Nearly four out of five drivers in commercial fleets across industries saw improvements in distraction frequency, duration and distance traveled after activating Nauto's in-cab alerts, the telematics provider announced.

Nauto, an artificial-intelligence technology company focused on safety for commercial fleets, conducted the study.

While nearly all drivers (99%) had at least one distracted driving event, behavior improved dramatically when Nauto Prevent In-Cab Alerts were activated within their vehicles, according to the company.

These drivers reduced their frequency of distractions by 40% (4.8 to 2.9 distractions per driving hour), duration by 43% (15.4 to 8.8 seconds per hour), and distance traveled while distracted by 47% (0.15 to 0.08 miles per driving hour) on average.

The study explored drivers across multiple industries, including passenger, services, logistics and transportation, distribution, and oil and gas.

Passenger fleets were the most distracted with over five distractions per hour before Nauto's in-cab alerts were enabled, followed by services (4.4), and the other industries studied (3.1).

While service fleets were the second most distracted at the outset, they experienced the greatest overall improvement in distraction frequency after deploying Nauto technology, reducing distraction frequency by over 65%. The other industries studied saw a 39% decrease, and Passenger experienced a 27% drop.

Another key finding concerns how distracted drivers appeared before using the technology. The worst 10% of all drivers studied triggered an average of 25.3 distraction events per hour, drove distracted for 85.6 seconds per hour and for nearly 1 mile every hour. Of that group, some drivers were distracted for up to 2.5 miles every hour — the aggregate equivalent to driving across Manhattan blindfolded.