Truckers Probably Pulled Over to Watch the Eclipse
Video-based telematics provider Lytx found that truck drivers seemed to join in with the rest of the country last week to catch a glimpse of the eclipse, according to data from trucks equipped with its DriveCam system.
by Staff
August 28, 2017
Photo via Lytx
1 min to read
Photo via Lytx
Video-based telematics provider Lytx found that truck drivers seemed to join in with the rest of the country last week to catch a glimpse of the eclipse, according to data from trucks equipped with DriveCam.
While the DriveCam video system didn’t always record drivers donning the cardboard solar eclipse glasses to watch the rare cosmic event, analysis of driving event data during the daylight hours showed that on Aug. 21, drivers pulled off the road at a 68% higher clip than normal. The data also indicated that use of non-cellphone electronics devices was 47% higher, possibly from drivers taking photos.
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Lytx analyzed information from its database of more than 70-billion driving miles from more than 400,000 vehicles at 2,200 commercial and government fleets. Data was recorded from vehicles that span several commercial driving segments including trucking, distribution, waste, transit, construction and services. It looked at data from daylight hours from the past five months of Mondays to compare to the solar eclipse timeframe.
Perhaps the most telling sign that drivers took a moment to view the solar eclipse was that vehicles tracked driving over the posted speed limit, increased by 35% on the day of the eclipse, which Lytx says could be drivers trying to make up time for the unscheduled downtime.
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