015 National Occupational Injury Research Symposium.

Dash cams reduce the number of crashes. When crashes involving commercial vehicles have dash cams, there are fewer injuries, fewer deaths, and less property damage.

Mobile video solutions are only growing in popularity among independent trucks and carriers with fleets large and small. Companies realize they have too much invested in their fleets not to protect them.

The once-common misconception that dash cams were too expensive to operate fleetwide has been proven untrue by the constant innovation in dash cam technology. The fact is, dash cams will end up saving you money over the long term.

Dashcams Help to Keep Your Insurance Rates Low

Insurance companies may not offer you a discount up front for installing dash cams on your fleet. That doesn’t mean that dashcams don’t lower your insurance costs.

Video from a dash cam can be used to show that your operator was not at fault in an accident. Footage recorded by your dashcam keeps you from having to rely on eyewitness testimony to back up your driver’s telling of the story. Many dash cams can be mounted on the windshield, so they make a video recording in two directions. They record what is happening on the road and what is happening in the cab.

When a fault is disputed, dashcams resolve questions of liability. They can save your company thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars and protect a good driver’s career.

Are There Any Insurance-Approved Dash Cams?

Since having a dash cam makes such a big difference with insurance claims, and, over the long term, in liability and comprehensive coverage expense, it is only natural to wonder if there is any particular brand of dashcam that insurance companies prefer. There isn’t.

GPS Technologies can help you select the dash cams that fit your installation requirements, meet all the regulations for hauling into Mexico and Canada as well as anywhere in the United States, and give you the best value for your budget.

It is always better to shoot your video in HD. Audio recordings of everything that can be heard in the cab may back up your claim. You will probably want a dash cam that activates record mode anytime motion is detected, and you may even decide your best choice is a dash cam with 360° image capture relaid to your dispatcher by the Internet in real-time.

GPS Technologies Can Integrate Your Dashcams with Telematics

GPS telematics is a system for comprehensive monitoring of your fleet.

Telematics can keep track of engine performance, fuel efficiency, tire pressure, and dashboard warning lights. GPS Technologies telematics systems can inform you of driver safety behaviors such as slamming on the brakes, sudden starts, and wide curves—and also document desirable driver behaviors for commendation and reward.

Coupled with AI, GPS telematics can even anticipate driver error for gentle corrective action before accidents occur.
With integrated dash cams and telematics systems from GPS Technologies, you can:

  • Monitor a live feed of everything that is happening in and around the cab of your vehicles from your office.
  • Track each vehicle’s location and trip details with updates every 5 to 15 seconds.
  • View front-end collision videos.
  • Download the video from an onboard SD card.
  • Send distracted driver alerts automatically to drivers who may be fatigued or distracted on the road.

If you lease your fleet, you may have some limitations on the kinds of monitoring devices you can install on your vehicles. Our IQ Cam is a stand-alone dashboard-mounted device that records complete video images and is also useful for breadcrumb trail tracking and fleet tracking of your entire fleet on the road and off.

Most of our dash cameras are just 4-1/2 inches and 2 inches tall. There is a windshield placement pad for all vehicles. They can be powered through a USB port or by batteries, Our dash cameras don’t require any special technical expertise to install and use, and they cost less than a Go-Pro.

You don’t have to fumble with buttons to operate our dashboard cameras. Software updates are automatic. And although our dashboard cameras conserve memory with loop recording, smart recording ensures that footage of important events is never overwritten.

Dashcams keep watch over your fleet when you cannot. They help you identify the operators who contribute the most to the efficiency of your fleet, and just having a dash cam installed encourages every operator to drive and act mindfully. Accidents will happen, but the consequences will be reduced.

GPS Technologies serves customers all over the United States.Request a custom quote online, or call us for more information at (847) 382-5107. GPS has the products and the expertise you need to succeed with fleeting monitoring.

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This post was written by Malcolm Rosenfeld

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