Line haul service provider cuts DOT accidents by 74% and preventable accidents by 33% with Motive.

Challenge

The line haul service provider thought their drivers were doing a great job because their Lytx dash cams were not reporting unsafe driving events. The Lytx dash cams captured very few events, giving managers the impression that drivers were driving safely and avoiding safety incidents. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Beneath the surface, an immense amount of risk was being hidden. As accidents increased, so did accident claim costs, as well as violations.

Without a better solution, the situation was bound to worsen. The company couldn’t continue jeopardizing its corporate reputation or drivers’ safety. They sought out a better solution and switched to Motive.

Solution

Motive’s AI Dashcams have unrivaled risk detection, and the company started seeing that firsthand right away. After switching to Motive, they experienced an immediate improvement in fleet visibility, gaining insight into the risks they were facing from unsafe driver behavior. 

“When we switched from Lytx to Motive, our recorded speeding events increased from about three to hundreds per month, indicating a much higher level of monitoring accuracy,” he says. “The difference in visibility was unbelievable. Under Lytx, we’d been patting ourselves on the back because we thought we were a safe fleet. The minute we switched to Motive, the data told the true story.”

With Motive AI Dashcams deployed throughout its fleet, the company got a clearer, albeit more dire, picture of how their drivers were performing. 

In a span of six months, their Lytx dash cams triggered very few events for following distance and nearly no events for cell phone usage, seat belts or speeding. Once Motive was installed, coachable alerts soared by 3,900% in a single month, revealing vastly higher-than-expected unsafe driving behaviors. 

“Lytx had recorded no cell phone events,” he noted. “In our first month with Motive, we had hundreds of cell phone events captured. It was eye-opening,” he says. 

Video evidence from Motive’s AI Dashcams revealed the truth. “I could see drivers on their phones and I could see them following too closely. Having that awareness has empowered us to make a lot of progress in a very short amount of time,” he says.

The massive discrepancy between Motive’s AI detection accuracy compared to Lytx highlighted a significant gap:  The Lytx dash cams weren’t capturing or reporting critical safety events. The accuracy of Motive’s AI technology to detect unsafe driving behaviors made the switch to Motive an easy decision for the team. According to the vice president, the decision was pivotal in addressing the underlying safety concerns that were previously invisible with the Lytx system.

By focusing almost exclusively on unsafe driving events and compliance violations, the carrier has turned their safety performance around. “With Motive, we now have visibility, showing us where we need to improve, so we can address those behaviors immediately,” he says.

Results

As soon as the company began installing Motive AI Dashcams, they witnessed the company’s incredible safety transformation firsthand.

“Our accident frequency and severity have both decreased,” he says. “After installing Motive AI Dashcams, we reduced our accident rate by 33%. And our clean inspections increased by 21%.” Overall coaching events have dropped by 76% and accident severity and preventable accidents have plummeted. 

The carrier has benefited from having on the spot video evidence for false claims, exonerating drivers in countless incidents. “Motive has captured videos that are probably worth $5M in possible claims for accidents that were not our fault,” he says.

The vice president attributes these improvements to accurate, real-time alerts, proactive driver coaching, and greater visibility into driver behavior. Now when an incident occurs, drivers get coached much sooner. 

“They say that an injured person has a much better chance of survival if a doctor can treat them within the first hour after an injury,” he says. “We try to use the same philosophy from a safety standpoint. If a driver has an event, we try to address it within an hour of the event. You can change behavior in a single coaching conversation.” 

The vice president takes the time to show drivers which behaviors are putting them at risk, taking care to say what needs to change. “You have to be specific,” he says. “We emphasize that their behavior needs to change. When you identify the unsafe behavior and show it to the drivers, they get it. That’s how true change happens.”

Most of the company’s drivers are team drivers who run the same dedicated routes every day. “We host driver safety meetings several times a year. We pay the drivers to attend and we discuss safe and unsafe behaviors. Then, we show actual videos and discuss them with the drivers,” he says.

The data they get from Motive paints a powerful picture, especially when the most critical behaviors are looked at holistically. “We look at cell phone use and combine it with distracted driving. Then, we combine following distance and unsafe lane changes. Those are the two behaviors we should always try to improve. If they’re not maintaining the right distance, someone could get hurt,” he explains.

“When you’ve got the cameras and hours of service being tracked together and everything in one system, you can rate, reward, and coach drivers based on a much bigger picture,” he says.

The carrier now gives out safe driving awards at 50,000, 100,000, 250,000 and 1,000,000 safe miles driven. It’s welcome recognition for a job well done and bragging rights among peers. 

Since they started coaching drivers regularly and reinforcing safety messaging, they’ve seen a massive improvement in their Motive Safety Scores. It’s all part of a holistic approach to safety that has improved performance across the board.

When asked what advice he would give his peers, the vice president has a clear message. “Without Motive, you have a very false sense of success. You don’t have any idea what’s going on in your trucks. It has been shocking to our executive team and it opened our eyes to what we needed to do,” he recalls. “Statistically, the number of unsafe events we’re having are going down. Our accidents are going down. Our inspections are getting better. As our frequency goes down, our severity goes down. It’s been an incredible turnaround.”