Telematics and Your Duty of Care

Business Insights
16/03/2017

Since its introduction telematics has largely been regarded as a tool for recording where vehicles are and how long their journeys have taken. But as its technology becomes more sophisticated and fears of intrusive spying on drivers recede, telematics is now a vital part of fleet management.

Fleet Management being the function which allows companies which rely on transportation in business to remove or minimize the risks associated with vehicle investment, improving efficiency, productivity and reducing overall transportation and staff costs, providing 100% compliance with government legislation (duty of care) and many more.

There are several ways with which a company can address their duty of care obligations, including risk assessments, disciplinary measures and extra training to their drivers. These measures can certainly have a positive effect, but employers who want to bring safety to the highest standards promote the use of most-advanced telematics systems.

Telematics solutions can record location, driving times, patterns and routes, and provide a logging system to ensure timetables are met. Telematics can be used to monitor maintenance, vehicle inspection, and provide proactive alerts on engine faults, on the status of the vehicle parts, especially brakes, tires, and safety elements, all contributing to driver safety and compliance with your duty of care.

The motor insurance industry has demonstrated that there are driving patterns that have a high impact on risk beyond mileage and over speeding. Telematics can be used to identify bad driving habits, so they can be addressed directly with the driver before they become a problem.

Issues such as harsh braking or cornering which can indicate a dangerous driving style, poor reversing techniques and whether or not the driver is using a seatbelt, can all be flagged up. These are not just safety issues, as while improving driver behaviour certainly saves lives and reduces injuries, it also has an impact on the profitability of the company by lowering insurance premiums, tickets, and vehicle repairs.

Due to the serious impact of traffic fatalities worldwide, some countries are proactively approving laws to enforce companies to take the right measures. These measures typically limit windshield time, enforce compliance with road signals, and foster vehicle inspections.

In the UK, companies with fleets have a duty of care, regulated by the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act of 2007. Companies need to comply with duty of care obligations to ensure that their drivers are safe on the roads. This means that if a driver causes an accident that could have been avoided by certain policies enforcement, the company could be prosecuted and subject to possibly unlimited fines.

There is a concern that the level of available technology is in itself a distraction to the driver from taking directions by looking at a sat-nav system, receiving updates from head office via even a hands free system, or signals to say that a driver is approaching his maximum allowed driving hours.

Mobile phones in particular, even when linked to the vehicle and hands free have been found to be a major cause of disruption, so new technology, an app which locks the phone when it detects movement at speed, disabling calls, texts, emails and social media messaging, among other distractions has been developed. The app doesn't disable the phone entirely and will allow people to accept calls using a Bluetooth headset. It will also flag up when messages from the office are received, but won't let people read these messages until they've pulled over.

The take-up of telematics is still patchy among smaller companies. But there is a growing consensus among industry executives that, in five to seven years’ time, the technology will be an integral part of all vehicle fleets as costs fall when manufacturers achieve economies of scale.

Commercial fleet operators report that the development of single data and control centres which can integrate the operations of individual depots is helping improve business efficiency. Among them is Stobart Group, one of the UK’s largest hauliers and logistics companies with a fleet of 2,500 trucks. Every driver logs details of each delivery in real time, telling “mission control” exactly where he is and what he has done, allowing Stobart managers to instantly rearrange vehicle movements to pick up unexpected loads or compensate for accident or breakdown.

Far fewer truck journeys are now made empty, which would not have been possible before telematics because of the lack of data. A 97% reduction in speeding is attributable to telematics.

Transportation is becoming faster, safer, more efficient, and easy to use. One day the roads will be accident-free. But that time has not arrived yet, and nowadays companies using vehicles (which is virtually every company) need to protect their most valuable assets — their drivers