What You Need to Know About Distracted Driving in Trucking

Any task that involves a driver’s hands and eyes has the highest risk of resulting in an incident or unsafe event on the road, according to study findings by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

What can trucking fleets do to educate truck drivers and improve safety? Heavy Duty Trucking has gathered up some of the top driver distraction-related articles into one place for quick reference:

• Top 10 Risky Truck Driver Distractions: What type of tasks by commercial vehicle drivers leads to crashes and other critical safety incidents? The answer may surprise you.
• Effectiveness of In-Cab Coaching for Trucking Fleets: A Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study found that on-board monitoring systems and coaching after safety-critical events improves driver performance and safety.
• Risk of Truck Driver Cell Phone Use: A study found that truck drivers using hand-held cell phones were more at risk of an unsafe event on the road than those using a hands-free device.
• How In-Cab Cameras Help Fleets Improve Safety: Camera-based safety systems are an increasingly sophisticated tool for fleets to manage drivers and protect themselves from lawsuits.
• Loram Truck Fleet Cuts Distracted Driving Using Tech: Rail maintenance contractor Loram Maintenance of Way invested in Nauto’s fleet safety system on its truck fleet to meet its goal of safety excellence.
• In-Cab Cameras: Ways to Accelerate Driver Acceptance and Improve Safety: A survey revealed that over a quarter of fleet drivers recall having avoided a crash due to in-cab alerts. Still, barriers to adoption remain. How can fleet managers accelerate acceptance of in-vehicle camera technology?