Omnitracs Recommends Multi-pronged Approach to Reduce Distracted Driving

The facts about distracted driving are startling: According to fleet management leader Omnitracs, distracted driving is the root cause of 87 percent of accidents in the U.S.

Distracted driving encompasses a wide variety of incidents, ranging from texting to thinking about marital problems and not paying attention to the road.

That’s why, In light of National Distracted Driving Awareness month (April), Omnitracs came up with a few tips to help drivers stay focused on the road:

• Mobile technology – Acceptable use policy for mobile technology should be carefully considered, clearly communicated and consistently executed. The most successful implementations for zero tolerance included involving the family of the drivers asking that they support their loved ones by not talking with their drivers while they were behind the wheel. It is also important that operations follow the same policy and not talk with drivers if they are driving or attempt to contact them if they know they are still on the road. – Drew Schimelpfenig, Omnitracs Safety Center of Excellence
•  In-cab technology – In-cab technology that is expected to be used while driving should be installed so drivers can see it and the road at the same time. User interfaces, displays and monitors should never block view of road, mirrors or windows. Treating these additional interfaces as an additional gauge and ensuring that they are never installed any lower than other instrumentation in the dash of the vehicle allows the driver to quickly check the information from these displays as easily as they can check mirrors or dashboard gauges. – Drew Schimelpfenig, Omnitracs Safety Center of Excellence
• Navigation – When leveraging a navigation solution, the solution must help the driver to navigate to his or her destination in a non-distracting fashion. To this end, the navigation solution must consider the vehicle’s and load’s profile when generating safe and easy to follow directions. The bottom line is a lost driver is a distracted driver, and a distracted driver is a dangerous driver. – Rick Turek, Chief Navigation Scientist, Omnitracs

Category: Featured, General Update