Exonerating drivers in real-time using video telematics
Construction and concrete work can be an exciting and dangerous line of work.
For Concrete Strategies’ 800 field personnel, the risk of injury to-and-from work and while on the job is high. With a fleet of 136 vehicles, the concrete solutions company, which is estimated to generate a projected $556 million in annual revenue in 2022, ensures success in everything it does by putting safety first.
Whether it’s in architectural site cast concrete, structural concrete, or any type of self-performing concrete construction for commercial projects, safety is always paramount. When it comes to the safety of their truck operators, Concrete Strategies relies on SureCam’s connected dash cameras to maintain safe practices and to shield them from false accident claims.
Before connected cameras there was no mechanism for real-time safety coaching and any motor vehicle incident quickly became a matter of what he-said, she-said.
“You’d have to go on what the driver said, you’d have to go on a police report if a police report was made,” said Lisa Lamons, the company’s Safety Training and DOT Compliance Manager. “Then you had to go on pictures and hoped that the pictures told a story, and a lot of times those pictures didn’t tell the story.”
To mitigate the risk of motor vehicle accidents within the business, Lamons now relies on fleet video with tracking installed in 33 of the company’s biggest vehicles to provide a layer of indisputable accountability.
Achieving an instant reduction in third party claims with fleet video
Since word has gotten out about Concrete Strategies’ connected dash cameras, they’ve seen a significant reduction in third parties calling to make a claim of flying debris from their vehicles.
“I used to get calls weekly. Now, I may get one call a month if that,” Lamons said. “One claim would take me at least 8-10 hours spread over a series of days and back and forth communications with the claimant, time to investigate then time to prepare to settle or dispute. Now, with the cameras, it’s pretty cut and dry. The answer is in the video.”
With SureCam fleet video at the center of Concrete Strategies’ fleet safety program, the team has seen a 75% drop in third party claims. Before having quick and reliable video evidence at her disposal, Lamons was spending the equivalent of one week each month handling claims. Now she spends fewer than 10 hours a month – giving her more time to focus on safety and compliance.
In addition to utilizing connected dash cameras for capturing objective video evidence in the case of incidents while driving, Concrete Strategies utilizes the video for coaching opportunities and safety audits.
Simplifying safety with SureCam fleet video
SureCam’s online platform combined with our forward-facing connected dash cameras provides the objective video, data analytics, and instant alerts Concrete Strategies’ needs to oversee safety and coach drivers when needed.
With SureCam’s camera technology, Concrete Strategies can deal more effectively with road incidents now that they are equipped with indisputable video footage alongside harsh event data.
“If there’s a hard break, or a harsh cornering or any type of triggering event, it will send an alert to me. I will pull it up if it’s a high event,” Lamons said. “If it’s something that I need to address immediately, then I’ll address it then and there. If it’s something that I can wait until the end of the day, then that’s a task I’ll address at the end of the day or the next day. And when I say I’m going to address it, it then becomes a coaching opportunity on a day-to-day basis.”
Video evidence makes it easier to back your drivers
With the help of SureCam’s video technology, Concrete Strategies can exonerate their drivers in real-time.
“Just this winter, we had a driver who was driving the speed limit,” Lamons said. “He had phenomenal following distance and a pickup truck spun out and came back towards him in his lane, hit our vehicle, spun out of control landed in the ditch. You can see where our driver maintained lane control and slowed down. He got out of his vehicle and checked on the driver that was in a ditch. Prior to that camera, you would have seen that F-150 in the ditch and you would have seen our big truck and you would have instantly blamed our big truck and said it was our big truck’s fault.”
In addition to using the video to prove liability for the accident, Concrete Strategies now uses that video footage as a teaching tool to teach drivers following distance and how to maintain a lane during an active incident.
“The benefit is the fact that you can use it to teach – coach and mentor drivers – to change driving behaviors and to protect your company on a liability side,” Lamons said. “And if you roll it out correctly to drivers, you instill a sense of security for them.”
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