Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of preventable death in the United States. In 2022, 5,837 large trucks were involved in fatal crashes. Additionally that year, there were approximately 114,000 crashes that resulted in an injury, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). While research shows a large percentage of these crashes not the commercial vehicle driver’s fault, it remains incumbent upon fleet managers to investigate means of avoiding crashes and improve driver safety and protection when these incidences occur. 

During the past several years, FMCSA’s TechCelerate now program has worked to increase information and research on advances in vehicle safety technology — called Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) — which can help substantially reduce the number of these crashes, injuries, and deaths. ADAS works in the background to protect truck drivers from other drivers’ inattentiveness and bad behavior. 

Many of today’s vehicles can be specified with ADAS technologies that monitor driver input and the environment around the vehicle and warn the driver when they detect the possibility of a collision. These ADAS-equipped vehicles may also automatically brake or steer the vehicle if the driver does not act to avoid the collision. For example, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that automatic emergency braking could prevent more than 11,000 crashes, 7,700 injuries, and more than 170 deaths involving heavy vehicles. What’s more, researchers from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute have found lane depature warning reduced crashes by 14 percent, electronic stability control by 19 percent, forward collision warning by 14 percent, and blind spot warning by five percent. 

There are technologies that can improve driver safety and protection once a crash occurs also, such as advanced supplemental restraint systems, cab interior specifications designed to minimize driver injury and impact, and materials that are more flame resistant and less likely to emit toxic fumes when ignited. 

Attend this session and learn what options are available to fleets to improve driver safety and protection by preventing crashes and miminizing their impact should they occur. We’ll offer practical fleet perspectives about the real-world benefits these technologies provide, including how fleets can leverage ADAS data and safety systems to improve driver coaching, reduce risk, and better protect drivers when incidents occur.