Press Release
Lytx Shares New Insights on Risky Driving Trends Among Public-Sector Fleets
- Lytx public-sector clients reduced occurrences of unsafe following distances* by 57% from 2018 to 2019 and experienced 53% fewer incidents with this behavior overall, as compared to data from eight other industries
SAN DIEGO — May 26, 2020 — From its unmatched database of 328,000 risky driving events captured from public-sector fleets in 2019, Lytx® today released new insights into public-sector driving trends.
Lytx’s findings include the five risky behaviors seen most often among public-sector drivers, most improved driving behaviors, and insights on how public-sector driving habits compare to those of other industries.
This data was captured from fleets of all sizes and types within the public sector, including public works, public schools, transit, waste, fire, police and EMS fleets, as well as city/municipal vehicles. It is part of an ongoing series from Lytx highlighting key behavior trends seen across the nine industries that utilize its video telematics technology, with the goal of informing and supporting ongoing safety efforts in the industries it serves.
Data from all industries is available here: https://www.lytx.com/en-us/industry-benchmark-data.
Most Prevalent Risky Behaviors in 2019
- Driver unbelted
- Cell phone/device observed
- Red light**
- Passenger unbelted
- Failure to stop***
Most Improved Behaviors from 2018 to 2019
- Following distance* – improved 57%
- Late response**** – improved 18%
- Posted speed violation – improved 10%
Behaviors may appear on both the "Most Prevalent" and "Most Improved" lists. This demonstrates that even with significant improvement, fleets and drivers must stay vigilant and maintain awareness to keep those behaviors trending downwards.
How Public-Sector Fleets Stack Up Against Other Industries
Lytx compared the prevalence of behaviors seen in public-sector fleets against behavior averages of fleets across all of its other protected industries. Comparatively, public-sector fleets stood out in the following areas:
- Following distance* occurred 53% less often
- Red light** occurred 104% more often
- Failure to stop*** occurred 35% more often
High instances of “red light” and “failed to stop” behaviors are likely due to the high-level of emergency situations certain fleets in this sector, such as police, fire and EMS, often find themselves in.
Common risky driving behaviors observed within a fleet, as well as benchmarking data from fleets both inside and outside of a specific industry are helpful metrics for understanding industry-specific challenges, guiding safety efforts and then measuring success. To better identify and address top areas of driving risk within their individual fleets, thousands of organizations use the best-in-class Lytx Driver Safety Program; these organizations experience on average up to 50% reduction in collisions and up to 80% on associated claims costs as a result.
Public-Sector Collision Insight
Lytx also found that 55% of medium-impact collisions among public-sector fleets involved a side impact. Of those, 40% involved traffic violations, such as “failure to stop,” potentially indicative of emergency-response situations.
About the Data
These insights were derived from Lytx’s proprietary database of public-sector driving data from 2019, including 328,000 risky public-sector driving events captured last year. For comparisons across industries, Lytx calculated behavior averages from its global database, which contains driving data from trucking, distribution, concrete, construction, services, transit, utilities and waste industries. Lytx maintains the fastest-growing proprietary database of professional driving data in the world, currently surpassing 120 billion miles of driving data. The data is anonymized, normalized and in instances of behavior prevalence, is generalizable to public-sector fleets at large.
About Lytx
Lytx® is a leading provider of video telematics, analytics, safety, and productivity solutions for commercial, public sector, and field services fleets. Our unrivaled Driver Safety Program, powered by our best-in-class DriveCam® Event Recorder, is proven to help save lives and reduce risk. We harness the power of video to help clients see what happened in the past, manage their operations more efficiently in the present, and improve driver behavior to change the future. Our customizable services and programs span driver safety, risk detection, fleet tracking, compliance, and fuel management. Using the world’s largest driving database of its kind, along with proprietary machine vision and artificial intelligence technology, we help protect and connect thousands of fleets and more than 1.3 million drivers worldwide. For more information on Lytx telematics system, visit http://www.lytx.com, @lytx on Twitter, LinkedIn, our Facebook page or our YouTube channel.
*Following distance refers to a risky driving event in which the distance to the vehicle directly ahead is approximately 1.5 seconds and note increasing for at least 4 consecutive seconds.
**Red light occurs when a driver fails to stop at a red light.
***Failure to stop occurs when a driver fails to stop at a stop sign or his/her speed remains above 5 mph.
****Late response occurs when a driver is not distracted, yet responds late and abruptly to a readily visible risky situation ahead.
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