Press Release
Lytx Shares New Data Showing COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on Driving Risk in Atlanta
SAN DIEGO — July 9, 2020 — New data from Lytx®, a leading provider of video telematics, analytics, safety, and productivity solutions for commercial fleets, demonstrates how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted fleets on the road in and around the Atlanta metropolitan area, including noteworthy changes in miles driven and spikes in certain risky driving behaviors.
In addition to being the ninth largest metropolitan area in the U.S., Atlanta is also a major national commercial transportation hub and plays a central role in the country’s supply chain and infrastructure. Across Atlanta, while businesses closed and residents stayed home to slow the spread of COVID-19, fewer passenger vehicles populated the roads, demand for food, beverages, household goods and health and wellness supplies spiked across the country.
With the goal of informing and supporting ongoing safety efforts in the industries it serves and in the Atlanta area, today’s data from Lytx showcases how both driving risk and the demand for essential industries have been dramatically impacted throughout the course of the ongoing pandemic.
155% Increase in Waste Fleet Mileage – 27% Decrease in EMS Fleet Mileage
Comparing mileage from March-May 2020 to the same period in 2019, Lytx found that distribution and waste fleets in Atlanta logged significantly more miles, far surpassing mileage changes seen in other industries, including trucking and Emergency Medical Services (EMS). Distribution fleets, which include food and beverage carriers, moving and storage, and gas and petroleum fleets, experienced a 19% increase in mileage, likely due to the high demand for goods and services during this time. Waste fleets, which include recycling, disposal and sanitation vehicles, including those disposing of medical waste, experienced a substantial 155% increase, likely due to more individuals staying at home and generating higher amounts of residential trash across the metro area, as well as an increase in medical waste disposal across the area.
Conversely, EMS fleets in and around Atlanta experienced a 27% decrease in mileage, despite more than 9,000 statewide coronavirus hospitalizations, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health. The decrease in mileage for these fleets was likely due to fewer non-emergency calls, since individuals have shown a reluctance to go to the hospital unless their conditions were critical. Trucking, which includes for-hire, freight, long-haul and over-the-road fleets, experienced a 7% decrease in mileage.
Shifts in Risky Driving Behaviors
In its database of driving events captured in the Atlanta area during March-May 2020, Lytx found substantial shifts in risky behaviors exhibited by commercial drivers, as compared to the same period in 2019. The increases and decreases in certain driving behaviors demonstrate how risk and driving changes when less commuters are on the roadways.
Risky driving behaviors that decreased in frequency during this time include:
- Late response1 – decreased 82%
- Failure to keep an out2 – decreased 49%
- Near collisions – decreased 45%
- Collisions – decreased 36%
Driving behaviors that increased in frequency during this time include:
- Incomplete stop3 – increased by 72%
- Handheld cell-phone distraction – increased by 58%
- Posted speed violation – increased by 45%
- Food/drink distraction – increased by 41%
“As traffic congestion has trended downwards during the course of this pandemic, drivers have been taking more chances on the road. As a result, we’ve seen several noteworthy risky driving patterns emerge, both in Atlanta and nationally,” said Del Lisk, vice president of safety services at Lytx. “Industry drivers play an integral role in keeping our communities running during both times of crisis and calm. By sharing this data, we intend to arm drivers and fleet managers with insights that can help them address and prevent risky driving behaviors, including new habits that may form as driving conditions change, in order to protect these heroes on the road and those they share it with.”
About the Data
These new insights from Lytx are derived from its proprietary database of more than 120 billion miles of driving data. To arrive at these findings, the company analyzed data captured within the Atlanta-metro area from March-May 2019 to March-May 2020. On average, 99,000 vehicles equipped with Lytx’s windshield-mounted DriveCam event recorders drive through Atlanta each month. In the past 12 months, Lytx captured 463,000 driving events throughout Greater Atlanta. By providing localized data, Lytx can help fleet operators identify risk in their vehicles and neighborhoods.
Lytx clients span trucking, distribution, waste, transit, construction, concrete, services, utilities and public-sector industry. The data is anonymized, normalized and in instances of concentrated areas and times of risk, generalizable to driving populations as a whole, given Lytx’s majority market share in video telematics solutions for 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 systems, visit www.lytx.com, @lytx on Twitter, LinkedIn, our Facebook page or our YouTube channel.
1 Late response occurs when a driver was not distracted, yet responded late and abruptly to a readily visible risky situation ahead.
2 Failure to keep an out refers to a risky driving event in which the driver had an opportunity to maintain sufficient space around the vehicle to avoid a potential traffic hazard, yet failed to do so. This may include driving for too long in another driver’s blind spot, not adjusting space for merging traffic or remaining unnecessarily close to other vehicles, people or objects.
3 Incomplete Stop occurs when a driver was below 5 mph and the vehicle did not come to a complete stop or a stop at a stop sign or while turning right at a red light.
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