Top Collision Causes in Municipal Fleets

Government drivers are 10% more likely to cause preventable collisions than any other set of drivers. In this session at the PARMA 46th Conference and Expo, Barbara Egan of Lytx DriveCam detailed these collision trends.

Drivers are distracted. Vehicles are increasingly complex, drivers are fatigued, skills and risk acceptance vary. The three prevalent collision behaviors in government fleets are driver unbelted, late response and following distance.

Lytx recorded 80% of government fleet drivers were not wearing their seatbelts, despite organizational policy. Late response results from the driver not paying attention to what is happening down the road, waiting to slam on the breaks around two seconds before impact. That is not early enough to avoid a collision. Finally, short following distance occurs from drivers following too closely as to not let other cars merge in front of them. This creates a ripe situation for a collision. In reality, letting someone merge only adds two minutes to the commute.

Compared to the behavior average across other industries, 70% of certain categories of government drivers more frequently ran red lights, 75% are more likely to have a passenger unbelted and 40% were more likely to fail to stop.

Triggered event statistics showed a 36% increase in near collisions, a 42% increase in other violations (like u-turns, crossing the limit line) and a 15% increase in near collision unavoidable (hitting distracted people who are biking, looking at their phone).

More collisions are occurring at or below five miles an hour or below. This typically occurs in parking lots. According to the National Safety Council, 5,000 collisions in parking lots occur annually, resulting in 500+ fatalities and over 6,000 injuries. Most of these could be avoided by moving the seats and mirrors in addition to not relying too heavily on backing cameras.