Who was on the wrong side of the road?
FROM THE ARCHIVES
The following article appeared in a TRL Newsletter in June 1999, but remains just as topical today with more and more people using fleet vehicles.
Managing risk with “Black Box” technology
TRL’s accident prevention and risk management work is not just limited to providing expert safety advice to those in the public sector. An increasing number of bodies approach TRL with concerns as to their corporate liabilities, increasing insurance and contingency costs, and the commercial worth of their safety strategies. Providing innovative analysis techniques and cost-effective research and consultancy is fundamental to TRL’s mission.
One such sector is company car accidents. Many fleet operators have sufficiently large fleets for robust statistical analyses to be undertaken. Installing a suitably tailored commercial vehicle accident database linking accident, personnel and vehicle operations is an approach that ensures that efforts and spending are targeted where the greatest and most cost effective accident reduction is possible.
Many companies consider that, with a high or increasing accident rate, their only option is to instigate driver training. Some firms feel that new technologies may help them – ‘black box’ journey and accident data recorders are now more widely available and financially viable for a number of fleets.
Journey data recorders can record detailed, extensive and objective information concerning vehicle status during complete journeys. Accident data recording devices trigger in the event of a crash, retaining crucial speed, deceleration, rotation and equipment status data for the seconds immediately before and after the impact.
In some instances, accident data recorder units have been linked to significant reductions in fleet accident rates. TRL is interested in the scale of this reduction, whether the effects are sustained and can be targeted at particular vehicles or drivers, and whether the driving behaviour and accident rate of private motorists would be similarly affected.
TRL has long experience in comparing new technologies and continues to study the human factors associated with the driving task particularly in respect of the various influences on safety. “We are in a unique position to independently appraise corporate fleet accident problems, recommend suitable safety measures and measure the subsequent effects,” says a TRL expert.
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TRL continues to provide this service in 2019, keeping abreast of advances in technology and how they can benefit fleet operators. Read all about what we do today on this page.
For enquiries about this service, please contact investigations@trl.co.uk
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