February 2024 Fleet Safety Roundup

Safety is the cornerstone of fleet management operations. Automotive Fleet has a roundup of some of the latest news on fleet safety, including:

• Lytx Joins Together for Safer Roads
• Clarience Technologies Acquires Safe Fleet
• Geotab Rolls Out AI-Driven Safety Center
• IIHS Updates Rear Passenger Crash Test Rating Criteria

Lytx Joins Together for Safer Roads

Together for Safer Roads (TSR), a non-governmental organization dedicated to advancing road safety through cross-sector collaboration and technological solutions, recently announced Lytx as its newest member.

Lytx's video safety and video telematics solutions harness the power of video technology to promoting safety, efficiency, and productivity to both drivers and fleet managers.

Through its platform, Lytx offers customizable services spanning driver safety, risk detection, fleet tracking, compliance, preventative maintenance, asset tracking, and fuel management.

"Lytx is a pioneer in fleet management technologies, and their dedication to enhancing safety makes them an essential new member of Together for Safer Roads,” TSR Executive Director Peter Goldwasser said. “Lytx's video telematics and data-based solutions will help us further our ability to support and work with public and private sector fleets to reach Vision Zero goals – the eradication of traffic fatalities and severe injuries."

Lytx's flagship DriveCam Event Recorder is deployed by thousands of fleets to help protect millions of drivers. The company's Surfsight solution, available internationally, allows strategic partners and resellers to easily integrate video into their telematics offerings.

Lytx’s technology, powered by robust machine vision and artificial intelligence, proactively detects and helps mitigate risks, providing detailed analytics and real-time visibility into overall fleet performance.

"Lytx is honored to join Together for Safer Roads in the pursuit of advancing global road safety,” Lytx VP of Global Sales Strategy Jeff Martin said. “Our mission supports TSR's commitment to collaboration and innovation for fleet safety, and we look forward to contributing our expertise to drive positive change in the industry."

Lytx's membership enhances TSR's ability to leverage technology and innovation in the pursuit of safer roads. 

Clarience Technologies Acquires Safe Fleet

Clarience Technologies, a provider of visibility and safety technology solutions for transportation, announced it has acquired Safe Fleet, a safety solutions provider for fleet vehicles.

The acquisition increases Clarience Technologies’ total workforce to over 4,000 employees at nearly 50 locations worldwide. Safe Fleet joins the Clarience Technologies team of companies, which includes Truck-Lite, ECCO, Code 3, Pressure Systems International, DAVCO, Road Ready, Fleetilla, LED Autolamps, Rigid Industries, and Lumitec.

“Clarience Technologies and Safe Fleet share a common mission of making transportation safer and smarter through technology,” Clarience Technologies CEO Brian Kupchella said. “The acquisition of Safe Fleet provides our company with critical technologies, deep vocational segment expertise and a portfolio of powerful and complementary safety products that support our vision to provide comprehensive solutions to a broader set of transportation customers around the world.”

With Safe Fleet, Clarience Technologies strengthens its position in several industry segments, including school transportation, transit, fire and emergency, law enforcement, waste, industrial and recreational vehicles, the company noted in a news release.

“Safe Fleet employees, customers and partners will benefit from becoming a part of Clarience Technologies,” Safe Fleet CEO and Chairman John Knox said. “We look forward to joining their team of companies where together we will expand global reach, accelerate innovation, unlock new benefits for customers and strengthen our safety mission.”

Geotab Rolls Out AI-Driven Safety Center

Geotab has unveiled its Safety Center, the company's next-generation of fleet safety tools driven by data intelligence, predictive collision insights, and AI.

Geotab Safety Center is available within the MyGeotab platform.

With Safety Center, announced during the 2024 Geotab Connect event, fleet and safety managers can easily uncover and manage fleet performance risks, focusing their time on coaching and making operational decisions based on objective data, predictive collision analytics, and peer fleet benchmarking.

This builds on the safety tools available from Geotab which include its risk event reports, safety scorecard, video telematics, asset tracking, Active Insights, Geotab Data Connector (GDC), SDK, and Marketplace risk management solutions.

Read about a new enhanced collision detection feature also unveiled during Geotab Connect.

IIHS Updates Rear Passenger Crash Test Rating Criteria

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released details on new scoring criteria for one of its crash tests, the updated moderate overlap front crash test. The change is being made in order to better account for variations in the position of the rear shoulder belt, according to a news release.

The new metric on the crash test is called the chest index. It factors in both the position of the shoulder belt on the rear dummy’s chest and chest compression.

The belt position itself is also evaluated as part of the holistic analysis of how well the restraints control the motion of the dummy during the crash. Additionally, the range of shoulder belt positions considered acceptable has been expanded slightly.

In the updated test, a dummy the size of a small woman or 12-year-old child is positioned in the second row behind the driver dummy.

For a vehicle to earn a good rating, there can’t be an excessive risk of injury to the chest, among other body regions, as recorded by the second-row dummy.

Read more about how the updated test is implemented, plus see which 13 vehicle makes and models had overal crash test ratings changes due to the criteria update.