Fatigue increases accident risk
November 27, 2018
By Eugene Herbert
Accident risk increases by 8.3% when a driver is fatigued and behind the wheel for more than six hours, according to the latest safety findings from a proprietary accident risk model developed by Azuga. They are an industry provider of connected vehicle and fleet technologies in the United States.
The tool also identified accident surges linked to high-risk driving hours. Specifically, the findings suggest that accidents can increase by as much at 9.1% for every mile driven between the hours of midnight and 3 a.m.
Risky driver behaviours such as speeding, changing lanes without checking blind spots and hard braking increase the risk of an accident. Azuga’s latest model now leverages data to drill down and assess some of those issues and threats.
For example, the risk model findings indicate that one hard braking incident per every 100 miles driven increases the risk of a preventable accident by a whopping 16.9%.
Created to assess the level of threats for drivers, the latest analysis-based consultative solution from Azuga is designed to help fleets monitor driver behaviour, reduce risk and ultimately, lower costs related to driving incidents.
The new tool leverages the combined analysis of real accident data from over 6 000 vehicles with individual Driver Scores determined based on the frequency of risky driving behaviours. These include hard braking, acceleration, posted speed limit violations, distraction and fatigue.
While these are shocking it is recognised that the solution to the problem is multifaceted and confirms that a combination of actions – from policies, to examples by management to driver training – is what can support improving road safety for fleets.